Rutherford Falls is back for season 2 on Peacock and the characters are going through some changes.

Nathan (Ed Helms) and Regan (Jana Schmieding) are at it again as they “help each other tackle work, romance, and major changes to their small town and the Native American reservation it borders, initiated by Tribal Casino.”

Shadow and Act recently spoke with series co-creator Sierra Teller Ornelas and stars Michael Greyeyes, Jesse Leigh and Dustin Milligan about the reception to season 1 and what their characters are going through in the sophomore season.

With the show being the first of several Native and Indigenous-centric stories to come on television in the past few years, Ornelas says that it wasn’t until these projects, including Rutherford Falls, made it to air that it was clear how sorely they were needed

“I think when season 1 dropped, it was kind of the first of its kind,” she told us. “There were a lot of shows that were coming very shortly after it. But when that happened, we were just kind of waiting, like, ‘What are people gonna think?’ and specifically, know, ‘How hard is Native Twitter gonna go?’ [laughs]. And to see people really excited,, and for lack of a better word, like pleasantly surprised– I think watching Native media you kind of go in with this, anticipation to be disappointed. And to be like, ‘Oh my God, they actually got these aspects right or ‘Oh my gosh, like that’s my auntie, that’s my uncle…that’s how my grandma acts.”

She continued, “Native Joy was the kind of term that Jana coined last year and you don’t really know what erasure feels like until you get actual representation and how good that feels. And so it was sort of this bittersweet feeling of an abundance of joy and also this feeling of like, ‘I want more of this.’ And I feel like that kind of fervor lends itself to a lot of the other shows that came on after us. And also us, as you know, media makers making season two, what are the stories we’re dying to see? What are the situations we never get to get to be in?”

Watch the full interviews below, in which Greyeyes, Leigh and Milligan give insight into their characters:

Dustin Milligan

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