SDCC 2018: Impulse Renewed for Season Two and Highlights from Inside the Press Room

YouTube has officially greenlit season two of the critically acclaimed sci-fi drama, Impulse, which has had over eight million views since it premiered on June 6. The cast, executive producers, and showrunner were on hand to deliver the news to fans at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, who jumped for joy when they learned they’d be getting ten additional episodes.

Impulse follows the journey of Henrietta “Henry” Cole, a girl living in a small town called Reston, NY. She discovers she has the ability to teleport after she’s almost sexually assaulted by a fellow classmate. Directed by Doug Liman (Bourne Identity/Jumper), the series stars Maddie Hasson as Henry Cole, Sarah Desjardins as Jenna, Missi Pyle as Cleo, Enuka Okuma as Deputy Anna, and Craig Arnold as Lucas, who are all expected to return for season two!


Pop Culturalist spoke with the cast and creative team before the panel and learned some interesting things…

Doug Liman on Jumping Back into the Jumper Universe
“Jumper is the one film of mine that I feel I didn’t get exactly right and I don’t like to leave anything unfinished or not in its best possible state. Luckily, I had this amazing opportunity with YouTube to go back in and do the sequel novel and get it right.” — Doug Liman, Director, and Executive Producer

How Maddie’s Audition Impacted the Character
“When we started casting and Maddie came in, she was not at all who I envisioned the heroine being on the show, but when we finished the auditions, Gene Klein and David Bartis, who are my producing partners, were talking about her. You can always tell when somebody has come in and lit up the room. At first I thought, ‘She’s going to capture people’s hearts around the world but she’s the wrong person for this character.’ David and Gene were like, ‘She’s a huge star. How do we not cast her?’ and I was like, ‘Because if we cast her, we have to totally rewrite the show. It doesn’t make any sense. If we cast her, I want this character to be this and this and this.’ As I’m saying this out loud, David and Gene are looking at me and asking, ‘Isn’t that better?’ and I was like ‘Actually, it would be better’. So, we reconceived the whole show around Maddie. That’s the moment when I knew I was going to get Jumper right because that’s what had to happen.” — Doug Liman, Director, and Executive Producer

Maddie on the Season Finale
“Things with Cleo are really left up in the air. We don’t know what happens with Cleo. Also, her connection with her dad. We really see the world expanding in the last episode. It leaves us with a lot of places to go.” — Maddie Hasson

Sarah on Jenna and Henry’s Growing Relationship
“They’re learning things from each other. There are different aspects of each other’s personalities that they wish to have, which is what strengthens their bond even more. As an example, something that Jenna admires about Henry is that she’s very independent and doesn’t care about what other people think and that’s something that Jenna has wrestled with her entire life. She has really taken the time to be what other people need her to be, but not a lot of time to think about what she needs. Something that I feel Henry looks to Jenna for is love, compassion, and support. Henry hasn’t had a lot of that in her life, but she also hasn’t taken the time to bond with people since Cleo, her mother, has moved her from town to town. It’s about the differences that we have and see in each other that really help us grow as people.” — Sarah Desjardins

Lauren LeFranc on YouTube Premium
“You couldn’t tell the stories that we’re telling on 80% of the other networks out there. They’re great partners and are not trying to make us something that we don’t want to be. In other experiences that I’ve had, it’s easy to fall down that rabbit hole. We have two young women characters that support each other; they’re not antagonistic towards each other. A lot of networks would say, ‘Where’s the drama? Would these two girls like each other? They’re opposites.’ They’re very different but they’re figuring each other out. As for the sexual assault material that we deal with, a lot of networks would say, ‘Please don’t do that. It’s uncomfortable to watch. It’s something we shouldn’t talk about.’ I’m so grateful that YouTube has been such good partners to say, ‘Do it! Do something that we haven’t seen on TV.’” — Lauren LeFranc, Showrunner

Season two of Impulse premieres in 2019. But you can binge-watch season one on YouTube Premium today.