Throughout Season 1, Manhattan delivered more surprises and emotional drama than one might have expected from a show about a facsimile of a town working to build The Bomb during World War II. Viewers can expect to find the same dense storytelling and character interactions from Season 2. But before it arrives, here are a few quick reminders of plot points that will be guiding the story in the early part of this season.
Frank is Missing
By the end of the Season 1 finale, Frank Winter’s head was inside of a bag and he sat in the back of a car kicking up dust on its way to Who Knows Where. In “Bond Villain confessing” to Liza everything he was doing in Los Alamos involving the atomic bomb, Frank was also unwittingly cluing Occam and Oppenheimer in to the fact that he couldn’t keep a secret, and so he had to go. But they’re not going to kill him, right? Right, at least not yet. Promos for Season 2 show us that he’s in a prison of some kind, and having seen the first handful of episodes, I think it’s safe to say this angle probably won’t be quite what viewers are expecting. And there’s some tampering with time that helps to keep the momentum going, which also involves Liza coping with his absence and other new changes in her life.
Charlie is the Main Man Now
Although Charlie Isaacs spent part of the Season 1 finale getting nothing but Bad Cop routines from Occam and anyone else who suspected him of sharing confidential papers with others, he came out of the incident relatively unscathed, although with the knowledge that his wife cheated on him. Considering his fascination with Helen, and the possibly specific way that Abby was sick, things will be emotionally fraying for Charlie in Season 2. And so he’s obviously the perfect person to run Implosion, right? I mean, Frank is out of the picture and there’s no more Reed Akley to worry about. But will the rest of Los Alamos take so kindly to Charlie being the big man on campus, particularly the team he puts together?
Meeks is a Traitor, Or is He?
As the straight man to the more jovial Fritz, Meeks took part in a lot of the lighter elements of Season 1, but he slowly started showing signs of stress, and it all culminated in his last scene of the finale, as he shared a secret with a mysterious man whose intentions were most certainly not to champion the U.S. for their bomb-building progress. Will we get to find out who that man was? And does it even matter, considering that scene was more about showing us a fracture in Meeks’ loyalty? The subject of Meeks’ motivations takes up the character’s narrative through Season 2, and it’s not the easiest question to answer. He knows that Frank is the one to follow, and he doesn’t seem to be above punishing a government that punishes Frank. But that also doesn’t mean he’s a complete turncoat. He’s Meeks. He’s complicated.
Manhattan Season 2 will premiere on Tuesday, October 13, on WGN America.
