'Countdown' Boss Shares Season 2 Update in Wake of Brutal Finale Cliffhanger — Plus, Would Eric Dane Return?

If you thought the closing shot of Countdown Episode 11 — in which would-be assassin "Todd" (Fire Country's Grant Harvey) trained his rifle on an innocent, scampering doggo — was difficult to watch, the final seconds of Wednesday's Season 1 finale managed to up the ante.

SEASON 1 ENDS WITH AN IMMINENT BANG

In Episode 13, titled "Your People Are in Danger," Task Force Armor seemingly closed in on the person who's planning to target the governor of California and/or the President of the United States at a fast-approaching fundraiser. The name of FBI agent "Seth Lewis" popped up as the owner of a Ford F-150 like the one "Todd" torched outside a racetrack; as someone who just tried to access the task force's files; as an intaker of the assault rifles seized by Finau's ATF pals; and as a security consultant for the conservative shock jock "Todd" religiously listens into.

When Blythe (Eric Dane), Meachum (Jensen Ackles), Finau (Uli Latukefu), Bell (Elliot Knight) and Fitz (Joe Dinicol) raced to the suspect's address, it was "Todd's" wife (Chicago Fire's Caitlin Carver) who opened the door. But a moment later, it became clear that Seth is not the name of the man we've been following since Episode 11, but rather the fellow G-man (Yellowstone's Jefferson White) who's been bedding his best bud's wife!

The actual "Todd" meanwhile had kidnapped Oliveras (Jessica Camacho) after booby-trapping her car with knockout gas. And as the season drew to a close, we saw "Todd" set Amber free at the same remote field where he hunted that poor pooch, training his rifle on her as she frantically sprinted in the opposite direction....

HAS COUNTDOWN ALREADY BEEN (QUIETLY) RENEWED?

The multitude of cliffhangers — Oliveras in a killer's literal crosshairs, the task force coming up empty after chasing a false lead, and Shepherd's (Violett Beane) sister Molly hospitalized after an overdose — sure feels like the work of a showrunner who already has a Season 2 renewal tucked under his belt.

Countdown creator Derek Haas, though, insisted, "I really don't know yet" if there will be a Season 2, when speaking with Matt's Inside Line on Tuesday afternoon.

In the Matt's Inside Line Q&A below, Haas elaborates on the Season 2 outlook, teases the task force's next (potential!) case, and addresses Eric Dane's ongoing status with the series.

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: You took some big swings with the end of the finale. Amber is in Todd's crosshairs, Molly OD'd and is hospitalized, and "Todd" is still in the wind. You sure seem like a man who knows that he's getting a Season 2. Do you already have a renewal order you’re quietly sitting on? 
DEREK HAAS: I wish I knew. I really don't know yet, but I didn't want to halve my bets. Before the season ever started, I had this idea of how it was going to end. And I always loved cliffhanger season enders. I did them on the Chicago shows, and there were plenty of times where we didn't know whether or not they were going to come back. I figured I'll shoot my shot and hope that it happens.  

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: What are you hearing on your end? What determines renewal at Prime Video?  
I honestly don't understand it. I've never understood it. It's not like network TV where you could see the next morning what the ratings were for the night before and knew pretty well, unless you were right on the bubble, how you were doing. [With streaming] all the information is completely proprietary. They've been awesome to us as a show, but people way higher up make those decisions. 

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: Well, you did make the Nielsen streaming chart pretty quickly, so that's a good sign.  
That's good, yeah.  

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: How many more episodes do you think you would need to wrap up the "Todd" storyline?  
I have an idea to do it fairly quickly, but I love the idea that you don't know when we're going to do it. If we got the same amount of episodes, 13, I would probably wrap up this one and have two [new cases] in the next season. 

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: Do you have any idea for what your third case would be?  
Yeah, I have an idea, based on a real task force case, that I've already floated to people at Amazon, but it would involve another city. We're still going to shoot here in Los Angeles, but just as we went to Budapest for the [Volcheck storyline's] European scenes, we might shoot in another city for the culmination of that storyline.  

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: I'm curious, were you getting chills when the real-life governor of California and the real-life president of the United States made headlines together over the summer, while you had a storyline that was about the governor of California and the president being pals?  
You actually go the other way. You come up with these storylines eight months, sometimes a year in advance, and then real-world events happen and can either outshine what you had planned or really throw havoc into what you had planned.  

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: If Amber survives being hunted, do you think she will choose to seize the day, tell Julio “Thanks, but no thanks,” and make a go of things with Mark? 
Well, I do want to start Season 2 mere seconds later. There's that line at the end of The Sun Also Rises — “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” – as they're speculating about what their lives could have been. So I'll say that that's my answer. 

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: Is Molly in some way your tribute to the 24 side character who stumbles in midseason and throws a wrench in the works for one of the main characters? 
When you do these kind of shows, we call them “s--t stirrers.” Sometimes they’re like [DA] Valwell, who was trying to get into the group, and sometimes they're family members. But you know who always did that so well on every show? Heather Locklear. She would come in, like, in Season 3 of shows and disrupt everything. That was what I was thinking with Molly.  

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: Molly was involved with that sketchy guy that Evan had her teammates investigate.... Should we be viewing her OD as suspicious?  
Yes. 

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: Have you had conversations with Eric Dane about his involvement in a potential Season 2? [Dane announced in April that he'd been diagnosed with ALS, but has since asserted, "I'm going to ride this 'til the wheels fall off.... I feel great when I'm at work."]
He's up for it, he wants to do it. I'm actually going to see him [this Wednesday] night. I told him as long as he wants to do it, I want him to do it.  

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: That's great to hear. He seemed in fine form during the press tour. 
Yeah, he's doing remarkably well, but as you know, that's a tough one. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep him around.  

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: Speaking of Eric, I got worried when Episode 10 gave us a glimpse of Blythe's family and home life. I was like, "This is a bit conspicuous....” 
You've watched a ton of television, I've watched a ton of television, and audiences start to anticipate based on what you're showing them. That's what I was trying to do in the third episode with Finau’s birthday, and meeting his family – and then you try to flip it.  

MATT’S INSIDE LINE: It’s kind of like how the "Previously On” segments you now have to make run the risk of tipping your hand about where a storyline is going. 
We had one of those on Chicago Fire, where way early in the season we had a Boy Scout troop deliver a pet guinea pig to the firehouse, and at the end of the episode they had accidentally lost the guinea pig. We didn't mention that guinea pig for like 10 episodes, and then I was like, “Oh, I think it'd be really funny if there was a phantom smell in the firehouse and at the very end of the episode you learn that this guinea pig had died in the wall.” And then I'm watching the show – I wasn't aware of what they put in the “Previously On,” that’s a whole different department – and they show the cage opening, and the guinea pig! I was like, "You just ruined the entire surprise of this episode!"