Crystal Lake Boss Brad Caleb Kane Talks Pamela's New Backstory, Baghead Jason's Return, And Plans For Season 2: 'The Handcuffs Are Off'

The following contains spoilers for "Crystal Lake" Season 1!

"Crystal Lake" may have wrapped its first season, but according to showrunner Brad Caleb Kane, Jason's murder spree has only just begun. 

In the Season 1 finale of Peacock's "Friday the 13th" prequel, a grown Jason Voorhees (this time with his signature bag over his head) revealed himself as the mysterious killer in the woods stalking the townsfolk. But once his father, Elias, finally tracked down Pamela in Crystal Lake, a final showdown with daddy dearest saw Jason crack Elias' head open using just his bare hands. Although the monstrous son showed mercy to his mother, Pamela's psyche had cracked just like Elias' skull, and before the credits rolled, a now-deranged Pamela took comfort in the fact that "these woods are ours now," setting the stage for even more bloodshed and death to come.  

Below, showrunner Brad Caleb Kane talks to TVLine about creating Jason and Pamela's elaborate origin story, the practical effects used for the show's gruesome kills, the return of Baghead Jason, and so much more.

TVLINE | Pamela suffers a lot in this series, emotional and physical trauma, mental breaks, etc. What would you say she learns about herself through all of this darkness and bloodshed?
BRAD CALEB KANE | I think she becomes who she truly is at her core. She leans into her true power. There's something specifically said in Episode 2 about, if you would just let all of that power inside of you out, wouldn't that be something? And the series really is a journey to that power, to some degree. I think a lot of rage, female rage, any kind of rage, is us suppressing emotions, suppressing things, and then they manifest in unhealthy ways. So maybe her letting out that first initial burst of anger is the first journey to healing. I guess we'll have to see.

TVLINE | There's a line in Episode 2 which you wrote, where Pam tells the seminar leader that, "Some of us are meant to wear masks." That felt so heavy and real to me. Besides the nod to Jason and his masks, does that line hold any other type of significance for you?
I think she's afraid of what's inside of her. She's afraid of letting out all of that power, because I think she knows deep down, she does have a lot of rage for what was done to her, what happened to her, what was done to Jason. She's living in Crystal Lake, she's living among polite society, she's trying to fit in, and she was trying to create a life for herself, and I think she's afraid if she unleashes the flood, that she won't be able to stem that tide anymore. And who knows? Maybe she'll lose herself in it. And I think she really is afraid of losing control and what that means. So the masks she wears are to fit in, to hide who she truly is, and, we see in the movies when Jason takes off the mask, all of that truth and potential ugliness is right beneath the surface. The mask is really the face that he wants people to see.

TVLINE | Why was giving Jason a concrete origin and an explanation for his supernatural abilities important to you?
It goes into the themes that I wanted to touch on for the show — the themes based on the decade that we were setting this in and the decade that these movies came out of — of mistrust of institutions and corporate malfeasance, which was a thing that we were just really coming to understand at that time. We all grew up with sugar cereals and all the things that, in our kitchen, were told were fine and part of this healthy breakfast and part of this complete everything. And it was only years later that we learned that it had red dye No. 12 and blue dye No. 6, and these things were all very dangerous for us. So I wanted to lean into that. That what was going on behind the scenes at that time was much more treacherous than the mask that these corporations and government and everybody put on themselves to hide those facts.

Then, I also just wanted to lean into something true. There's some people who feel like, "Why should we talk about Jason's origin at all? Why is that necessary?" It was necessary within the context of the story we were telling because Pamela and Jason were hiding from someone. Pamela was a protective mother. Why was she so protective? Is it just that her son was different? It felt like there needed to be a little more there that could be specific on the story front and then feed into the thematics of the time that these movies came out of, the time in America. So, we invented something, but it wasn't invented out of whole cloth. It's speculative science, but also not really, because Biomimicry is very much a thing. Searching the natural world for biological processes that we can figure out, and how they can benefit us, either biologically or out in the world. Spiders with their silk for tensile strength. There were real scientific studies. There are papers on this, experiments that were done on. It's very reductive to say, Jason is a cockroach. I see that kind of stuff online. It's very reductive. There were specific studies that can be cited of medical facilities and chemical companies doing radiation experiments on that particular insect during that time for that specific reason, so I wasn't pulling it out of my *ss.

TVLINE | I've also seen posts online where people are harping on the cockroach thing. So to be clear, Elias and Bellflower were not doing any cockroach gene splicing or anything like that with their experimentations and the drugs they were pumping into Jason?
He was not. It was replicating a process that was observed in a natural way in these particular creatures. It's Biomimicry, that's essentially what it is, and that is a real science.

TVLINE | I'm a big fan of '80s slashers, so I must ask about the effects. What's the percentage of practical effects vs. anything added or touched up with CGI?
All of the kills were practical. They all came out gloriously practical, and then occasionally, we would put some slight VFX over it if we needed to enhance it. But they were all practical. The blood bag is entirely practical. The slicing of the face was entirely practical, although we enhanced it by maybe two or three percent, a little vis effects. But they all are, every single one, all done by our brilliant practical effects makeup supervisor Dave Presto, and our special effects supervisor, Johann Kunz. They were all practical, they were all very time-consuming, and they were all very, very messy and sort of glorious to behold on set in person.

TVLINE | I was so psyched to see Baghead Jason back in action in the season finale. Did you always know you wanted to end with Jason growing into his "Friday the 13th: Part 2" self?
You can't have a "Friday the 13th" show without Jason in it in some capacity, and in some capacity that people want to see him and understand him. I don't think you can have a Jason in a "Friday the 13th" show without wearing a mask. Obviously, we couldn't do the hockey mask because he doesn't get that until "Part 3." And then, we haven't really dug into Baghead Jason that much. There's a little of him in "[Part] 2." It's often forgotten. It's remembered by real heads like us, but it's often forgotten by people that Jason had anything other than a hockey mask.

So I just wanted to dig into that a little bit, and it was very easy to go to that place with Baghead because the bag comes in the camping supplies that he gets at the beginning. So, the fact that Pam sets those camping supplies out for him at the end, well, naturally, Jason's going to take that and use it for that. That's sort of the origin of that, at least that's what we're saying is the origin in our story. And it gives us someplace to go. Now that we know that Jason is out there, now that we know he has the Baghead, there's more story to tell that the movies never got to tell because he got his hockey mask so early on in the series.

TVLINE | Do you know where you want to take this story should the series get renewed for Season 2?
I know exactly what I want to do with it. I know the thematics we're going to approach. I have a general framework for what I want to do, and now that he's out there and has the baghead, you can go full "Friday the 13th" in ways that you can't when you're leading up to that in Season 1. I feel like in many ways — since he's out there, we know he's out there, Pam knows he's out there — the handcuffs are off in a good way. And there is more of an opportunity to give the die-hard fans what they want in terms of Jason carnage.

TVLINE | I've read a bit about the series possibly taking on a "Twin Peaks" sort of vibe. What elements of "Twin Peaks" are applicable to "Crystal Lake"?
It's just really the quirky small-town character vibe of it all. It's not specifically Lynchian in any direction that I would go. Although maybe. I hate to say that I wouldn't because I don't know until I sit down and sort of work it all out. And obviously, you could do a lot worse than turning "Crystal Lake" into as quirky and interesting a town as Twin Peaks. But I think we naturally have kind of a gallery of characters that lend themselves to that sort of quirkiness. You have your Dorfs and you have your Ritas, and you have all of those kinds of people who have more story to tell too and are fun to dig into, and see how their stories intersect with Pam and Jason. "Twin Peaks" is a natural comp just because of the small-town mystery and quirkiness of it all.

TVLINE | I'd be remiss to not at least mention the incredible Hamish Linklater as Jason's father, Elias. How did he get involved with the project?
We were just trying to figure out who's going to play Elias Wittering, and our casting director, Meredith [Tucker] brought him up. I've seen Hamish in a few things, obviously "Midnight Mass," he was brilliant. And it [was] like, well, he's so good in that and he's the star of that. I don't know if we can get him for this really short three-episode run, but we sent him the scripts. I had a conversation with him [about] getting to play Jason's dad and very quickly after, he was like, "I'm all about it." I feel like that was something that he couldn't pass up, and getting to do it in the context of what I always like to call a Douglas Sirk-meets-David Cronenberg sort of story where you flash back to a "Mad Men"-type episode within this universe that you wouldn't think would support it. I think that was really interesting to him and I think the character was interesting to him. It had flashes of "Rosemary's Baby" and flashes of "The Stepford Wives," and I think he just really enjoyed diving into that kind of a character, this guy who sold his soul to corporate greed.

TVLINE | Wrapping up here, can you hit me with one of your favorite kills from the films and then one of your favorites from the series?
One of my favorite franchise kills — it's the obvious, I like all the things that everybody does — but Jason beating the girl in the sleeping bag [in "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood"], dragging her out of the tent, and beating her against the tree until she's dead is fantastic. I understand there's actually a supercut of that that was much longer and bloodier, so I have to try and find it. But, I love that one because it's sort of obscene and funny at the same time. Even though this movie has its issues, I love the "Jason X," freeze-dried, smashed into a million pieces kill. Those are two of my favorites. There's so many. I love the one in "Part VI" where he kills [Sheriff Garris] by bending his body all the way back into a pretzel. He basically snaps his spine, but there's so many.

Now, favorite kill in our series, I think there's a couple. Killing Grace's mom, Valerie, and knocking her jaw off is meant to be emotional and shocking. That's always fun and fun to see people's reactions to it. As gruesome as it is, I think because of what Valerie says to Pam, sort of disparaging her own mothering, a lot of fans feel like it's justified, which is bizarre in and of itself, because it's so violent. Then, when Pam finally goes full "Friday the 13th" on the hippies. That whole sequence is a favorite.