‘Countdown’ Boss Breaks Down Shocking Finale Cliffhanger & Reveals Early Season 2 Details

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Countdown Season 1 finale, “Your People Are in Danger.”]

Uh-oh. Countdown gives us a major reason to be very concerned about Oliveras (Jessica Camacho) in the final moments of the last episode of Season 1.

The task force’s hunt for Todd (Grant Harvey), a sniper targeting a political figure, culminates in the discovery that he’s an FBI agent — but not the one they go after (Jefferson White) — and him kidnapping Oliveras and telling her to run across a field … just like he’d had a dog do earlier in the season. Plus, Meachum (Jensen Ackles) plays off telling Oliveras that they could be “magic” together as a joke, and Shepherd’s (Violett Beane) sister Molly overdoses.

Below, creator Derek Haas breaks down the finale and shares what could come in a second season, should the show be renewed. (Plus, watch Jensen Ackles break down the finale and share his Season 2 hopes here.)

Why have it be Oliveras that Todd kidnaps?

Derek Haas: Well, he does see her at the bar, and he thinks, “That’s the most vulnerable member I could pick off,” not knowing what she’s capable of, but as a hunter, sometimes you go for the member you think you can take down of the flock with the least resistance. You find out that he’s pinning all of this on someone else. So I think that’s part of his plan, but that part of the plan might be his undoing.

So this is why last time I asked if he shot the dog because of the parallels; if he shot the dog, then there’s a real concern that he would then be shooting Oliveras. So what can you say about Todd’s plan for Oliveras as she’s running away? Is his plan to shoot her? is his plan to hunt her in the woods?

He’s going to shoot her. That’s the plan. Will he? We’re going to wait and see. If the dog was a test run and we, the audience, don’t know the end result to that, even though we talked about it, then this is not good for Oliveras’ future.

What can you say about the fight in her that we could see in a Season 2?

Stay tuned.

How worried should Todd be about Meachum now that he’s taken Oliveras?

I think he should be worried.

How worried should Meachum be about himself and what he might do? Because there’s also that question.

I like where you’re going with that…. It’s one thing when you’re fighting or driven by your own passion, and it’s another thing when you’re driven by hatred and someone’s tried to take something from you or your future from you or the potential of something from you, and when you’re driven by that ugly darkness, things can get really, really haywire.

And then speaking of that, because you spent all season building this task force into the team that cares about one another, what can you say about the balance that the rest of the team will have to find between wanting to find Oliveras and also maybe driven by anger and everything and having to reel in Meachum?

Yeah, I think for the first order of business, what the f**k is going on? That’s going to be number one. Number two is where is Oliveras? We haven’t seen her. And when those two things come to a head, then I think with the whole task force, all bets are off. You don’t come after one of us. That’s unwritten, you’re going to see a side of us you didn’t want to see, as Blythe [Eric Dane] said, in dealing with somebody earlier.

Something that stood out to me while Oliveras was at home with Julio (Eddie Aguirre) was that this kind of life, like everything in its place in the kitchen, setting plans for dinner, etc., isn’t really her, but it kind of feels like the kind of life she feels she should want, that stability. But how much of that relationship is actually about Julio for her?

I think it’s less about Julio because he’s a great guy, obviously, and sometimes there’s an attractiveness in a home life and responsibility and stability. That’s not her. And I think the more that she sees this kind of domestic life, she’s certainly questioning what am I doing this? And Meachum calls her on it.

It does feel like it could be kind of almost anyone in that position, not necessarily Julio. It’s just like what he represents.

I agree. And I didn’t want to make him a bad dude. He’s an awesome dude. Just maybe not what she’s looking for. I love that scene, my favorite scene in the episode when she follows Meachum to his desk when he already said what he thought was pretty revelatory and then she follows him to his desk, and then that moment I feel like sparks are flying.

It kind of feels like Julio was kind of starting to realize that this is the beginning of the end of their relationship…

Yeah, except that she’s in danger. So how’s he going to react? That’s a whole ‘nother question. If she survives, what’s going to happen after this scene in that triangle is going to make for some really interesting episodes to come, if we get a Season 2.

So Meachum plays off that “this is magic” line, but how much did he really mean it and how much might that have been about him wondering if they could really work as a couple at this point because that’s different from wanting them to.

Don’t you think it was on their faces after he walked away? I think that says more than I could say in this interview.

Yeah, because just as much as they want something, there’s so much to consider, and they are considering that, and they’ve been considering that this entire time.

Yeah. I think when Meachum on the porch in [Episode] 10 was like, I want to do this right. And then obviously events happened in that 10-month period. What I think happened is that Oliveras reset herself and was like, I’ve got something really special on this task force and I don’t know what’ll happen if I start this relationship with him professionally for me and he is a great partner, but would we f**k that up is what she’s thinking. And so then you jump into the first thing, the safe thing, but now there’s a question of, would that work? So all sorts of great things to explore.

Why have Shepherd’s sister overdose? To show it’s not easy to just stop? To have the countdown on that, because Shepherd was clearly waiting for something like this to happen, run out at this exact point in the season? Was it kind of both?

More of junkie behavior, a lot of times they are lying to themselves. They pretend that they want to get their lives back together. But addiction is really hard and sometimes it’s out of your control and definitely spins out of your control. And so there’s no easy, oh, guess what? Now I’m off the stuff and now we can be great sisters again. So I just wanted to flip that back. Obviously, there’s a hole in her family, her mom sort of voiced that we’ve put up with all we can put up with, which I think happens a lot in families. And so there’s more to see there in Season 2.

Because the first investigation was all of LA in danger, had you wanted to be something a little more specific with the second?

Yeah, I didn’t want a mirror of the first investigation. I still thought the stakes are huge in this one — stop an assassination of a major political figure, but not as the scope that a dirty bomb in Los Angeles would be. And I think that’s again like, oh, what are the different kinds of cases that a task force would be assigned to? Let’s keep doing that. There’s been a hundred years of task force missions to draw from. So that’s the plan.

What can you say about how long into a Season 2 this case would wrap up? Because I’m assuming you would do what you did with Season 1, where it isn’t until the end of the season.

Oh, I want to do multiple missions in a Season 2, not just this plus one. So I don’t want to tell the audience when this would wrap up because I think that was a good shocker on [Episode] 10 and this one, I don’t think it’s easy from here.

So you are liking then staggering the length of the investigations?

Staggering, yeah. And that any episode could be the climax of this one and into the next one. Yeah, I thought it was cool. I hope it worked.

I think it did. Could you have two task forces working investigations at the same time? Would you consider that?

I hadn’t thought about that, but it does happen where there’s fights for jurisdiction. Oh, this part of the investigation and this part of the investigation now come together. I hadn’t thought about that, but that sounds cool.

So there’s Meachum and Oliveras’ slow burn, and what happens to her could either bring them close together or cause her to pull away. What can you say about the discussions that you’ve had about that relationship going forward?

The discussions I’ve had are that, first, she’s got to survive this. After that, I don’t know, I think it could get super hot or it could not. Depends on what happens with Julio.

Would everyone be back? Because task forces do change and we see that with Fitz coming in and for example, he could only be part of it for specific cases.

I want everybody back. Honestly, there’s a component to it that’s not creative, but I’m being honest about showrunning that has to do with financial reasons or network, their own thoughts, everybody has to come together and decide what’s best. I like returning faces. I think audiences invest in these characters, and that takes time and years. It’s a little different because I worked on 22-episode shows, and in two seasons, we had what would be four seasons of a streamer show. So I’d like to slow play it with these characters and keep them around for a long time and get the audiences tracking their lives. I loved on Chicago Fire how we had the Herrmann children go from when they were little tots at a picnic in Season 1 to watching driving lessons going off to college. And boy, fingers crossed you get that kind of a chance. But I’d love to see Shepherd 10 years from now leading her own task force. That would be awesome.

I brought up Fitz because it is different for agents in different agencies. So how much are you taking that into account when it comes to figuring out the next cases? Are you looking at the case you want to do or are you looking at who you want to remain on the task force?

Well, what Blythe said at the beginning of this mission in [Episode] 10 was the problem with being good at your job is that the powers that be notice you, and I think Blythe thinks of them as a unit and the unit can expand or contract, but it’s not so much, this case involves drugs, therefore we need a DEA agent. This case involves the ocean, we need a Coast Guard. I think he thinks of them as what are the strengths and weaknesses as investigators more than how can we manipulate their various agencies to help. So that’s how I think it’ll work.

Speaking of Blythe, because Blythe hasn’t exactly been in his boss’s good books. We are seeing him get into a little bit of trouble. So could his future be in jeopardy? When you’re looking at the character, are you really just looking at if Eric Dane wants to do the show, I’m going to keep him on the show?

Personally, yes. If Eric Dane wants to do the show, I’ll keep him on the show. Does that mean he’ll be in charge of this investigation the entire way? No, not necessarily. You can only piss off your superiors so many times before they decide to yank the leash, so that could be an issue.

Yeah. Great job creating that character though for the leadership of the task force because you’re bringing him out into the field and getting to see him do all this stuff you don’t necessarily see with a boss.

Yeah, I like bosses who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and get out in the field. He’s so good strategically and clever. I was trying to make this guy who’s got two facets to his personality — went to Princeton, was in an army intelligence, and so can do both, rub shoulders with senators, get dirty in an alley. That’s what I was trying to do with Blythe. Then I think Eric pulled it off

And then there’s a matter of Shepherd and Bell (Elliot Knight). There could be something there, but it’s like you’re not really exploring the same way that you are Oliveras and Mitchum. So what can you say about the connection that you’re developing with Shepherd and Bell?

It goes back to Episode 1 when she does the bit with the mirror truck. There’s this look from him to her where he is like, oh, I’m assessing this differently than I was. Now both of them are a little younger in their careers and have aspirations beyond the task force, so to me that’s what’s gotten in the way a little bit. I did want to fake the audience out with Molly when he is like, “I have something to tell you about your sister,” and then leaves. And I was hoping that the audience was going to be like, oh my God, is he sleeping with? Well, that’s what Shepherd thinks, right? And then, no, it’s not.

Yeah, because when I was talking to Elliot, he pointed out that Bell is the only character we don’t go home with.

Yeah, so far. But we learned about his dad a little bit. So it’s not like he wasn’t without his own story. In fact, his story was pretty much the Valwell story. But yeah, we haven’t yet seen his apartment. … If we get a Season 2, I’d like to meet his father. I don’t have a cast idea in mine, but his father obviously looms over him shadow-wise. I think it’d be an interesting thing to see.

What else could we see in a Season 2?

I think you would see some more Blythe’s family. And then I think the biggest thing I want to do personal-wise in Season 2 that will get the audience very curious, is cast and have as a character Melinda Bates, the woman left at the altar by Meachum that Oliveras knows and knows her sister. I have a whole plan that will not just be a personal story for that character.

Would we also be seeing her sister?

Maybe. Maybe.

And I’m assuming you don’t want to say anything about casting?

Yeah, well, we’re not that far, but I hope we would cast someone awesome.

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