‘The Artful Dodger’ Stars Break Down What’s Next for Dawkins, Lady Belle & More After Season 2 (VIDEO)

[The video above and article below contain MAJOR spoilers from The Artful Dodger, Season 2.]

The Artful Dodger‘s second season has arrived, and with it, a new layer to the romance between scrappy surgeon, Jack Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), and the determined Lady Belle Fox (Maia Mitchell).

As Season 2 picks up, Dawkins, a.k.a. Dodger, manages to escape the noose, released from imprisonment with permission to live under father figure Fagin’s (David Thewlis) supervision. Meanwhile, Lady Belle’s mother, Lady Jane Fox (Susie Porter), puts her foot down, telling her daughter that if she wants to study medicine, she’ll have to avoid Dodger, or she’ll have him sent back to prison.

The added layer of raised stakes runs throughout Season 2, but ultimately, circumstances allow for Lady Belle and Dodger to work side by side at Port Victory’s hospital, and when Lady Jane falls ill, it’s Dodger’s know-how and Lady Belle’s assistance that help her pull through. After Lady Jane is forced to confront secrets she’d been holding in for years, and seeing first-hand how Dodger cares for her daughter, she decides to lift all restrictions surrounding their exchanges, even if she’d pushed for Port Victor’s new lawman, Inspector Boxer (Luke Bracey), to be a potential suitor.

Disney+ / Hulu

But the glimpse at a promising future together left Dodger running scared, and he planned to leave Port Victory by rejoining the Navy, leaving Lady Belle behind. Mercifully, Dodger doesn’t make his grand exit, bumping into Lady Belle as she runs after the boat she believes he’s on. Their happy ending feels like the closing of a chapter, but could be the start of another.

“Their relationship is so dynamic, and they just come from such different worlds,” Mitchell tells TV Insider. “Now more than ever in Season 2, Belle… calls him an addict,” she adds, noting Dodger’s penchant for living life on the edge at all times, even when he’s found himself on sturdy ground.

“I love the ending,” Mitchell continues, adding, “I think they are star-crossed lovers, I think they’re destined to be together, and I honestly don’t think that anything… could stop them from being together. I think it definitely does open the door for a Season 3, which we would all love.”

Meanwhile, Brodie-Sangster says, “They’re working side by side as surgeons and helping the colony through disease and brainstorming ideas about how to treat people and dreaming of one day having our own place where we can set up our own surgery.” While Inspector Boxer and other circumstances rattle that “rosy and wonderful” vision for their future in Season 2, Brodie-Sangster adds, “Dodger [decides] that this environment is probably better off without him and makes a decision to leave… thankfully he doesn’t.”

Related

'The Artful Dodger' Stars on Season 2's Love Triangle

As for what Mitchell would like to see should The Artful Dodger return for Season 3, she says, “Now that we’ve kind of cracked open the tension between the family and seen this new kind of authenticity and respect and openness, I would love to see that play out. And I would love to see what it looks like for Belle and Jack to be living together and trying to be domestic.”

But that wasn’t the only cliffhanger fans were left with as Fagin, who in an attempt to escape punishment for his crimes, sought Dodger’s help with a lethal injection, the potion, which seemed final and deadly, was in fact not deadly at all as he awoke in a coffin six feet under in the finale’s final moments.

“I personally love that ending because it’s very unexpected and it’s rather dark and it really calls into question this relationship and says a lot about Dodger and especially that he’s now going to flee without really checking [if Fagin lived],” Thewlis says. Whether or not Dodger learns that Fagin was buried or not, Thewlis points out, “He doesn’t know that I woke up from that.”

Where the story will go next is determined by whether The Artful Dodger scores a third season. Until then, see what else Thewlis, Brodie-Sangster, Mitchell, and Porter are sharing in the full video interview above.

The Artful Dodger, Seasons 1-2, Streaming Now, Hulu