‘The Bridge’ Showrunner Explains the ‘Most Scary Thing’ They’ve Done With the Show

TCA 2014: Elwood Reid shares why he “hit the reset button” around Season 1’s 11th episode

Elwood Reid Demian Bichir The Bridge FX TCA

Season 2 of “The Bridge” will be nothing like Season 1 or its Danish predecessor, showrunner Elwood Reid promised journalists at Monday’s Television Critics Association panel — in between a ton of well-placed F-bombs, of course.

While familiarity is important for the narrative of a TV series, the uncensored Reid says he can’t stand to be a repetitive storyteller. He told reporters: “If you come in every week and go, ‘Oh, it’s back to the same old Marco [Ruiz, Demian Bichir] and Sonya [Cross, Diane Kruger]’ … shoot me, I didn’t get into the business to do it. I’ve done it. I don’t want to do it.”

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The big pivot for the series came around Episode 11 of the first year, when Reid met with FX brass to discuss what the show would be going forward. He didn’t want to do a serial killer plotline every year, and the cable network eventually gave Reid the greenlight to show them what he could do.

“That was perhaps the most scary thing to do: resetting the show in the middle of your freshman season,” Reid said.

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That said, there was originally a bit of a push-and-pull between the two parties, considering the success of Danish-Swedish series “Broen/Bron.” Reid admitted that he’s received notes from FX CEO John Landgraf imploring him to go back to original series.

Instead, Reid stopped watching his show’s ancestor, “radically” departing from everything except its core DNA, he said.

“If you’re going to survive in this TV market … you can’t keep tracing something else,” Reid explained. “This show that we have this season is the show that ‘The Bridge’ was aiming to be.”

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