Cliff Curtis, who plays Travis Manawa, says that, following the mercy killing of Travis' ex-wife Liza by his own hand to spare her the onset of infection, dealing with his son Chris' considerable anger and sense of betrayal is "going to be his core focus." Also, look for friction between Madison and Travis as the couple "tries to decide what the best thing is for their family because they've got this other guy who's in charge of the boat. So, any decision we make can't be made without the approval of Strand. It's tough!"

"The first season is about reacting, reflecting really on what's going on. The second is about reality, so there's a lot more movement and action," says Ruben Blades, who plays Daniel Salazar, the barber with a darker history that's still being unveiled. "The second season is so complex. I cannot tell you. It's going to surprise the heck out of so many people!"

"You'll see me get to know Strand," adds Kim Dickens. "I'm not saying what that means, but you'll see me sort of navigating my way around him." Meanwhile, Madison's top priority remains similar to Season 1: protecting her kids. "But she's also trying to get her bearings and trying to find coherence, to see if we can get through this and if we're going to get on the other side of it. She thinks like everyone else would think: 'This is going to get under control, right?'"

Alicia is beginning to question her relationship with her mother Madison and brother Nick, says Alycia Debnam-Carey, who wonders "whether she really can rely on both of them, and if she's really on her own. There's a fractured dynamic already with that family. I think she's always been quite a stoic foundation for that family. And she starts to look elsewhere, maybe, where her alliances need to be."

As the enigmatic, seemingly wealthy and apocalypse-ready Strand, Colman Domingo says he "loved trading blows with Madison, Daniel, and Travis. It's about very strong ideas about life, what they come from and their circumstance, and we're all put into this hot pot of a luxury yacht, and now we're out on sea. Boy, it's just complication after complication! Either we're going to tear each other apart or we're going to move forward and survive."

"It's survival. It's blood vs. bond. It's psychological trauma that people are going through," proclaims Lorenzo James Henrie, who says Christopher may be growing closer to other members of the group as he rejects his father. But Henrie was especially pleased to increase his zombie-killing skills on some freaky-looking infected. "If you see the 30-second teaser of our show, there's one I actually club at the fence. She was awesome! She was a very cool woman in real life, and it was really exciting to do that."