“Los Espookys,“ one of the funniest comedy-horror series you’ll find on television at the moment, is back and bigger than ever with season two.
Created by Fred Armisen, Ana Fabrega, and Julio Torres (HBO comedy special “My Favorite Shapes”), season two of the bilingual, six-episode HBO Original comedy series “Los Espookys” premiered on September 16 on HBO and HBO Max.
The series follows “a group of friends who turn their shared passion for horror into a peculiar business, providing horror to clients who need it, in a dreamy Latin American country where the strange and eerie are just a part of daily life.”
With the six-episode season drawing rapidly to a close, Bloody Disgusting spoke with the series creators and stars about the season, its genre-bending evolution, and more.
Photograph by Pablo Arellano Spataro/HBO
Julio Torres, who plays Andrés, explains how his appreciation for horror shapes the series.
“I think we all really enjoy the pageantry around horror and the aesthetics of suspense and horror and the visual tropes. I think that I like everything around horror except the scary parts if that makes sense. I love the scenes around scary, but I don’t like the scary ones. I love the suspense,” Torres explains.
“We don’t also talk about incorporating certain elements of anything into the writing,” Ana Fabrega (Tati) adds. “We just kind of write, and whatever comes out, comes out. I feel like the show as it went on in season one, especially in season two, becomes a little less horror-y and more just surreal and abstract.”
The embrace of horror’s pageantry shines in the production design and impressive set pieces. This season takes the core group of friends everywhere, from graveyards to the moon and back.
Torres says, “We’re blessed with a really playful and very imaginative production designer and wardrobe designer, Jorge Zambrano and Muriel Parra, respectively. They get the show. They know what’s funny about the show, and they know where to go with it. So yeah, with the moon, it was just like Yalitza really looked like she belonged there. She didn’t look like an actor in a complete set. She looked like an entity in a space, which was so wonderful to see.”
Photograph by Diego Araya Corvalán/HBO
Fabrega continues to sing Zambrano and Parra’s praises, “I think the production design and the wardrobes elevate the writing and the ideas. They add so much more to it. I feel like without that sort of level of execution that the show wouldn’t work. And like Julio said, Jorge and Muriel are so talented and understand this show and bring so much comedy to the little details they put into things.”
Season two brings surprising shifts from a character level, too. For example, Los Espookys leader Renaldo, played by Bernardo Velasco, slowly realizes that he should put himself first sometimes.
Velasco reflects on his character’s evolution, “I enjoy watching the first season. Of course, it’s very joyful and playful, all the situations they portray. But in this second season, I was very interested in talking about Renaldo and these big existential questions he starts asking himself, but in a very, very naïve way. I like that. Like Queen said once, ‘Nothing really matters.’ He could go and keep going with his passion, with his friends around. At the end of the day, he learned, I think, an important lesson, which is you need to pay attention to yourself too. It’s good to be open to helping your beloved, the people you love, and the people around you, but you need to take care of yourself too. It’s healthy to put some boundaries sometimes. I like that about this second season.”
Photograph by Pablo Arellano Spataro/HBO
Torres gives a rundown for all the key players this season: “I think that the first season we relied on; not relied on, but following your dreams was such an important part of that season. I think in the second season, there’s a greater look at the context of the world in which you follow your dreams. Then, you see Ursula having an urgency for helping others. Or, I think Ursula has very broad, philosophical ideas of what it means to be a good citizen. Fernando’s very specific in terms of the people he wants to help. And Tati and Andres are vastly thinking about their egos in their very specific ways and helping themselves. So, I think that it’s sort of what happens after you are achieving the thing that you want to achieve. What comes after that?”
Catch up on “Los Espookys” on HBO and HBO Max now.
