Guilt consumes Catherine Durand (Léa Drucker) in season two of “War of the Worlds”.
The eight-part dystopian sci-fi series, which is loosely based on “The War of the Worlds” novel by H. G. Wells, saw humanity threatened by an extra-terrestrial attack.
In season one, the characters juggled overwhelming emotions as they scrambled to connect with loved ones they separated from after the invasion while also trying to make sense of the situation.
Over time, alliances were forged amid an ambience of deep despair and grief. And the quadruped cyborgs, who unleashed chaos in its wake, were the common enemy of the survivors.
When viewers first met Catherine, she was an idealistic French scientist working at an observatory in the Alps. However, the attack sullied her dreamy perception and she found herself between a rock and a hard place - torn between science and faith.
In a chat with Drucker, she said: “At the end of season one, she has felt responsible for this tragic accident.
“I think she feels responsible for a lot of what has happened because she has sent signals to outer space and they respond.
“They come here, and they destroy everything.
“Catherine has been through a lot of guilt. She is a very secretive and lonely person, yet she has discovered that she really cares about someone.
“She's discovering something about herself, which is sentimental, amongst all this tragedy.
“Right at the end of the first series, they go back to the Observatory with survivors and it ends with this very violent combat and they find more survivors.
“We don't know how they're going to survive there and what is going to happen next but you can feel that a resistance group is building at the end.”
The second instalment picks up from the aftermath at the Observatory.
Drucker shared: “We see how she is living with her sister Sophia and with the military people.
“They have been living there for six months. It’s a resistance base and they are trying to connect with other resistance groups in other places and share information.
“They are also trying to find a way of fighting against the aliens.
“We can see how the relationship between Catherine and Mokrani (Adel Bencherif) has evolved. There is love between them and between her sister and a new character called, Nathan (Paul Gorostidi).
“Oddly, life is going on in a very simple way even in the extraordinary world they are living in. I believe the war they are fighting increases their passionate feelings.”
Viewers will be exposed to plenty of mass death scenes, too.
On the pull of this series, the actress explained: “The main characters are people really like us.
“They are not superheroes. It is not about superheroes is about ordinary people dealing with an extraordinary circumstance, something that really is overwhelming and terrifying.
“The show shows how we may react in such an unimaginable situation.
“For every character, there is a psychological and intimate journey in this unimaginable time.
“It deals with personal and very relatable issues that we all have as human beings.”
There is a major plot twist this season, too, as the writers create confusion with the survivors wondering if the aliens are in fact human.
“War of the Worlds” 2 airs on Fox (DStv channel 125) on Mondays at 8.45pm.