Don Mancini Teases Expanded Chucky Universe At New York Comic Con

Everyone’s favorite killer doll is back in Syfy’s Chucky — and we got even more insight on season 2 at New York Comic Con.

The second season picks up a few months after the Hackensack horror show of season 1, with Jake (Zackary Arthur), Devon (Björgvin Arnarson), and Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) headed to Catholic school — and facing off with Chucky (Brad Dourif) yet again. Not only is this the same boarding home where Charles Lee Ray grew up, but creator Don Mancini shared at the New York Comic Con panel that he drew from his own experiences growing up both gay and in the Catholic church. Arthur’s character Jake is almost a “surrogate” for the show’s creator, with Mancini recalling, "My family laughed, they said I'd cast myself.”

While Jake deals with a lot of guilt over his association with Chucky this season, Arnarson’s character Devon switches from boyfriend to kick ass mode. “Devon, I guess he grew some balls," he joked. "He's the one who says, 'We gotta kill this doll.'"

Meanwhile, Lexy turns to drugs to deal with her past traumas. “In the first season, we got to see a lot more of Lexy's family traumas. I think that's why everybody started out hating her but was rooting for her at the end,” Lind shared. “Now I think she's just trying to keep her little sister safe, and her mom, and also dealing with having half of her loved ones gone."

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina star Lachlan Watson joins the cast as Tiffany Valentine and Chucky’s gender fluid children Glen and Glenda who are ready to “stir ship up” in the new season. "Lachlan [Watson] is better than the doll!" said Jennifer Tilly about her on-screen children. "But I love playing Tiffany, it's so much fun. And as you all know, she's basically ruining Jennifer Tilly's life. She sits at home and tries to think of ways to make Nica look pretty.”

This season of Chucky also makes history in the franchise when it comes to the casting of one of Chucky’s victims in (EPISODE ONE SPOILER ALERT!) Jake’s new foster brother Gary. “They bargained with him and they said that they could kill a kid who was 10 years old,” revealed Tilly. And he was so excited, because we sold it to him, like, 'You're the youngest one who's ever been killed by Chucky!'"

Tilly also shared that there will be a big homage to her 1996 crime thriller Bound this season. “In Episode 4, we do an homage to Bound,” Tilly revealed. “Gina and Joey, they're both in love with me! Don't you think that's fabulous?”

The Chucky franchise debuted in 1988 and Mancini has no plans to stop, teasing his plans for an interconnected Chucky-verse on the level of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with movies, TV shows, and spin-offs. “I have 35 years worth of ideas,” he revealed. “I spend a very unhealthy amount of my life thinking about Chucky. And one of the things that happens when you do new movies and TV series over the course of decades and decades, you get a lot of ideas and it doesn't work out for the thing you happen to be working on. You put the idea in a drawer and then a decade later, you’re thinking, ‘Ok, we're in this situation, what happens now? Oh my God, I remember this thing!’ So yeah, I have an inexhaustible supply of ideas for the Chucky Universe if you guys ask for it.”

Alex Vincent, best known for playing Andy, even made a surprise appearance in the audience to ask if his character was really dead. Mancini turned to the audience to see if they want Andy back and the collective cheers left a hopeful opening that perhaps the war between the duo isn’t over just yet.

Catch new episodes of Chucky season 2 airing Wednesdays on Syfy and USA Network. See our weekly reviews, below: