Television’s most extra detectives are back in Diarra From Detroit Season 2. The Paramount+ noir comedy goes even bigger the second time around, as Diarra and her friends graduate from a missing-persons case to an actual treasure hunt. But just like before, they’re in way over their heads (and that’s where the fun starts).
In an interview with TVBrittanyF.com, series creator, star and writer Diarra Kilpatrick spoke about whether or not the characters learned anything from Season 1. She and co-star Jon Chaffin, who plays Danger, opened up about getting to play these quirky heroes again. Plus, which guest star this season had them cracking up?
Brittany Frederick: Diarra, how much were you able to let the characters grow in Diarra From Detroit Season 2? Since they should’ve learned from Season 1, but part of the show’s appeal is that they’re fish out of water.
Diarra Kilpatrick: We talked about that a lot. Actually, when we go in the [writers] room, we start talking about where we want the characters to end, and it is true that the evolution of Diarra is that she is becoming more of a PI, but she has to reconcile that with the woman that she already is and the dreams that she already has. So it was just like threading a fine little needle. We work to do exactly that—to push the characters to places that are surprising and inevitable, but then also to have them be game to be hapless detectives all over again.
Jon, viewers learn a lot about Danger in particular during Season 2. What was it like for you to come back and have all this new information to play with?
Jon Chaffin: It was so much fun. When I read the script, I was like oh, we’re about to play. I get to do some more acting. [Laughs.] I love Danger. I love his story. I love everything about him, I I feel like this season he’s just picking up the pieces of his life that was broken in Season 1, when that news was just dropped on his head—that he didn’t commit the crime that he thought he had committed as as a kid.
In Season 2 he’s really just trying to find himself and put the pieces of his life back together, and get away from Detroit proper. Going further out into Michigan is a part of that journey that he’s on. I think the audience is going to really enjoy the journey. They’re going to enjoy the co-stars… I hope that the audience has as much fun watching it as I did shooting it.
There are so many fun moments in Diarra From Detroit Season 2. What, or who, was the most fun for you making it?
Chaffin: Bokeem Woodbine. He came in and had us dying laughing.
Kilpatrick: Hilarious.
Chaffin: We’re at the kitchen table, and he comes in, and everything that he’s doing works perfectly for the character. But we cannot keep it together off-camera, and so I can’t wait for you all to see him in this role that he’s playing, especially Episode 7. I don’t know how we kept it together.
Kilpatrick: He’s a fantastic villain. And then I think for me, in Episode 3, there’s a sequence where I go into a secret society undercover and I am in drag. We went through so many meetings with hair and makeup, and there was so much caution on the part of the studio about doing something so broad, and we just weren’t sure if it was going to work. We were like, we’re gonna take this swing, and we hope it works.
And whether it works for you or not, we had so much fun, so it was worth it. That whole sequence was really fun. I’ve never been in a room full of men as a man. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a room full of a few hundred men by myself, ever. But in drag, it was so interesting, and it was so interesting for them slowly to realize that I was a woman. I felt like I got like a little peek behind the the man curtain.
Diarra From Detroit streams Wednesdays on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Paramount+.
Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.
