‘Impulse’ Season 2: Cast Dishes On Teleportation Training, Trust Issues And Trauma

YouTube’s original series, “Impulse,” which is based on the third book in Steven Gould’s “Jumper” novel series, returns on Wednesday with Season 2, picking up shortly after the intense events of last year’s Season 1 finale.

Executive produced by Lauren LeFranc, Doug Liman, David Bartis and Gene Klein, the new episodes will continue to follow the story of Maddie Hasson’s Henrietta “Henry” Coles, a young woman who discovers she has the ability to teleport, or jump, after being sexually assaulted at the start of Season 1. Missi Pyle stars as her mother, Cleo Coles, and Callum Keith Rennie plays a fellow jumper, Nikolai.

According to the YouTube show’s synopsis, “Season two picks up as Henry seeks to control her new powers by further confronting her trauma. With the help of friends, she struggles to become a more adept teleporter, but must keep her abilities a secret -- or risk endangering the people she loves.”

Henry won’t be learning to control her abilities all on her own, though.

Nikolai will help her train, help her learn control and, possibly, help her work through some of her emotional pain along the way. It won’t be easy since Henry has trouble trusting men because of her father’s disappearance and because she was sexually assaulted by Clay Boone (Tanner Stine) and attacked by Bill Boone (David James Elliott), but Henry and Nikolai will be forced to spend time together because they need each other.

“She doesn’t have a great reaction to any male figure in her life right now, but he’s really all she has, so she’s — they’re thrown together,” Hasson told International Business Times at New York Comic Con earlier this month. “And she really fights it. It’s a very reluctant bond that they have, but they’re sort of drawn together in a way because of how similar they are.”

Rennie shared with IBT at NYCC of their bond: “There’s an honesty to their interactions that [isn’t] complicated and [doesn’t] fall into step-father or father roles. They just interplay in a kind of neutral respect and disrespect. It’s an interesting thing.”

While the two might need each other and be drawn to one another, Henry still doesn’t know Nikolai all that well and might not be able to trust he’s completely genuine and has the right motives for wanting to train her.

“It’s hard to say,” Hasson said about whether or not Nikolai’s helping her for the correct reasons. “That’s the good thing about this show, that [showrunner] Lauren [LeFranc] has done so well. She doesn’t make anything black and white. No character is good, no character is evil. Everyone has different levels. Good characters can do bad things, bad characters can do good things, and you have to decide for yourself, basically.”

Plus, Henry “doesn’t really have another choice” when it comes to a trainer and partner, Pyle chimed in at NYCC to IBT about her onscreen daughter.

With her child off trying to improve her teleportation abilities, where does that leave Cleo this season?

“In the first few minutes, you do find out that she has been shot, and she doesn’t really remember what happened,” Pyle told IBT. “So, she still doesn’t know what — she thinks Henry’s dealing with her trauma from the assault more than anything and [is] really trying to get in there and help her through that, [but Henry’s] really moving more towards Nikolai.”

Hasson added of her “Impulse” mother’s Season 2 journey, “But, also, Cleo must’ve been so shaken up by these huge life events — learning of Henry’s trauma and then being shot [herself]. [She] probably had a total reevaluation of our relationship… You take it all on yourself.”

Of what’s overall happening with Cleo and Henry this season, Pyle explained that “they’re all trying to figure out how to move forward the best they can.”

Find out how they try to move forward when all episodes of Season 2 are released on Wednesday for YouTube Premium members. Non-members will be able to watch the Season 2 premiere tomorrow and then one new episode every Wednesday after that. Season 1 of “Impulse” is now streaming for free on YouTube.