‘The Bridge’ Season 2 Premiere: Season 1 Recap; Plus When And Where To Watch ‘Yankee’ [VIDEO]

Season 2 of “The Bridge” premieres tonight on FX with its Peabody Award in tow. While a bit jumbled in storyline, the quality and content of FX’s crime drama drew the attention of the prestigious award, mainly due to its ability to raise awareness of border issues all the while create a “compelling murder mystery.” The New York Times reports that as the premiere date of Season 2 approaches, show runner, Elwood Reid is more confident than ever, even sending an email out to critics stating, “The most interesting thing to us has always been the shadow world of the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez” in all of its “complicated, bilingual glory.”

In Season 1 fans of “The Bridge” were introduced to two police detectives, Detective Sonya Cross played by Diane Kruger and Detective Marco Ruiz played by Demian Bichir. Cross is a member of the El Paso Police Department, and suffers from Asperger syndrome, while her “partner” Ruiz is a homicide detective for the Policia Estatal in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The opposing pair were brought together by a corpse laid between the border of the United States and Mexico, an idea that was borrowed from the Danish-Swedish original series of the same name.

The series title refers to the “Bridge of the Americas” that serves as a border crossing between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. The subsequent investigation that ensues takes both Cross and Ruiz on a rather wild and complicated ride, with overwhelming corruption and apathy among the Mexican authorities. In addition the main villain of the series displays the true power and violence demonstrated by real world drug cartels, and highlights the growing immigration issue in real world U.S. and of course fictional U.S. in “The Bridge.”

Tonight’s marks the premiere of Season 2, and with the premiere episode “Yankee” will come new challenges and more murders. Despite borrowing heavily from the original Scandinavian crime series in Season 1, Season 2 will finally break out on its own, and cast a wide thematic net beyond that of border issues. According to TV Guide, in Season 2 “The Bridge” has shifted from it’s one dimensional search for a serial killer, into a deeper investigation about political corporation on both sides of the United States and Mexican border. This corruption aides in rampant issues of drug trade, immigration and human trafficking. However, this shift doesn’t mean that there will be less blood, and less body bags, fans would actually expect more.

"It is a radically different show, and I mean that in the best sense of the word," creator Elwood Reid tells TV Guide. "It's trying to tell a bigger story, but the way we're trying to tell a bigger story is not to shovel a bunch of facts at you. We're telling it through characters, through things that affect people's lives."

Tune in tonight, July 9^th to watch “The Bridge” Season 2 premiere live on FX, or if you miss it you can watch the first episode of Season 2 “Yankee” online via live stream at fx.com.