ABC Family’s hit drama Kyle XY returns tonight starting the second half of season 2.  The show ended in a cliff hanger with Kyle on the run to help Jessie XX, leaving his family wondering what was going on.  The show will complete its second season, having filmed all of the episodes before the writers strike, and has already been renewed for at least 10 episodes of a third season.

 

Arpil Matson, who plays Lori, recently took time out to talk to MediaBlvd Magazine, and other press outlets about what we can expect in the second half of season 2.

 

April Matson> I actually – well, I mean most of my part on the show, I’m not that involved with the whole science fiction part of it, and I didn’t necessarily grow up being a fan of any specific type of thing, but I always loved shows like X-Files.  I think what I like about our show is it’s not science fiction like there’s not these random monsters and aliens running around.  That’s something I’ve never been drawn to, necessarily, but I like that there’s a mystery of a possibility of things that are – I guess that are sort of possible.  Like I mean even the way all the mysteries about Kyle, in a weird way you almost could believe that it could be true.  So it just kind of – does that make sense?  Like rather than there just being a blatant monster that everybody knows doesn’t really exist or like an ET or whatever.  It’s kind of like, it’s about this human brain and there’s sort of like a possibility to it in a way that makes sense scientifically that you can buy it.  I think that’s kind of an interesting part of the show. 

 

As far as other science fiction, I would say X-Files, which is kind of what I like about the science fiction part of our show is there’s that kind of element to it.  …really see the freaky stuff, but it’s explained in a way that you kind of could believe it.

 

April> That’s so interesting because I never really thought about it that way. Lori got mean.  I mean she definitely got angry.  I agree with you.  The thing I love about Lori is that she sort of has a way of being bigger than everything else and being right and moving on and bucking up.  That was definitely a lot of episodes of being really angry and going through everything.

 

But definitely in the second part of the season, what you’re about to see starting on January 14^th, she sort of makes peace with everything, and she does sort of – I don’t know.  She does definitely work it out and gets back to moving on, songwriting again, more drama with Declan and she lets go of all that anger, so definitely I think we’ll get back to the Lori that we all love.

 

It’s so funny.  I didn’t realize how much that came off as – how different that was for the character.  But I don’t think she was mean, though, but I guess very, very angry and bitter about everything going on, so it will change.

 

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April> There’s kind of a little bit of both.  There’s definitely a new guy in the picture that is a possibility.  His name is Mark, and he’s played by Josh Zuckerman, who is such a breath of fresh air.  He is so fun to work with and so good on the show.  I think everyone is going to love his character.  We have a really great chemistry together, so you can look forward to that.

 

Just everything about it is very funny, the way that we meet and sort of how we become close.  There’s definitely that potentially happening, and hopefully when we go up to shoot season three, I believe he’s still going to be around, so he might be sort of a future cast member.

 

There is definitely some back and forth with Declan as well that becomes a possibility.  Declan and Lori sort of talk about it and are sort of exploring that road again.  I don’t want to give away what ends up happening, but at the end of … Lori … does what she does best for herself.  I have to say that is one of the things that I love about her the most is that she loves Declan, but she loves herself more, and she sort of just does what she needs to do.  She really makes the choice that’s best for herself, and I love that young girls that are watching the show get that, because in my life at 26, and being in the dating world and having to make decisions about guys and some guys that might have some kind of hold over you.  I just love that she’s not desperate and she knows that she doesn’t need someone else to make her happy.  I don’t know.  I just think it’s really mature of her because I feel like, as like someone who is almost a decade older … learning that right now.  I’m learning that from her.

 

Anyway, I went off a little bit, but the point is Declan steps up.  He’s definitely charming and America is falling in love with him.  Any time Lori doesn’t sort of go back to him, I think is always going to be disappointing, because he really is so, so charming in the last half of the season.

 

April> Definitely in ways.  I mean because I’m an adult now, sometimes I’m sort of like, okay, it would be nice to play somebody – you know what I mean, like a grown woman with maturity and who is complicated.  I think about that, but it is really therapeutic because I’m sort of working out unresolved issues through Lori.

 

I had a Declan.  I think almost every girl has had a Declan, like that guy that just gets under their skin, and it’s back and forth, and they make good friends, but they want to be more.  And it’s confusing.  I definitely had a Declan, and so in a weird way, this helps me resolve a lot of what that was all about to be an adult sort of going through it again through her. 

 

 

April> I never thought I would ever say that, but yes, because I just was so terrified of singing before I had to do it for the show.  I didn’t think I could.  But I’ve always loved music and played guitar and wanted to write songs.  This definitely generated that for me. 

 

I do sing again in the show.  They recorded it actually just a couple of weeks ago.  On the season finale, there is a new Lori Trager song.  It was written, and then I sort of worked with another songwriter, Brandon James, who is amazing, talented, and you will see him out very soon.  But we sort of collaborated to rewrite a little bit just to make it a little more personal to Lori’s experience.  There were a lot of people involved in writing this song, and it turned out to be something that I was really proud of.

 

Actually, Brandon James was playing at The Mint in L.A. two nights ago, and he called me up on stage during his show and made me sing the song with him, and I was so mad at him, but I was so in love with him at the same time because he was like, you need to get over it.  You can sing.  I’m still struggling with live performance singing, and it’s something I want to do so bad, and so he did that. 

 

 

April> I have to say, I feel like it’s pretty consistent.  I feel like everything remains mostly as it was between Kyle and Lori.  They have the same brother/sister bond where they give each other advice and help each other out.  He’s very consoling, wise, and they still have that same sort of connection.

 

Some of my favorite scenes to shoot are the ones with Kyle and Lori on Lori’s bed talking about whatever drama is going on in her life or what is he going to do about Amanda and all that.  I feel like, even after everything that happens, they have a pretty consistent bond, and once she decided to love him and let him in the family, he is her brother, and she just sticks by him.  If anything, they probably get closer because there’s not this weird mystery.  There’s not this, why are you hiding, and why are you going after Jessie?  She feels very betrayed, but I feel like once everything is revealed, that definitely helps them to get closer.

 

 

April> It does sort of a flip-flop.  It’s like right when you get back, there’s all this cool stuff that happens because you find out.  Then all of a sudden, it’s like it goes away.  I’m not sure why they did that or if they wanted to take a break from it, but all of a sudden it just kind of takes a break from it.  And it focuses again on the family and the relationships and Kyle’s relationship with Amanda and what it is for him to be who he is and live in the world as a teenager, which I love that dynamic of the show.  At first I feel like it’s a lot of sci-fi stuff, and then all of a sudden it’s completely the other way and you just see him living in the world and dealing with life, which I like both parts of the show.  But I hope that it continues to go back and forth that way.

 

 

April> Oh my gosh.  He is actually such a great roommate.  We live together so well. I wouldn’t say that I’m neater because I’m not a neat freak about anything, especially because the house that we lived in was so beautiful, I do like it to look nice.  But neither of us are really sort of obsessive about anything, so we both kind of do our part and just naturally had a flow to picking up the house and having it neat. 

 

We would have people over a lot on the weekends, we were working a lot too, so we weren’t really there to be messy.  But no, there was never, like clean this up or do that at all.  I would ask him to take out the trash or this or that, but he is good, like he would see something and know it.  If I made dinner, he wouldn’t let me do the dishes.  He would want to clean everything up and want me to relax.  We were sort of a good little roommate team.  We’re definitely going to be roommates again when we’re out there because it’s nice.  It gets lonely up there away from everyone else, and we both have dogs, and so we’ve got to help each other out a lot with the dogs, which was nice. 

 

I wish there was a more dramatic story that I could give you some dirt on Matt, but he’s like squeaky-clean.  He’s not a neat freak, but I mean as far as he’s just lovely to live with and lovely to be friends with.  I just don’t have any major issues to dish about, but maybe I’ll make some up.

 

 

April> Where I’d like to see the character going this year?  It would be nice to see her go to college and sort of become a real adult because I feel like it’s almost time for that.  That would be fun, and definitely explore her music.  But any time I ever think I know where I want Lori Trager to go, the writers always come up with something better.  I’m just excited. 

 

 

April> We have been picked up for ten that we start shooting in March.  The writer, our writers are supposed to go back to work this month.  If nothing is resolved in the next few weeks, we might have to postpone, but we’re definitely going to have a season three at some point, and hopefully, if everything is resolved, we’ll be able to stay pretty close to our shooting schedule.  We were lucky.  We were on hiatus anyway.  So it hasn’t really affected us, but if nothing happens in the next couple of weeks, then it might postpone things a little bit.  But that would probably be the worst of it for us, as far as I know.

 

 

April> Yes.  We finished shooting those the end of October, so anything that is about to air is done.  It was definitely difficult the last couple episodes doing post production because a lot of our producers were writers, and they were like really, really dedicated to the cause.  And they weren’t even commenting on episodes until it was like they need to get these approved because of all the post stuff and the music, so I know that was really, really hard for a lot of our post production people.  That might have affected the way that a few of them turn out, but you’ll still get to see them all.