Murder in a Small Town is finally set to return in the fall 2025 TV schedule, to reveal whether or not Alberg (Rossif Sutherland) and Cassandra's (Kristin Kreuk) romance has been flourishing since the first season finale ending. Of course, a show with this title isn't all about a couple that overcame the will they/won't they trope, and plenty of bodies dropped in the small town of Gibsons in those first eight episodes. Now, ahead of the Season 2 premiere on September 23, the stars weighed in on the big question: how can the show fit so many murders into such a small town?
After all, part of the charm of the series is the small town setting with a small population, but surely the locals would start to notice that the murder rate is usually high for such a relatively remote location. When I spoke with Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk about their different kind of crime show (which you can stream now with a Hulu subscription) for Season 2, I had to ask them about about so many murders happening in Gibsons. The Smallville vet responded:
I feel like there are a couple of answers to this question. One of them is, they've expanded Karl's jurisdiction this year, so he doesn't just have Gibsons. He has a whole swath of coastline. The other answer to the question, I think, is that we're not playing in reality, so we're not looking at necessarily the causes of such a crazy increase in crime in this really small town. So I think both of those things exist. We're giving him more space for murders, and also, I think we have to let it just exist, like most murder shows in small towns.
The practical reason in-universe is that Season 2 has expanded Alberg's jurisdiction to another four towns beyond Gibsons, so Murder in a Small Town won't be slowly killing off the population of the titular town. The more fun reason is that the Fox drama isn't a true crime drama from the real world, so fans can tune in weekly, suspend their disbelief, and enjoy the ride. Rossif Sutherland joked that he has a theory about how people might react to a sudden increase in murders if viewers took the show too literally, saying:
There most definitely is a contradiction in the description of this place being so idyllic if people are dying, being murdered, right and left. I had a theory that if people are getting killed so often, then you wouldn't be able to sell your home, because the value of your home, nobody wants to move there. So the population has to stay put, and we just keep killing people.
On the other hand, you could probably get a pretty good bargain on buying a house if you wanted to move to Gibsons! Sure, you'd be at a higher risk than usual of dying an unnatural death, but – as a Facebook clip for Season 2 reminds us – Alberg had a pretty great rate of closing cases. At least your demise would probably be solved!
In all seriousness, Gibsons is pretty much a character in Murder in a Small Town as well as Alberg and Cassandra, so I'm curious to see how different the show feels in Season 2 with his jurisdiction expanding. He may run into some complications when it comes to expanding his police force, based on early looks at Marcia Gay Harden as the town mayor.
Plus, with Cassandra as an elected official in Gibsons, she'll have much more to do in Season 2 than exist as Alberg's love interest, town librarian, and occasional hostage. Check out a sneak peek at the new season below:
Tune in to Fox on Tuesday, September 23 at 8 p.m. ET for the Season 2 premiere of Murder in a Small Town, called "Acts of Murder." The drama will be paired in primetime with Doc, another series returning for its second season on the network and scheduled to air at 9 p.m. ET. If you need a refresher on what Alberg and Cassandra got up to in the first season, all eight episodes are streaming on Hulu now.
