Arson and marriage: Actor Jordan Gavaris takes risks in new season of ‘The Lake’

TORONTO – Jordan Gavaris says he knew returning to “The Lake” for a second season of summertime madness could’ve meant his character got tangled in the same conflicts as the first time around.

When the comedy series premiered on Prime Video in the dawning days of summer last year, it earned praise as a forward-thinking spin on the modern family, set against the backdrop of Canada’s cottage country.

Gavaris plays Justin, a gay man trying to make amends with Billie, the biological daughter he left behind when he fled to Australia in his younger years. By the time the first season ended, Justin and Billie’s relationship had improved, leaving the actor to wonder where his character went from there.

“The mistake would’ve been to go back … and throw everybody into more comical family hijinks — we needed something else,” explained the Caledon, Ont.-raised actor known for his earlier role as Felix on the science-fiction series “Orphan Black.”

And so with a second season of “The Lake,” which debuted on the Prime streaming service last week, the comedy leaps ahead a full year.

By that point, Justin is deep into a romantic relationship and faced with the possibility of holy matrimony. A fraught relationship in the first season with his sister Maisy-May – played by Julia Stiles – is eclipsed by the friction they both share with their mother.

Actress Lauren Holly steps into the role of Mimsy, the matriarch who recently arrived in town to challenge notions of who gets the family cottage.

The new season plays out like something Gavaris says he and some of his castmates have started calling “Wet Hot American Succession,” a spiritual relative of the lakeside comedy “Wet Hot American Summer” and the inheritance stakes of “Succession.”

If that wasn’t enough, Justin also gets pulled into a whodunit mystery akin to “Knives Out.”

Early in the new episodes, a fire destroys one of the town’s beloved community spaces, leaving him as the prime arson suspect.

Determined to prove his innocence, Justin channels his best Miss Marple on a hunt for the truth. It’s a silly twist for a show that’s proven unafraid to take risks.

“When it was pitched in its loose form I was like, is this going to work?” Gavaris admits of the mystery that runs throughout the season.

“Then it did – and it worked beautifully. It adds a level of high stakes.“

The caper is one of the imaginative touches that Gavaris says he’s come to appreciate with “The Lake.” Under showrunner Julian Doucet, known for “Hudson & Rex,” he said the series is a rare space where LGBTQ characters exist without their identities being their defining trait.

Gavaris points to one of the townspeople, a “genderqueer child,” as another example. Their identity is “not a talking point in private between characters” and the character “just exists” with the others.

“One of my favourite things about the show is this lush, warm world that we bring everybody into. (It’s) one that’s aspirational where queer people can just hang out on the lake and not be victims of homophobia,” Gavaris said.

“The world we live in is challenging and can be devastating in some cases, for some queer people in particular. I like that the show is hopeful.

“It’s not necessarily the world we live in. But it could be. And that feels good to me.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 14, 2023.

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