AMC’s hit horror series NOS4A2 kicked off its second season last month, reuniting viewers with the cast of characters they’ve come to love and reigniting their passion for the show’s spine-tingling mythology. Normally this weekend, we’d probably be crowding around a NOS4A2 booth at a certain convention center in San Diego, rubbing shoulders with fellow fans, and squeezing together in a room to watch the show’s creators and stars speak on a panel about the behind-the-scenes mechanics that produce that TV magic.

But there’s, like, some bug going around or something.

So instead, the magnificent organizers of Comic-Con banded together to make the fifty-year-old celebration of geek culture an accessible online experience, complete with virtual exhibitor tables, Artists’ Alley, and recorded panels.

This weekend I had the pleasure of watching a panel for NOS4A2. Moderated by Clark Collis (Senior Writer at Entertainment Weekly), the panel consisted of NOS4A2 showrunner and Executive Producer Jami O’Brien, Executive Producer and author of the novel upon which NOS4A2 is based, Joe Hill, and one of the series’ leading cast members Zachary Quinto.

The panel started with a creepy as hell Season Two teaser, featuring Christmas trees, people wearing masks and carrying weapons, and bloody teeth falling out of a kid’s mouth.

The panelists were all happy with how this season turned out and are excited for viewers to watch the action unfold. Joe Hill says that the second season of NOS4A2 is faithful to the spirit of his novel and adds that “in many ways, the second season is more exciting and more emotionally involved than the first.”

Zachary Quinto, who plays the show’s primary antagonist, Charlie Manx, talked about his experience exploring his character’s history, origins, and traumas in the second season. He pointed out that while Manx is “reprehensible and morally bankrupt…he didn’t start out that way.”

Jami O’Brien additionally gave some interesting insight into the process of adapting NOS4A2 for television, as well as some anecdotes from the writers’ room and how they cast the series. Hill, Quinto, and O’Brien took the opportunity to sing the praises of the child actors who are in the series, calling them precocious and immensely talented.

During the panel, O’Brien spoke at length about the protagonist of NOS4A2, Vic McQueen (played by Ashleigh Cummings, who was absent from the panel, but sent everyone her love through O’Brien), as well as the other intense, interesting, and smart female leads in the show.

The overall sense that we get from the panel is that O’Brien, Hill, Quinto, and everyone else involved in NOS4A2 genuinely love working together and have an incredible passion for their work. Even though they were all practicing social distancing and participating in the panel from their respective homes, it was clear that there is an air of togetherness and a mutual sense of friendship and respect among all of them. It’s so great to see that, especially when you love the series they’ve poured their hearts and souls into.