SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils Ransom Canyon Season 2, specifically details around Lauren, Kit and Lucas’ plotlines.

The sparks between Lauren Brigman (Lizzy Greene) and Kit Russell (Casey W. Johnson), brother of Lauren’s current boyfriend Lucas Russell (Garrett Wareing) and passenger in the car that killed Staten’s son Randall (Hubert Smielecki), were another unplanned factor into Season 2’s overall plot arc.

The development, which echoes popular love triangles like those found in Prime Video’s The Summer I Turned Pretty and another of Netflix’s comfort Western shows, My Life With The Walter Boys, places Greene’s former cheerleader and now aspiring graphic artist between two brothers after she struck up a romance with Kit’s younger brother Lucas in Season 1.

“We wrapped Season 1. We were in the writers’ room for Season 2, working on stories, and I got the cut of Episode 7 from Season 1, the tornado episode, and I watched it, and I was like, ‘Oh,’” showrunner April Blair told Deadline. “I mean, when we wrote it, it was them connecting and bonding in this tornado, Kit and Lauren. But when I got the episode, I was like, ‘Wait, there’s a lot of chemistry and a lot of crackle here.’ And we were in the room, and I was like, “I think we should do something with Kit and Lauren.’”

Not only is the DNA connection something that makes Lauren’s feelings complicated, but Kit was previously romantically involved with Lauren’s mother, who was cheating on her father, Sheriff Dan Brigman (Philip Winchester). The affair was discovered after Lauren’s mother Marge (Sarah Minnich) killed Staten’s son in a drunk driving accident. A key scene towards the end of Season 1 highlighted unplanned sparks between Lauren and Kit.

“The room was divided about it, but I was like, ‘I think we should do it.’ It’s so messy, but that’s what you want for a soap. You want it to be messy and complicated, and some people are gonna hate it, but I was like, ‘I think when people see the tornado episode, some people are gonna really love it too,’” Blair added. “And then, when the show aired, there were lots of memes and comments – in both directions – shipping Kit and Lauren. It feels like, of all the love triangles, the one that gets the most pull in different directions. It’s a hot mess for sure, but that’s the fun of it.”

When the tornado hit Ransom Canyon last season, Lauren was trying to leave Kit and Lucas’ trailer to go shelter at the high school when a tree crashed down on her car and pinned her in there, hurting her ankle. Kit, in Lucas’ absence, helps her bandage it. Lucas was at Gracie’s looking for his girlfriend, thinking she may have taken shelter there, because Lauren had left her phone at the Russell home. She and Kit had formerly been at odds over his thinking she was going to hold Lucas back, and that sentiment still lingers at the beginning of Season 2.

When Lauren and Kit act on their feelings bubbling up to the surface and kiss, Lucas isn’t entirely clear of wrongdoing in the repercussions, because he, in turn, sleeps with Lauren’s good friend and former cheer teammate, now captain, Ashley (Jennifer Ens) after seeing the betrayal. Lauren’s college trajectory changed when she injured her shoulder in Season 1, and this also caused some cracks in her relationship with Lucas, whose high-achieving nature puts him in prime position to get into a good school.

Wareing had previously teased to Deadline that a shift in Lucas’ behavior could be expected come the second season of the soapy show.

“I think we saw a lot of joy and lover boy golden retriever energy within Lucas in the first season. Without giving too much away, I think we’re going to see a nice contrast for Lucas in Season 2,” Wareing told Deadline in an interview tied to his appearance in the Francis Lawrence-directed dystopian film The Long Walk, based on the book by Stephen King.

Blair also told Deadline that she envisions Lucas and Lauren “as endgame in the way that Staten and Quinn were and are,” which Season 2 makes clear. Parallels between the younger couple and the main couple yield scenes in which advice is passed from Staten to Lucas and and Quinn to Lauren.

“Lucas is struggling to figure out who he wants to be. “[He’s] realizing he needs to stop focusing on Lauren and winning her back. He needs to have his own sort of experience and figure himself out. We have a lot of fun with that in Season 3. Let him have his own bad boy era,” Blair added. “Moving forward, in our idea of Season 3 — we’re just in the room — it’s a potential Season 3 right now, but the idea is that Lucas is hurt, but he’s trying to put on [a brave face].”