Are you a fan of spoilers? Well you found yourself in the right place if you took a seat at this year’s Revolution panel at Comic Con. Unlike most showrunners at the Con, Revolution‘s Eric Kripke did not hold back when it came to promoting season 2 of the NBC post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama. The panel started with this three minute preview of the new season which includes a boatload of new footage including a first-look at Stephen Collins (No Ordinary Family) as Rachel’s dad, Monroe’s fight club, Neville’s bad-ass beard, and–YIKES!–the death of Aaron Pittman?!

Kripke expanded on some of the screened footage. First of all, our heroes failed to stop the detonation of the nukes; Philly and Atlanta have been decimated. “We’re trying to be the first network show in history that loses two American cities in the first 15 seconds [of a season],” Kripke said. “We’re back to a very intense set of basics, [a world] that’s even more dangerous than in season one.” Furthermore, when Revolution returns the lights will be off again (apparently the consequence of flipping the switch only lasts so long) and a new foe will emerge. The “Patriots” that Randall was referring to before he shot himself in the finale and the “President” who is hiding out in Cuba–these are not good guys according to Kripke. “The idea was to create a villain this year that’s so bad and so insidious and whose tentacles go so far, that even our heroes and our villains ultimately have to band together to fight this threat. They’re using the iconography of stars and stripes and patroism, but they’re using it as a mask. If you were to look behind closed doors…you’ll see that they are really, really bad dudes up to some nefarious stuff.”

So Miles and Monroe and Neville and the rest of our main cast of heroes and villains will team up to fight the Patriots. And no longer will the series be about claiming power and the pendants and the tower; driving the story now will be digging into the characters more and unfolding the mystery behind the Patriots and their endgame.

“It’s always been a show about family and hope and love, and now they can all move towards each other and not just make it so obsessed about the power. I think you’ll see much more intimate digging into character,” said Kripke. “Let’s stop talking about the power and lets start talking about the world.” Later he summed up, “As good as [the show] was, it needs to be better…It was a lot of story about a light switch,” he admitted to some laughs. “I think we have, no question, a better Season 2 than Season 1.”