In the second season of Moon Gifl & Devil Dinosaur, Lunella Lafayette has established herself as the hero of her Lower East Side neighborhood with the help of her 10-ton T-Rex Devil and best friend Casey. However, as her superhero life and personal life become more entwined, especially after facing villains from her Mimi’s past, her secret identity will begin to take a toll. Lunella will need to decide how to best keep her loved ones sage while protecting the people who rely on her as Moon Girl, as more dangerous villains begin to challenge her skills and smarts.
Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur was developed by Steve Loter, Jeffrey M. Howard, and Kate Kondell. Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur has an impressive voice cast led by Diamond White, Fred Tatasciore, Alfre Woodard, Sasheer Zamata, Jermaine Fowler, Gary Anthony Williams, Libe Barer, and Laurence Fishburne, who also serves as an executive producer. Season two includes a star-studded cast of guest stars, including David Tennant, Giancarlo Esposito, Arsenio Hall,Xolo Maridueña, Alex Newell, Manny Jacinto, Cynthia Erivo, and Jonathan Banks.
Marvel’s Highest RT-Scored 2023 MCU Project Returns In Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur Season 2 Trailer
The genius 13-year-old superhero and her red Tyrannosaurus rex are back in the new trailer for Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur season 2.
Screen Rant interviewed producers Steve Loter and Rodney Clouden about the upcoming second season of Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur. Loter explained how Moon Girl establishing herself as a hero brings out bigger villains and more Marvel references, including the return of Maria Hill and a new hero. Clouden discussed how Lunella’s relationship with the Beyonder will evolve and what it means for Mimi to be a part of the Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur team.
Steve Loter & Rodney Clouden Talk Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur Season 2
Screen Rant: I absolutely love the show. The animation is beautiful, and I love how Lunella is finding her way both as a kid in school and then as a superhero at the same time. It’s very, very fun. So one of the things I’ve really enjoyed about a lot of the younger generation of Marvel heroes that we’ve seen coming up is how they have to deal with the reality of what being a superhero means. And we really see that with Lunella at the end of last season going into this season. Can you talk a little bit about how she deals with the ramifications of facing the true danger of this life she’s chosen?
Steve Loter: Oh, yeah. No, you hit it right on the head. Season one was about Lunella becoming Moon Girl, but season two is about her being Moon Girl, and that’s two very different things. Now that she’s known, the villains are leveling up. Her conflict of family life versus superheroing life is now coming to a head. Friendships are strained because of who she is. So yeah, this season is an absolute journey for Lunella to discover how to balance all these things, but with plenty of music and comedy to go along with it.
Very fun. And then, with Marvel having the Multiverse Saga right now and a lot of multiverse stuff going on, that finale where they talked about the multiverse pinged for me. I was like, Oh, that’s very interesting. How would you like to see Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur play into this larger story of Marvel with the multiverse? Is that something you want to see incorporated with other characters coming in as well?
Steve Loter: Well, we have a really great partnership with Marvel, and our show we like to think of is MCU complementary in a way where we love the movies, so we do pull in some references from time to time. And in fact, in season two, you’ll see many more Marvel references than in season one. Season one, we really wanted to establish Lunella Lafayette in her own way, but with season two, it feels like now that we’ve established her, we can bring in a bunch of other superheroes and references. And as far as the multiverse, yeah, there’s definitely references. We love Maria Hill, so she’s back. Cobie Smulders is incredible. But yeah, I think you’re going to see a lot more Marvel Easter eggs in this season than in season one.
Rodney Clouden: Yeah, so like he said, we’re Marvel complementary, but we’re not totally beholden to the timeline of what the MCU is, so we have a little bit more leeway to play around with things.
I personally like the Marvel complementary. I like that you guys can play around and use characters that are not as well-known. I think that works really well.
Steve Loter: We can make them our own. We’re very respectful of the characters. In fact, we have a character named Turbo, which is a Marvel comic book character. It’s fairly obscure, but we were really happy to bring her into the story and to work with Marvel to reimagine the character for the Lunella Lafayette’s world.
Rodney Clouden: It’s also great because she is a female, but also she’s an Asian female character. So that’s something also that is cool to see because you don’t get to see that often in terms of what’s represented in comic books or on TV.
Definitely. And then one of my favorite characters on the show is the Beyonder, because his relationship with Lunella is just the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Rodney, can you talk a little bit about their dynamic in this new season?
Rodney Clouden: Oh, yeah. So if you saw the first episode, they go through a lot of trials and tribulations and it really tests their friendship and also it changes their relationship and brings them closer, so they look at each other in a different way and they’re relying on each other for different things. That’s going to be something that we’re going to be playing around with through the season. I don’t want to say too much, but there’s going to be a test in terms of how they get along and relate to each other.
Oh, I cannot wait. And then we find out Mimi knows and she’s known the entire time, which is great. How does the dynamic of the team change now that she’s more officially a part of it?
Rodney Clouden: Well, it’s something where now that Lunella has, it’s like she has more of an outlet. There’s somebody that she can bend their ear and just, I had a terrible day and this and that. But also at the same time, they both are holding a very big secret from their family, and they actually have somebody to bounce off and talk about, what are we going to do? What are the ramifications of that? So how do we tell them that? When do we tell them that? Is it a good idea? Should we do it? So how long do we hold this secret? And that is something that as a 13-year-old girl, to have somebody to bounce that off of and living with this duality is a big deal, so it is nice to have Mimi there to really work off of.
And then one of my favorite parts of the series overall is how it makes STEM so cool for young women, because I feel like we don’t see that enough. So can you talk to me a little bit about what you hope younger audiences take away from the series as a whole, but especially that piece of it?
Rodney Clouden: Yeah. With STEM, especially with Lunella’s character, we just wanted to make her relatable. She’s not the stereotypical, prototypical, like the nerdy character, but she’s a regular girl that has problems and has things that she needs to deal with, dealing with school and finding friends and things like that. Well, she happens to be a super genius.
And also, the fact that seeing a Black girl in this position that you don’t get to see, you don’t see girls in general, but you definitely don’t see Black women and Black girls in that position of seeing them involved with science and STEM, and hopefully that is something that inspires many people that are watching the show to be like, yeah, she’s cool and she’s got her thing together and she’s using her knowledge, her power of upcycling to create things that are really cool and useful, and she’s helping her community. And you don’t have to be the superhero with the powers to fly and strength, but the strength is in her brain. Her brain has her superpower. So that’s something that anybody can relate to and be able to use.
Definitely. I’m a big Tony Stark fan, so I was like, “I would’ve loved this when I was a kid.” Because this totally has that vibe, but more fun and less traumatic.
Rodney Clouden: You got Doc McStuffins, you got Shuri, you got Riri Williams, and now you got Lunella Lafayette.
Yeah. I love it. And then Steve, can you tease anything about some of the villains we’ll see in this series in this new season? Because you said they get leveled up from last year.
Steve Loter: Yeah. Our amazing guest cast is incredible, and definitely thematically, we wanted to make sure that any villain that we brought into any episode was based on what Lunella is going through, what relatable human emotion is happening. There’s episodes about jealousy, there’s episodes about impatience, and so we always find the foe that will find a way to really amplify that relatable human emotion. So this season, yeah, Molecule Man in particular is extremely formidable, probably the most dangerous character Lunella has ever encountered, and that character has ramifications through the entire season. But we have a couple of other really fun villains coming up, too.
Rodney Clouden: Villains that are not in the super villain category, but they are villains and they’re regular people, and some of it deals with Lunella dealing with anxiety from these villains, these people. And that’s a villain, anxiety. How you deal with people, different personalities and how that relates and how you let that affect you and affect your way of life and how you deal with things. So we’re dealing with a lot of emotions and also with big super villains.
What did you learn from the first season that you wanted to bring into this new season to level it up?
Steve Loter: I think we pretty much figured out what season two was while we were mid-production on season one. And in fact, if we get a season three, we know what season three is already as well, because we’re telling chapters of a larger story in a lot of ways. But as far as what we learned is we could really push even some elements even stronger.
This season has more music, it has more comedy, but it also has more drama as well. It has more peaks and valleys. So I think that because we had to service a lot of story of her becoming the superhero, now that she is the superhero, we get to explore different aspects of her personality. She’s put through different stressors and different problems and issues. So I think that levels up just our storytelling in a big way.
Rodney Clouden: Yeah. And it just helps in the relatability because we know that being a superhero is not all fun and games, if we learned anything from Spider-Man. Your personal life and your professional life can collide or one takes over the other. How do you deal with that? And then being a 13-year-old girl having to deal with that, and so holding this secret and living this dual life is also a big stressor, and it’s a test to who you are and who you can be.
Definitely. And then I have to ask about Devil because he is just so much fun and so funny. I love that we had a couple episodes last season that actually really dealt with unexpected emotion for him. He wanted to be included, he was feeling left out, he had his own jealousy. Will we see more of that with Devil in this new season? Because I know he’s often the comic relief and the brute force in the fights, but it’s fun seeing him have these more emotional moments as well.
Steve Loter: Oh, yeah. Yeah, Devil goes through a bit of an arc this season. It’s challenging him because he can only really partake in half of Lunella’s life because of the secrets. He’s very aware of the Lafayette family, but he can’t really be a part of the Lafayette family, so that’s pretty sad for Devil. But there’s definitely resolution. Definitely there’s growth for Devil Dinosaur in a big way. He encounters this group, a superhero sidekick support group in one of the episodes, which isn’t quite what it appears to be, and that’s a fun episode. But I think Devil grows from those experiences.
Rodney Clouden: And as a person, a dinosaur with a personality, he really develops more in terms of sense of self and his hobbies and what he’s into. It’s a little bit more sophistication going on with him, so you get to learn a little bit more about who Devil is and what he likes and what his abilities to do that are outside of superhero.
Oh, that’s so much fun, and I cannot wait to see him with the sidekick support group because it’s just amazing. Can you talk a little bit about how Lunella will grow as a kid? Because she is becoming older and having these experiences that are going to shape her beyond being a superhero. How do we see that manifest in her as a student and friend?
Steve Loter: Yeah. We had a mantra in season one that genius does not equate wisdom. That was a big thing for us. And I think as season two goes on, I think it comes into the balance is a little bit more apparent. So yeah, she is going through 13-year-old problems, but now she has the world on her shoulders at the same time. So she’s forced to grow up a little bit. But I think that you’ll see in some of the episodes, some of what she learned because of her experiences even informs her parents and they learn from who Lunella is now.
So I think everyone does some growth. She’s definitely going through a journey that most 13-year-olds wouldn’t go through as far as a superhero goes. But as far as a 13-year-old goes through friends and dating and just high school drama, I think that’s a very relatable situation that everyone will be able to see themselves in.
About Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur Season 2
Based on Marvel’s hit comic books, the series follows the adventures of 13-year-old super-genius Lunella Lafayette and her 10-ton T-Rex, Devil Dinosaur, as they protect her Lower East Side neighborhood from danger. In season two, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur are in their element as superheroes; however, as Moon Girl’s superhero-ing intertwines more with her personal life, she must decide if the cost of keeping her identity a secret is worth the toll it takes on her family.
Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is an animated series developed by Marvel. It follows the adventures of the two titular heroes: the 13-year-old child genius Lunella Lafayette (Diamond White) and the prehistoric animal Devil Dinosaur (Fred Tatasciore). Laurence Fishburne appears as The Beyonder, a cosmic being with infinite power but little desire to use it.
- Release Date
- February 10, 2023
- Cast
- Laurence Fishburne , Diamond White
- Seasons
- 1
- Story By
- laurence fishburne
- Writers
- Laurence Fishburne
- Network
- CBS
- Streaming Service(s)
- Disney+
- Franchise(s)
- Marvel Cinematic Universe
- Directors
- Steve Loter
