A new neighbour is coming to Durham County with some dark new secrets. The second season of the acclaimed television drama, set to air on Canada's The Movie Network and Movie Central next year, is adding cast member Michelle Forbes (In Treatment, Battlestar Galactica) as the latest foil for Hugh Dillon's Mike Sweeney.

The atmospheric series returns in the aftermath of the Sweeney family's encounter with serial killer Ray Prager. Forbes plays Dr. Penelope Verity, a forensic psychiatrist who quickly develops a bond with the detective.

"Penelope is quite troubled, to say the least, because of what's happening and because of some trauma that had not been dealt with or transformed when she was younger," Forbes revealed in a recent interview, though she was careful not to provide details that would give away the intricate plotting of the six-part series. "All of this comes bubbling to the surface. There's a certain fracturing of her soul and her mind, and she's desperately trying to grab onto Mike Sweeney."

"It's been wonderfully challenging to play and it's a very emotional story. That's just what's going on with my character. Everyone has about 15 things going on, so it's a very complex, very wonderfully interwoven story. Each character is beautifully and gracefully fleshed out."

The actress doesn't see her character as the same sort of nemesis as the first season's Prager. "I know where her distortions are coming from and I have an enormous amount of empathy for that," she explained. "I think there's an enormous amount of love and hurt at the core of Penelope's distortions, whereas I think – and this is the difference between men and women – I think that at the core of Ray Prager's distortions, it was about ego and bravado. And of course hurt and what he went through as a child, but certainly what it turned into as a man was the need to conquer and be powerful. That is not the engine for Penelope."

Forbes found herself "riveted" by the first season of the series. "I was really seduced by the darkness of it, by the truth of it. Laurie Finstad (Knizhnik), our writer, has this extraordinary ability to hold up this frail, human dark side of ourselves and confront it. That was what was so compelling to me and made me jump at the chance to be a part of it."