The actress' character in the FX border drama has a "dark" season ahead, but "she comes out of it a much stronger, independent woman."

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for the Wednesday, July 16, episode of The Bridge, "Ghost of a Flea."]

Diane Kruger's El Paso detective Sonya Cross has an unlikely new romantic interest in The Bridge’s second season — and it doesn't end well, Kruger warns.

In Wednesday's episode, Lieutenant Hank Wade (Ted Levine) interferes in Sonya's relationship with Jack Dobbs (Nathan Phillips), the brother of the brain-damaged man who killed her sister. With Jim Dobbs (Brad William Henke) comatose and dying, Sonya begins her liaison with Jack because she wants to maintain a connection with his brother, Kruger said in an interview with reporters.

"She's never really been able to move on, and she’s been searching for answers out of Jim Dobbs for the past 15 years," the actress said. "When he is about to die, meeting his brother has this strange fascination for her, [him] being someone whom she shares history with."

Their family ties aren't all that draws her to him, she continued. "He doesn't judge her, doesn't think she’s odd and weird," she said. "There's a little rebellion toward Ted as well, who obviously thinks this is not a good idea. I think there's this need of wanting to have a relationship, to not let go of that history, and then she opens herself up and gets burned."

The season will strain her father-daughter relationship with Hank, Kruger said, who is keeping secret that he was responsible for Jim Dobbs' brain injury. "As that relationship gets tested, I think she comes out of it a much stronger, independent woman, and she's starting to realize things are not so black-and-white," Kruger said.

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The same tension will come between Sonya and her former partner Marco Ruiz (Demian Bichir), who's still reeling from the death of his son and the collapse of his marriage. In Wednesday's episode, Marco goes across the border to work with Sonya due to the influence of cartel leader Fausto Galvan (Ramon Franco), to whom he is indebted, but he and Sonya are heading toward a confrontation. "There's a big fallout over whether she believes he's taken too many steps into the darkness, into that gray zone," Kruger said.

The Bridge’s second season premiered July 9 to a low 1.5 million viewers the night of, down from the 3.04 million who watched the night of the first season’s premiere. The FX drama from Elwood Reid and Meredith Stiehm is now under Reid as its only showrunner, with Stiehm having returned to Homeland as a writer and executive producer. "His vision is darker, for sure, but also more complex," Kruger said.

This season is its first departure from the Swedish-Danish series Bron (in Danish, Broen), from which it was adapted, and it will not trace a single serial killer storyline like the previous season. It will instead interconnect the characters' personal lives and American involvement with Mexican drug cartels at the border, Kruger said.

But it will pit Sonya against its "very [Quentin] Tarantino-esque" new villain, Eleanor Nacht (Franka Potente), who killed a teenager in Wednesday’s episode but whose intentions are unclear. "When our characters finally meet, I think Eleanor is so odd and so different that on some level, Sonya’s fascinated by that," Kruger said. "Those two women will dance around each other."

"It gets pretty dark for Sonya," the actress warned. "It's a great season of personal maturity."

The Bridge airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.

Email: Austin.Siegemund-Broka@THR.com

Twitter: @asiegemundbroka