The showrunner and talent of EPIX's original series Berlin Station convened at Deadline's The Contenders Emmys event on Sunday to discuss the series' first season, and the real world events that inspired it.

Berlin Station's first season followed a CIA operative (Richard Armitage) tasked with unearthing the source of high-profile intelligence leaks. “Obviously it was created and developed in the wake of Snowden and Assange,” said showrunner Bradford Winters, “[however,] this is not a spy show that relies too heavily on technology, but on the old-fashioned ways of human intelligence. So while the leaks were our way in to the thematic concerns of the first season, the deeper motivation was for them to provide a way into the characters, because we really consider it a character-driven show.”

The upcoming second season will continue to explore themes around the United States' place in the geopolitical sphere--not in a "ripped from the headlines" way, but on a more intimate, human level.

“It’s sort of stating the obvious to say that America is having kind of an identity crisis at the moment, but it certainly hasn’t been just recently — this is something that has been fraught and quite acute since the start of the millennium," said Winters. "That’s almost subconsciously how we treat the show creatively when we go into our storylines and our characters: What is our role? What were we here to do? What are the lines between right and wrong? And who are we to be the arbiters of these questions?”

For more, read on at Deadline.