“It really is different,” Tierney said during a panel alongside “Heated Rivalry” book author Rachel Reid at BookCon at the Javits Center in New York. “The challenge of it is, from an adaptation point of view, is that you’re in much more serious territory. A lot of the initial — there’s still flirting and lots of sex — but this kind of danger, this kind of hotel-room-adolescent-sex stuff is largely gone. And so it presents really new challenge.

Tierney brought on Michael Goldbach as co-writer for Season 2 to assist as the production team hopes to get the new episodes out sooner amid the immense popularity of the Crave/HBO Max show’s first season.

The storyline in Season 2, which is based on Reid’s book “The Long Game” (the sequel to “Heated Rivalry” and part of Reid’s overall “Game Changer” series), is more complex than the plot in the first season, as it finds Shane and Ilya facing the realities of being in a relationship after slow-burn romance.

“Part of the reason you start off with ‘Heated Rivalry’ is because you want to get to ‘The Long Game,’” Tierney said. “‘The Long Game’ is emotionally sophisticated book that takes this couple seriously. There are a lot of books — ‘Game Changer’ is in ‘Heated Rivalry’ and as I you all know by now — obviously parts of ‘Role Model’ are going to be in Season 2, to the great surprise of absolutely nobody. But Ilya and Shane are the heartbeat of this series, of my show. It’s always going to be about Ilya and Shane, that is what is the trajectory that runs through it as their world expands.”

“There’s a Bergman-y kind of, what you do after the rush of danger is gone and now you have to live in a relationship where you still aren’t communicating properly, much as you would like to?” Tierney said. “You can say you love each other, but as adults know, there’s much more to making a relationship a success.”

“In ‘Long Game’ you are like, we’re here to ground this in something that feels very real,” Tierney said. “And the same thing with Troy and Harris. There’s an easy, fascicle way of looking at ‘Role Model’ as it’s very grumpy/sunshine, it’s very apple orchard. It can drift into things that you want. But Troy is a really damaged guy. And Troy is quite damaged on the show. We are digging into that even harder. Because that’s what’s interesting.”