"You might think, 'why wouldn't he have gone for the serial killer?' Because he does a lot of those rough kind of roles," she continued. "But we thought it would be interesting for him to play something more contained. For Justin Louis, he did a lot of comedy, he did a lot of good guys, straight guys, so what happens if we bring him to this and he could unleash his dark side? The chemistry between the two was wonderful."

Durham County originally aired on The Movie Network and Movie Central, but despite the menacing content, not much has changed for its network debut. "The only changes we did for season one were language changes. There was certain swear words we couldn't use," Mitchell explained. "There were some picture edits but not a lot."

Despite the critical raves for the first season, a second season is not a certainty. "Global is not going to be on for a season two," she said bluntly, and negotiations with the pay channels are ongoing.

Finstad Knizhnik has written the first two scripts of a new season, however, as well as outlines for the rest. "It's a female antagonist this time. I wanted to give everyone equal play, because women can be just as nasty as men," she said. "It's true, but we don't really admit to it. We tend to see ourselves more as angels or martyrs, and I wanted to interrogate that notion."

They constantly field questions about how women could be behind such a disturbing, violent series, including from the enthusiastic company, Anchor Bay, who will release Durham County on DVD in the fall. "They couldn't believe it was a team of women behind it. Could not believe it for a second," said Mitchell.

Finstad Knizhnik is puzzled by the puzzlement. "It's such a tradition of women writing crime fiction and writing really dark, really nasty stuff. It's pretty normal I think. There are a lot of us out there."

Airing after the House finale on Monday, Durham County will be exposed to a wider audience. Then, the biggest puzzle of all might be why there's any question about a season two for a show this engrossing.