‘Fuller House’ Season 2 Netflix Release Date, Cast News: Ashley Liao Promoted to Series Regular In New Season

Apr 20, 2016 03:26 PM EDT

Fans of the sequel series "Fuller House" already know that Netflix has renewed the show for a second season. But, it was also recently confirmed that one of its recurring characters will return in the upcoming season as a regular.

As confirmed by Deadline, Ashley Liao will be part of the main cast of "Fuller House" in season 2. She was introduced in the first season as Lola, the best friend of Ramona Gibbler. But aside from this, she is also the love interest of Jackson Fuller, the mischievous son of series protagonist D.J. Tanner Fuller.

Although it's obvious that Liao is an asset to the show, especially in the way she delivers many of her lines and scenes, her promotion as a regular cast member may have something to do with enriching one of the subplots of the second season. In other words, the next installment could explore the budding relationship between Lola and Jackson which began after she gave him his first kiss during the first season's final episode.

Aside from "Fuller House," Liao can also be seen in various television projects such as "Fresh off the Boat," "Ricky, Nicky, Dicky and Dawn" and "Bad Teacher." She is also set to appear in the indie film "Jessica Darling's It List."

As noted in a recent report, it seems Jackson and Lola will not be the only characters who might have subplots of their own in the season 2. E! Online has confirmed that Jodie Sweetin's character, Stephanie Tanner, will get a boyfriend in the upcoming installment in the series.

"Stephanie is going to have a boyfriend this season," Sweeting told the entertainment news site.

She then revealed that her boyfriend on the show will be played by professional dancer Valentin Chmerkovsky, who appeared in the first season as a guest star.

Interestingly, Sweetin and Chmerkovsky are both on the 22nd season of "Dancing with the Stars" and the two were able to dance together in this week's "Switch-Up" episode.

Upon hearing the news about his involvement in the second season, Chmerkovsky got surprised.

"What?!" he said. "I knew about season 2, I didn't know about the love interest."

With season 1 being 13 episodes long, Fuller House season 2 is likely to hover around similar number of episodes, although Netflix has not given any official word. 

According to FanSided, Fuller House season 1 wasn't released on Netflix until 10-months after announcement, so season 2 may take the same pattern. In addition, Bure and Sweeting are both busy in the season, so filming most likely won't begin until summer. The speculation was that Fuller House season 2 won't return until 2017.