User blog comment:Zathronas/Speculative author: Volume 2 and episode 12, general thoughts/@comment-5217560-20141101195918/@comment-24218038-20141101233511

The end of volume 2 was supposed to bring us into season 2 but Monty said there was too much material to show before season 2.

Here's my author perspective on it:

When you start writing your story, you know the path your heroes need to take to get to the conclusion. The main element of your story is in your head or as is my case, I write a detailed outline for each chapter I want to write.

You have the main details setup but as you write the actual story, you sometimes discover that the details between major plot points takes more time to explain than you previously thought.

I feel that's what happened here. The writers realized that they didn't have enough exposition to explain plots point coming in season 2 so they had to add extra episodes. That means more stories with more exposition.