Another season of Netflix’s Shadow And Bone has been summoned. The cast members of the fantasy series made the announcement at Netflix Geeked’s first ever virtual event Geeked Week.
Based on the best-selling Grishaverse book series by Leigh Bardugo, the first season follows orphan mapmaker Alina Starkov in the mythical warn-torn kingdom of Ravka as she learns to harness her light-summoning power while conspiring forces plot to utilize or extinguish it. The first season premiered on April 23, soaring to number one in 79 countries’ Top Ten streamer list for Netflix. Fifty-five million households viewed the series within the first month, and several Bardugo’s Grishaverse novels found themselves back on the New York Times Best Seller list.
“I’ve been writing in the Grishaverse for nearly ten years now, so I’m thrilled we get to keep this adventure going,” Bardugo says. “There are so many places we’ve barely gotten to visit and I can’t wait to introduce our audience to more of the saints, soldiers, thugs, thieves, princes and privateers who make this world so much fun to explore. It’s going to be real magic to see our brilliant, talented cast expand.”
Cast members Jessie Mei Li, Archie Renaux, Freddy Carter, Amita Suman, Kit Young, Danielle Galligan, Calahan Skogman, Ben Barnes, and the beloved goat named Milo, are all set to return for season two. Eric Heisserer continues on as the executive producer and showrunner.
“I’m honored and thrilled to return to the Grishaverse and continue the stories of these endearing characters, particularly Milo,” Heisserer says.
The first season capped off with a cliffhanger, which Heisserer said in an earlier interview with Variety, “was [him] daring Netflix not to renew us.” Already taking a daring stance with his approach to the first season by combining the Shadow And Bone trilogy narrative with the future-set Six Of Crow novels, Heisserer now faces the challenge of melding them together once again.
“We had so much fun at the moments when these two sets of characters could find ways to integrate,” Heisserer said. “I have a lot of fun theories about how we can make this happen organically again, without really disturbing too much of the separate storylines that they’re on.”
16 Comments
Hot Take: Shadow & Bone was okay and I might eventually watch another season, maybe?
those OA fans didn’t record themselves doing silly VFX-less dance moves good enough
that’s what i got from the video announcement, is what i meant
Dammit, I tried, but I’m old and arthritic, not lithe and dancerly like Jason Isaacs or Brit Marling!
I’ve never read any of the books, but I’ve heard a bunch of people say Mal is actually a huge sexist asshole in them, which we’re just not supposed to even notice somehow. Very thankful the people making the show decided that wouldn’t play wel.
Oh great. Just when Netflix finally stops trying to recommend the first season to me.
Nice. This was a solid adaptation, and Netflix gave it the budget to back up the material. Here’s to an elevation for season 2 (especially now that they’ve gotten through the most hackneyed part of Alina’s narrative).
First season was entertaining, but actually went by a little too fast; for a non-book reader it seemed like they were skipping through some plot developments. I’d say a ten episode season would have been even better.
Some of that was due to them putting characters and a few plot elements of two books into the season. But I still preferred it to a straight adaptation of Shadow and Bone (the first book), which I didn’t think was very good compared to some of the other material in the series.
Yeah I can’t imagine how it would have worked without the Crows plotline. For an invented storyline it was very well integrated, possibly better than the main story. But I could have used at least one more episode to draw out the quasi-romance between the heartrender and the witch-hunter, it just went by too quickly. I know they couldn’t waste an entire season on it like Jon Snow and Ygritte, but they could have slowed it down a little bit. Also I feel like there was an entire subplot about a coup in the Big Palace that was tossed off in a single sentence in passing that could have used a bit more fleshing out. Unless they plan on going back and showing that in more detail in the next season.
I started watching when I accidentally clicked “OK” one time too many on my Roku remote, and this started playing as what was being featured on Netflix that day. As a 42-year-old guy, I suspect I’m pretty far from the target audience for this, but I thought it was pretty bad and could only make it through maybe 2.5 episodes. It just felt pretty derivative with a “chosen one” orphan ending up at a Russian Hogwarts finding out she is indeed so, so special, even if the popular girls are mean to her.
As a 44 year old guy, I enjoyed it.
When have YA novels ever NOT been derivative? lolI’m 37, understand that a lot of fantasy revolves around the idea of ‘special’ people and ‘chosen ones’ going on a heroes journey. The problem I had is that the writing for the lead character (Alina) was pretty ham-fisted at times, and I felt like she’s a bit too naïve considering her upbringing and general antagonism towards Grisha’s.That said, it’s got some interesting threads, fun side characters, decent world-building… and I’ll never tire of watching Ben Barnes play a smarmy dick.
I guess this means I have to watch season 1.
Said to hear about their cancellation.
Dear showrunners. Netflix doesn’t cancel popular shows after season 1. Please don’t dare Netflix to cancel you after this season. Their sales algorithm will do that for you. Leave us with something that could pass as a satisfying ending.