Vague spoilers for Shadow and Bone in last paragraph
Shadow and Bone star Ben Barnes is our spring bae like Rege-Jean Page was our winter bae. But unlike Rege-Jean’s character, we will get to see Ben again because Shadow and Bone has been renewed by Netflix. Netflix announced on Monday that we will indeed get a season two of Shadow and Bone. Showrunner Eric Heisserer said that he has three seasons worth of material. Season one combined two books from Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse series that were set in two different timelines and made them a seamless success. All of the season one actors will be reprising their roles for season two. Below are a few more details from Yahoo!:
“I’m honored and thrilled to return to the Grishaverse and continue the stories of these endearing characters, particularly Milo,” said showrunner Eric Heisserer, giving a special shoutout to the fan-favorite goat of season 1.
Set to reprise their roles for season 2 are Jessie Mei Li (Alina Starkov), Archie Renaux (Malyen Oretsev), Freddy Carter (Kaz Brekker), Amita Suman (Inej), Kit Young (Jesper Fahey), Ben Barnes (General Kirigan), Danielle Galligan (Nina Zenik), and Calahan Skogman (Matthias Helvar). Additional casting will be revealed at a later time.
“I’ve been writing in the Grishaverse for nearly 10 years now, so I’m thrilled we get to keep this adventure going,” Bardugo said in a statement. “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.”
Season 1, which premiered on the platform on April 23, adapted the events of Shadow and Bone, the first book in Bardugo’s main trilogy, but also weaved in elements and characters from spin-off novel Six of Crows. This gives us some idea as to what season 2 might look like.
I am so excited about this news. I really enjoyed Shadow and Bone and Ben Barnes was the perfect Darkling. My gawd the man can brood. I have started reading the Shadow and Bone Trilogy. I hear The Crows sagas are amazing as well. I look forward to reading them as the Crows were my favorite characters in the show. I didn’t like the main female character (Alina) or her sidekick bestie/love interest (Malyen) much. The writing for them fell a little flat for me, so I hope they fix that in season two. I would also like to see what happens with Matthias Helvar and Genya Sanfin as their story ended on a cliffhanger in season one. I look forward to seeing if Ben Barnes is 2022’s Spring bae again or if another brooding hottie will take his spot. And I can’t wait to see Alina and The Darkling’s powers manifest. I am sure it is going to be epic.
The announcement:
The full roundtable:
Photos credit: David Appleby/Netflix
Oh I’m excited! I still haven’t finished the first season yet bc I haven’t been riding my bike in freestyle mode that much (i.e. not taking a class) but I really like what I’ve seen and i’m excited. And I think the books are going to be great summer reading.
I’m all here for the Crows, they’re just awesome!
I’m so happy that this series has been renewed! I really liked the first season. I found it very fun, cheesy, and 100% enjoyable.
I really like that Netflix is willing to take these kinds of books – here, a YA fantasy book, or a romance series like Bridgerton – and invest money in producing them so they are actually good.
I’ll never forget the mess that was City of Bones.
The production on mortal instruments was major. Production can save a lot.
Yes but they had Jonathan Rhys Meyers in that leather outfit…..oh that was bad.
They took a chance on the Winx club and turned it into a young adult series that I enjoyed a lot and I’m very much out of their target age range by a decade. At this point, everything is possible as long as you have a great production team.
I watched it looking for something to binge. I have to say I fast forwarded a lot of the cheesy scenes between the protagonist and her childhood friend. She had better chemistry by miles with the antagonist.
Also skipped those side characters storyline and never felt I missed something important so it felt like that was just filler.
Hope season 2 is better.
I felt that way about the Crows duology — it took me forever to get “IN” to Six of Crows. Towards the end it gained more momentum and Crooked Kingdom flowed better for me. They tend to get redundant, like she could use a cleaner edit, but enjoyable overall and easy reads.
The Crows were definitely the best part. I actually liked the sweet innocent love story between the main character and her best friend/love interest. Ben Barnes is a beautiful villain. They managed to make the show infinitely more exciting than the actual book.
100% agree. The show really improved upon the books, which had a lot of interesting ideas and world building but problematic (and less interesting IMO) relationships. So excited for S2!
I feel like Ben Barnes had some sort of glow up in recent years. I was not checking for him until he turned up in Westworld.
cutting his hair was a big one for me. always a fan of his but didn’t love the long hair from Prince Caspian days, so in Punisher, Westworld, and Shadow & Bone I’m all over him
THIS!
I binged watched it and while it was ok it could have been better. Ben Barnes was his hot charismatic self as always but the show stealer for me was Jesper; and his goat.
Ben Barnes fan club, just checking in 🙂
I’m a new card carrying member of the Bin Bons fan club. I can’t believe I hadn’t known about him ‘til now. Good lord he’s handsome and so charming in interviews!
Awesome. I vastly prefer the Crows, but the series did a good job with the Grisha characters—especially Ben Barnes—so I’m interested to see how it continues. They changed a lot so I’m curious if they’ll follow the books with Mal & Alina (they did change his character quite a bit in the first season) because there are some…seriously problematic “nice guy” tropes in the relationship between the two characters. Plus, they just have like zero chemistry, especially compared to the antagonist and the protagonist. But mostly I want more crows content…especially Jesper and Inej.
No way can I remember what all the terminology of this show means by the time another season comes out. I’m out, though I do like Ben Barnes and thought he had pretty good chemistry (until things get, uh, dark…) with the main actress.
The Alina books are definitely weaker than the Crows’ duology. Kaz and Inej are hard to too — I hope we get their demolitions guy in season 2!