HBO horror drama Lovecraft Country won’t return for Season 2
By Lacy Baugher
The genre-bending horror drama Lovecraft Country – one of HBO’s buzziest series of the past year – will not be returning for a second season on the premium cable network.
This news comes as something of a surprise, given that the series reportedly did fairly well ratings-wise and was widely critically acclaimed, snagging both Golden Globe and Critics Choice Television Award nominations for Best Drama.
“We will not be moving forward with a second season of Lovecraft Country,” HBO said in a statement to Deadline. “We are grateful for the dedication and artistry of the gifted cast and crew, and to Misha Green, who crafted this groundbreaking series. And to the fans, thank you for joining us on this journey.”
Executive produced by Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams, Lovecraft Country the series starred Jonathan Majors, Jurnee Smollett Courtney B. Vance, and Michael Williams, blending elements of horror, sciece-fiction, period drama to create something that felt like little we’d seen in recent years.. Set in the 1950s, the series melded the real-life atrocities of the Jim Crow-era South with H.P. Lovecraft-inspired fantastical monsters to explore larger questions of systemic and institutional racism using the same characters of color that genre television often leaves out.
So why was the show canceled? It’s unclear, but likely has something to do with the fact that drama had already outrun its source material after a single season. And though creator Misha Green had apparently been working on plans to expand the world of author Matt Ruff’s 2016 novel – something that fellow prestige series like The Handmaid’s Tale have successfully already done -but something clearly went askew there.
Following the news of the series’ cancellation, Green shared some of her initial plans for season 2 on Twitter. It has some pretty big shifts when compared to season 1, so it’s easy to see why HBO might have balked at the concept. But it’s also hard not to wonder what might have been had this reimaging of the show gone forward.
If you need to wallow in your feelings a bit over this cancelation, the first season of Lovecraft Country on HBO Max.
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Are you shocked by the news that Lovecraft Country won’t be back for a second season? Let us know in the comments?