Shadow and Bone season 2: everything we know

Shadow and Bone season 2 seems like it’s a long way off. The show’s first season only aired in April 2021 and, based on social media posts by its chief creative team, it may be a while before it returns to our screens.

Netflix’s adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s fantasy novel series has gone down well with fans, so it’s not a shock that we’ll receive more entries in 2022 or even beyond.

While we wait for official news on when Shadow and Bone season 2 is set to launch, what do we know about its next instalment? Below, we’ll tell you everything we know about the show’s second season – but beware spoilers for Shadow and Bone season 1, and possible future plot details, based on what we know of the novels, too.

Release date: A follow-up season wasn’t confirmed until after the show aired, so we’ll be waiting a long time for Shadow and Bone season 2. Late 2022 is our earliest prediction for when it’ll drop, but Netflix hasn’t said anything official either way. 

Story: We’re expecting Shadow and Bone season 2 to adapt two concurrently running stories from Bardugo’s books Siege and Storm and Six of Crows. Scroll down for more on that front.

Cast: Jessica Mei Li and Ben Barnes are certain to return in Shadow and Bone season 2, as well as season 1’s other main players. But an official cast list won’t be revealed until production on season 2 begins.

Shadow and Bone season 2 release date

Shadow and Bone season 2 release date: 2022? 

There’s no official release date for season 2 just yet.

We know that a second season of Shadow and Bone is coming, as its return was confirmed during Netflix Geeked Week in June. That aside, though, there’s no other details about when the next instalment will arrive.

In a thread on his personal Twitter account, showrunner Eric Heisserer revealed that he had written a lot of (if not all) of the next entry’s scripts already. And he seemingly finished penning season 2 around April (before a second season was picked up by Netflix). 

If those pages don’t require further treatments, filming may begin sooner than we previously thought, which may mean Shadow and Bone returns to our screens sometime in 2022.

That appears more likely, too, given Bardugo’s latest Instagram post. The author told her followers that she’d be taking a social media break over the next few months to work on, among other things, Shadow and Bone season 2.

Hopefully, much of pre-production will be sorted before the year is out so that principal photography can begin in earnest.

Additionally, executive producer Shawn Levy told Collider that the show would be “heading into production shortly” after Heisserer and Bardugo had finished penning the scripts. Since then, though, there’s been no major updates to speak of.

Levy’s comments appear to have been backed up by Moviesr.net. Per the publication’s supposed sources, Shadow and Bone season 2 is expected to begin filming in November 2021. We’re taking this with a pinch of salt for the time being, however, and we’ll wait for Netflix to officially confirm its start date instead.

Hopefully, it won’t be long before the cameras begin to roll on season 2. If that’s soon, we might get Shadow and Bone’s second season earlier than we anticipated. If not, we may be in for a lengthy wait.

Shadow and Bone season 2 cast

Shadow and Bone season 2 cast: which characters are returning? 

There’s no confirmation on this front, but we think that all of season 1’s main stars will return. That would include:

• Jessie Mei Li as Alina Starkov 
• Ben Barnes as General Kirigan/the Darkling 
• Archie Renaux as Malyen “Mal” Oretsov 
• Freddy Carter as Kaz Brekker 
• Amita Suman as Inej Ghafa 
• Kit Young as Jesper Fahey 
• Danielle Gilligan as Nina Zenik 
• Calahan Skogman as Matthias Helvar 
• Zoe Wanamaker as Baghra 
• Sujaya Dasgupta as Zoya Nazyalensky 

As Shadow and Bone’s principal protagonists, Alina and Mal are certain to return, while Kirigan – who is still alive after he exited the Shadow Fold in the season finale – will also be back.

Kaz, Jesper and Inej, too, should be part of the season 2 line up. As in the Six of Crows duology, the Dregs’ story (more on this below) will line up with Nina and Matthias’, so we should see that trio link up with the latter duo. This was hinted at in season 1’s final episode, so expect them to join forces as they do in the novels.

As for which characters could make the leap from Bardugo’s book series to the live-action TV series, Heisserer revealed (per Collider) that there will be “one hundred percent more Wylan” in season 2. In the novels, Wylan Van Eck joins the Dregs as their demolitions expert for a job inside Fjerdan’s military stronghold known as the Ice Court. But we don’t know if season 2 will follow this exact storyline or not.

Another character who could appear in season 2 is Nikolai Lantsov. 

In the books, Nikolai adopts the pseudonym Sturnhound and leads a pirate armada that aids the war effort for the kingdom of Ravka. Nikolai becomes a key ally of Alina and Mal’s, so his arrival in Netflix’s adaptation will be vital if the TV show predominantly follows Siege and Storm’s storyline in season 2. 

Heisserer teased Nikolai’s potential involvement in season 2 during a chat with Inverse, so he may be a new cast member when the next entry’s casting announcements are revealed.

Shadow and Bone season 2 trailer

Shadow and Bone season 2 trailer: is there one? 

No, and there won’t be for a while. If principal photography begins soon, we could get a teaser in mid-2022. Until that time, there won’t be any footage for any of us to view.

Shadow and Bone season 2 story

Shadow and Bone season 2 plot: what will it be? 

Season 2 may follow concurrent stories from Siege and Storm and Six of Crows. With Alina and Mal going their separate ways to the Dregs following season 1’s finale, season 2 should continue their journey to new lands to keep Alina out of Kirigan’s reach.

As season 1’s final entry revealed, Kirigan has tapped into his Darkling powers and created new Fold creatures known as Nichevo’ya. Unlike the Volcra that inhabit the Fold, these monsters can move in broad daylight and will prove to be difficult adversaries for Alina and Mal to overcome.

Ben Barnes, who portrays Kirigan/the Darkling in Netflix’s TV show, has expressed interest in seeing season 2 “steer off” from the story in the books (per Collider) in a similar vein to how season 1 incorporated the Dregs into Alina’s arc. 

It’s unclear if Heisserer and the series’ other producers will do so, but it would be an intriguing twist on the source material if they did. It would give established fans some new content, like season 1 did, but we’ll have to wait and see if this is an avenue that the show’s creative team pursues.

The Dregs, meanwhile, are likely to team up with Nina in a bid to free Matthias, with the duo – and potentially Wylan – being key to Kaz’s plan to rescue Bo Yul-Bayur, an inventor of a drug that Grisha find addictive, from Fjerda’s Ice Court. Shadow and Bone season 1 has already utilized the Ice Court’s ‘impossible heist’ angle for the Dregs’ initial mission to try and capture Alina, though, so it’s possible that Bo’s rescue may be altered for the TV series.

Another arc that could be adapted from another Grishaverse duology – King of Scars – is Zoya’s. A supporting character in the Grisha trilogy, Zoya’s character is given a more prominent role in Bardugo’s second duology and elements of the story from these books may be incorporated into the TV show, as Bardugo teased in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

In the season 1 finale, Zoya was seen heading to Novokribrisk – the city that Kirigan destroys with the Fold – to search for her family. Should she find that they’ve perished, Zoya could team up with the Dregs again, as she does in the Six of Crows’ Crooked Kingdom novel, or add in parts of her story from the King of Scars book.

One thing we do know is how many episodes there will be in season 2. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Shadow and Bone will return with another eight-episode run.

It’s unclear if this will only focus on Alina and Mal’s journey, though, or if the Dregs and Zoya will also feature in some capacity (as we speculated above). We’ll find out when Netflix provides a synopsis, or when the cast and crew start posting about the show on social media again. For now, we’re as much in the dark as you are.

Shadow and Bone season 2: does it deserve another outing?

Yes. While it doesn’t have a following as big as other major fantasy series, such as The Witcher, Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings, the Grishaverse still has a sizable and passionate audience. Its fanbase is likely to have grown, too, with Netflix’s adaptation introduces the series to new audiences since it debuted on the streamer in April.

There are plenty of directions that Netflix’s adaptation of the Grishaverse can go as well. Like the streamer’s live-action Witcher series, Shadow and Bone could potentially lead to spin-offs that delve into the wider universe and use Bardugo’s source material as a base for this. Whether it’s expanding on a pre-existing short story or creating entirely new content, Netflix can go in all manner of directions in and around season 2.