After taking home five Emmys in September, it looks like Big Little Lies might be officially returning for a second season.
The ensemble drama about a group of mothers at an affluent Northern California elementary school seems more topical than ever with sexual harassment allegations flying through Hollywood in recent months. The show’s first season tackled topics like spousal abuse and sexual violence so artfully that nearly every member of the cast was nominated for their work on the series.
HBO hasn’t yet made an announcement about the specifics of the new episodes, but reports are starting to string together in a suggestive manner. For starters, Reese Witherspoon has backed out of a movie called Pale Blue Dot, which she’d been scheduled to produce and star in for Fox Searchlight. Witherspoon’s exit was confirmed Thursday, and supports reports that HBO is aiming to film a second season in Spring 2018 (when the movie would have also been filming).
This might be the perfect cultural moment for Big Little Lies season 2 https://t.co/BIzgzVExpl
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) November 10, 2017
The show’s first season was based off a bestselling novel with the same name by Australian writer Liane Moriarty, so it’s unclear what the plot of season two could potentially look like. But according to Deadline, Moriarty “hinted backstage at the Emmys that a Season 2 was a strong possibility.”
Sources says Moriarty—who has acknowledged she has been approached by HBO about a second season—has written “a short novella that picks up the story and envisions what happens next with the main characters.” So while there are no plot hints yet, it’s safe to expect most of the all-star cast to be reprising their roles in some capacity.