Warning: Contains spoilers for The Innocents season 1, including the finale.
Supernatural teen romance The Innocents showed plenty of promise over its first season, leaving us hoping that Netflix renews it for season two.
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The show follows teenagers June (Sorcha Groundsell) and Harry (Percelle Ascott) as they run away from their homes to be together, only to discover that June is a shapeshifter and there's an enigmatic scientist called Halvorson (Guy Pearce) looking to reunite her with her mother.
While a lot of its mysteries are resolved during the first season, there's no doubt that it sets up season two in a big way with a stunning finale cliffhanger – and here's everything you need to know about a potential season two.
The Innocents season 2 release date: When can we expect it?
The first season arrived on August 24, 2018 worldwide and if a season two renewal is swift, there's a chance we could expect it to premiere in August 2019.
After being announced in August 2017, we got the first trailer for the show in April 2018 and if it gets a renewal soon, we could expect it to follow a similar production schedule for the new episodes. Any delays on the renewal though and we could be waiting until 2020.
The Innocents season 2 cast: Who's coming back?
There wouldn't really be a show with Sorcha Groundsell and Percelle Ascott as June and Harry so they'll both be back, despite the situation that Harry found himself in at the end of the first season (more on that in a bit).
Their parents will also be back, so that's Laura Birn and Sam Hazeldine as June's mother Elena and stepfather John, respectively, and Nadine Marshall and Philip Wright as Harry's mother Christine and father Lewis, respectively.
We're less sure about the returns of the likes of Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (Steinar), Abigail Hardingham (Kam/Freya) and Ingunn Beate Øyen (Runa) because even though they're alive at the end of the season, it's possible that their storylines have been wrapped up and they won't play a part in season two.
Two comebacks we can rule out though are Guy Pearce as Halvorson and Lise Risom Olsen as Sigrid after they were both killed off in the finale. Given that we still know so little about Sanctum, we're not ruling out that they could appear in flashbacks, but they won't be playing a significant role.
And if you're in any doubt, co-creator Simon Duric confirmed to IndieWire that Halvorson is definitely dead.
"I'm still convinced that that moment of realisation in Halvorsen, 'How the fuck have I got here? How has this happened? How have I become this person? Please, please, please, please–' and then he's gone — I always felt that seeing Runa make that decision was more important than seeing someone shot," he outlined.
Then again, co-creator Hania Elkington joked that we'll "have to wait and see" when it comes to Halvorson.
"We did actually talk to Guy when we went out onto set and he'd read all the scripts and he was like, 'So, is Halvorson really dead?' and we're like 'He got shot in the head' and he said, 'Oh right, well I suppose it's going to have to be a prequel then!'," she recalled.
The Innocents season 2 spoilers: How does season 1 set it up?
We've got into detail about the mysteries of the first season and how it sets up a potential season two here, but here's a quick summary of the major points:
- After a car crash, June is severely wounded and shifts into Harry (at his request), but inadvertently shifts straight into his mother, leaving Harry catatonic.
- June's mother had an affair with Harry's father and it's her fault that he's catatonic after she shifted into five people consecutively, with only the last person waking up.
- Halvorson was trying to use June's special abilities to save his partner Runa, who has early onset dementia.
- Halvorson is now dead after being fatally shot by Runa, who was left stranded on Sanctum by her daughter Freya (who June knows as Kam).
We can safely assume that unless the show wants to go super bleak, it will feature June's attempt to bring Harry back, potentially with the help of her mother and Kam (Abigail Hardingham).
Don't expect Groundsell to give you any clues though: "[June is] mortally injured, so I feel like that's a bit of a bummer. I know nothing. I'm an actor. They don't tell me stuff."
As for what happened to Harry, Elkington has reassured fans that there is a plan in place. "There is a sort of a building element to the mythology there, what had in our minds early on and is now blossoming in the chance that this story can continue at some stage. That will come into play," she explained.
As for Runa and her dementia, it's something that could come into play in season two, according to Elkington.
"The whole series looks at things that you can't change and asks should you try and control change? Dementia is certainly a very key issue and very defining in the conversations that we're having—which are totally unofficial—about future series," she told Den of Geek.
"Runa's dementia is a family trait specific to her family. There's a sense that Kam has inherited shifting from her mother, so has she also inherited that? There are things you inherit from your parents, and whether that's a medical thing like dementia or whether it's guilt, in terms of June and Elena."
The worry for all of the characters though is whether Steinar holds a grudge against shapeshifters after what Halvorson put him through, so he could take over from Halvorson as the antagonist of season two if he comes back.
The Innocents is now available to watch on Netflix.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
