Shogun Season 2 has a major update, but there’s a catch
Hulu/FXShogun fans can’t wait until the award-winning series returns for Season 2, but we finally have an update on its timeline.
Back in March 2024, Shogun showrunners Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks gave a “fairly definitive no on season two” for the series, citing how Season 1 concluded precisely where James Clavell’s 1975 novel ends. Two months later saw the record-setting, award-winning series renewed for Season 2 and 3 at FX, with Kondo and Marks working with Clavell’s estate and assembling a writer’s room.
A new comment brings a hopeful update for the series’ fans, but there’s a bit of a catch.
The writers’ room has a timeline for Shogun Season 2, but what does it mean?
Speaking to reporters behind-the-scenes of the 2025 Golden Globes, Justin Marks said the team of writers were “about six weeks from the end of the writers’ room” for Season 2 (via Deadline). That’s a lot of progress from September 2024, when the team were 47 days into the writer’s room with three finished outlines.
FXThe only catch: what in the world can we expect out of Shogun Season 2?
Shogun set records for having Hulu’s most-watched premiere while being the first non-English language series to win the Best Drama Series Emmy (part of a record-setting Emmy haul), there’s a good reason for the initial hesitation over Season 2. Season 1 followed James Clavell’s novel closely, and it bears no direct sequel within the other books in the author’s six-volume Asian Saga.
While Anna Sawai’s Lady Mariko is the beating heart of Season 1, don’t expect her to return in Season 2 (unless flashbacks are possible or Blackthorne has visions). The character Kashigi Yabushige also won’t be present in Season 2.
Hiroyuki Sanada is surely a major player, given his return is the only confirmed element of Season 1 at this time, but his Lord Toranga is left at the end of Season 1 with plans to make Edo the center of power in Japan, with Blackthorne in a new alliance with Mariko’s widower and an epic struggle on the horizon between the remaining Regents (as teased in his flash-forward).
Surely all these characters will fall into a complex alliance of sorts as Lord Toranga’s enemies scramble.
Refresh your memory of how Season 1 concluded, and here are some excellent movie recommendations while we all wait for Season 2 to drop.