I Am Not Okay With This season 2 on Netflix: All you need to know (2024)

I Am Not Okay with This spoilers follow.

I Am Not Okay With This's season finale ended with a major cliffhanger along with some big unanswered questions.

So, let's start with the really bad news. It's been cancelled. Our new favourite show was actually scheduled for a second season, but world events overtook Netflix's plans.

Suffice to say, we are not okay with this.

We totally assumed that Jonathan Entwistle and Shawn Levy's adaptation was likely to return at some point. The story of I Am Not Okay With This felt like it was custom-built for Netflix, drawing influence from a wide range of shows on the platform, including Stranger Things, The End of the F***ing World and more.

There were signs of trouble ahead, however.

"We have not been officially picked up for future seasons," Levy told EW.

"We were never promised future seasons, but Jonathan and I and all of us who worked on the show wanted to bet on ourselves, and we really believed that this could be a very special and resonant piece of storytelling on one of the biggest platforms in the world.

"We knew this was going to be this mystery undercurrent throughout the season that would start subtle and would rise closer and closer to the surface, eventually puncturing the surface in the finale with the introduction of the stranger, who we still don't identify.

"We always knew we wanted to end there, we toiled long and hard to find the perfect final line of dialogue for that stranger character, and we were betting on ourselves to have made a really good show and investing hope that audiences will respond to the series so we get the privilege of making more of them."

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Unfortunately, that privilege has not been given.

As Deadline reported: "According to sources, uncertainty around production dates and balancing the availabilities of a large cast like The Society, coupled with unexpected budget increases due to COVID led to the decisions on The Society and I Am Not Okay With This, which had been both well received by critics and fans and had strong support at Netflix."

In a statement addressing the cancellation, Netflix said: "We've made the difficult decision not to move forward with second seasons of The Society and I Am Not Okay With This.

"We're disappointed to have to make these decisions due to circumstances created by COVID, and we are grateful to these creators, including Jonathan Entwistle, Christy Hall, Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Dan Cohen and Josh Barry at 21 Laps Entertainment for I Am Not Okay With This; Chris Keyser, Marc Webb and Pavlina Hatoupis for The Society; and all the writers, casts and crews who worked tirelessly to make these shows for our members around the world."

However, there is hope! As Deadline points out, the show did have positive reviews and a fan following, as well as friends in high places at Netflix.

It may have been cancelled in its current form, but it's exactly the sort of show the streaming giant used to save. So, either another streamer will step in, or Netflix will change its mind almost as soon as a vaccine starts being handed out.

Because this is one show that absolutely needs a second season – or, at the very least, a movie to tie up the many, many loose ends. Why?

Join us here at Digital Spy as we dive deeper into Sydney's life and reveal why we need to see her future beyond prom – in whatever form that takes.

I Am Not Okay With This season 2 release date: When will it air?

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You Know What has been disastrous for the TV industry, so it's hard to predict when productions will be back up and running, let alone when a cancelled show might be rescued.

The creatives behind I Am Not Okay With This need to factor in CGI, which makes the process lengthier, and may be off-putting to streamers / networks that could give it a new home.

So, your guess really is as good as ours at the moment, but first up we need that all-important rescue.

I Am Not Okay With This season 2 cast: Who's in it?

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The vast majority of the cast could certainly return for a second season, including the following:

  • Sophia Lillis as Sydney
  • Wyatt Oleff as Stanley Barber
  • Sofia Bryant as Dina
  • Kathleen Rose Perkins as Maggie
  • Aidan Wojtak-Hissong as Liam

Chatting to Screenrant about the relationship between the two leads (Sydney and Stan), Lillis said: "Sydney... has a closed life. She only has one friend, and that's basically her only confidante; the only thing that she looks to.

"Suddenly, when Stan comes along and then she also kind of figures out that she has superpowers, he kind of shows her a whole new world and a whole new way of looking at herself and acting and being... how her actions may have consequences and how she acts in front of people. Because she's not a jerk... and he kind of makes her a different person, and she suddenly has a whole new world and a whole new relationship other than her very closed amount of friends. One friend."

One cast member who probably won't reappear is Richard Ellis. At the end of season one, Brad tried to get ahead by sharing all of Sydney's secrets at prom, but he then ended up losing his head completely after Syd blew it up, Scanners-style.

Saying that, don't rule out the possibility of Brad returning in flashbacks with his head firmly reattached to his body.

Of course, with this young cast, the sooner we get good news the better – if it takes years to find a new home, we could be looking at some roles being recast if the actors age out of their roles. Which would obviously be potentially detrimental for the fanbase.

I Am Not Okay With This season 2 plot: What will the second season be about?

In season two, Sydney needs to find a way to get a handle on her emotions if she wants to avoid further casualties.

"Her powers are based off of her emotions," Sophia Lillis told Junkee. "And she kind of already has these issues with her anger where even though tries to control these bursts of anger, it’s kind of the way she is coping and the way she is dealing with [her life]."

Obviously this connects with Stephen King's Carrie in a pretty major way (especially in the finale), which was also an influence on Stranger Things. Can we look to the way that show progressed for season two clues?

"You know what's weird but really the truth? Very much like the Duffers on Stranger Things, we never spend time declaring the homages we wanted to craft," Levy said (via EW).

"There are certain movies or references that come up as we're developing the script, but not once in all my years on Stranger Things and not once during I Am Not Okay With This do we as filmmakers say, 'Now we're going to do this shot like that one time in that movie.' I know people will find this hard to believe, but these influences are very strong but they're more latent and unconscious than declared."

Entwistle agrees, adding, "It was completely on accident, strangely. We came to the image very early when talking about, if she's not going to explode her own head, which she does in the comic, what are the opportunities for what we can do with Syd?

"What is the iconography of that conclusion? We came up with this, we liked the aesthetic, and then it suddenly dawned on me once we started that process, it's a very cool image but it's very similar to Carrie."

There's also the shadowy figure who revealed himself at the end of season one. What's that all about?

While it's safe to assume he's actually her "dead" father, this still doesn't explain where he's been or why he's waited so long to return.

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Unfortunately, the source material is no help in this regard either. Not only is the original graphic novel far darker, but author Charles Forsman wrote that as a standalone story with a very definitive ending. Given how much the show has already deviated from this, the writers will continue venturing into bold new territory for future seasons.

The show may have had a short season, with just seven episodes, but it wasn’t intended to be a one-off mini-series, so there's more to explore here for sure.

"I want to make sure that Sydney is essentially a Chosen One, the only one right now, and she absolutely hates that and she has to come to terms with what it means to do that," director and executive producer Jonathan Entwistle said (via Collider).

"There is, without going into too much detail, a much bigger under-the-surface conspiracy, if you will, that goes back much, much further to do with the powers, that will then come to light for the subsequent seasons where she and her powers, being the most powerful, will be used to somebody else's gain and/or not, depending on where we go."

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Sounds like a rad new take on Buffy Summers / Eleven from Stranger Things...

Entwhistle discussed the smoky man's identity more recently during an interview with Decider:

"The questions I want people to ask are who has come to town? Is it going to be the mentor 'Professor X' or is it going to be the Sith Lord come to take Syd to the Dark Side?"

"I think when you've got the type of powers that she's got you can become an asset in a bigger world that's been brewing outside of the tiny town where we started the story," he said. "So I'd like it to immediately off the bat to be a hint that whoa there's a bigger world out there than just one girl with crazy powers."

During this interview, Entwistle also suggested that there may be some friction between this new figure and Stanley:

"Stan has no powers, so if somebody with cool powers steps in and starts saying things to Sydney then that’s going to then kind of hurt his ego a little bit. And I think he’s a character that likes to be wanted and so I think that is something interesting for him in the world to deal with."

Speaking about what she'd like to see if the show gets the go-ahead for a second season, Kathleen Rose Perkins, who plays Sydney's mum Maggie on the show, knows exactly what she wants to see.

"I would love to see what happens with the relationship between Dina and Sydney," she said (via Metro). "I think it's a really sweet relationship. I wonder what Brad's head blowing up will do to their relationship… I would also love for Stanley to find his soulmate, he's such a sweet kid. You just want him to find love."

In addition, Kathleen is very keen for Sydney and Maggie to, you know, get on. "Hopefully going forward, if there is more, we can see them as teammates rather than at odds with each other," she said. "The majority of this series has been butting heads."

Whatever happens, season one of I Am Not Okay With This left a lot of questions dangling at the end. Who picked up Sydney's diary? Does anyone suspect Sydney killed Brad? What's going to happen between Sydney and Dina? And will a new hedgehog arrive on the scene?

All these questions and more will definitely need to be answered.

"I'm excited for people to see what it's going to be like for Sydney to walk back into high school after what happened," Entwistle said (via EW), back when things looked more positive.

"Who knows what? Nobody's going to really be accusing her, but she was the centre of everything. I'm excited about what kind of crazy high school theories they can come up with for the reason for what happened at that homecoming. I'm also interested in expanding the super powered nature of the world and what that brings to Sydney, both good and bad."

Levy adds that he's keen to broaden the scale of the 'modest' series in season two. "We very consciously stayed small in scope in season 1, and we hope to expand that canvas.

"As we learned in Stranger Things, I love to explore different dynamics between different characters because we can surprise ourselves by combining and pairing different dynamics and different characters in our cast."

I Am Not Okay With This season 2 trailer: When can we see a Netflix promo?

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Sydney can't see a life for herself beyond high school, and in a similar vein, we can't physically see life for her beyond season one. That's because until the show has been picked up by another network and production commences, there won't be any new footage to watch.

Yeah, time to boot up season one for a revisit to get those streaming figures up – every binge helps.

I Am Not Okay With This is available to watch now on Netflix.

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David Opie

After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.

In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.

David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.

Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.

As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.

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Sam Ashurst

Freelancer writer

Sam is an entertainment writer with NCTJ accreditation and a twenty-year career as a film journalist.

Starting out as a staff writer at Total Film, moving up to Deputy Online Editor, Sam was responsible for Total Film’s YouTube channel, where he revolutionised the magazine’s approach to video junkets, creating influential formats that spread to other outlets.

He’s interviewed a wide range of film icons, including directors such as David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Ridley Scott, Michael Bay and Sam Raimi, as well as actors such as Meryl Streep, Nic Cage, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Anne Hathaway, Margot Robbie, Natalie Portman, Kermit the Frog, all of the Avengers and many more.

Sam has also interviewed several comic creators, including Stan Lee, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and he has a zombie cameo in The Walking Dead comic.
In 2014, Sam went freelance, working directly for film studios including Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox and Disney, as well as covering red carpet events for film marketing company PMA Productions.

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His byline has appeared in outlets such as Yahoo, MTV, Dazed, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Good Housekeeping among others.

In 2012, Sam made it to the final of the Leicester Square Theatre New Comedian of the Year competition, and went on to become a filmmaker himself, directing three features that have all played major festivals, and secured distribution – starring in two of them.

Jim Carrey once mistook Sam for Johnny Cash, and John Carpenter told him to ‘Keep up the good work.’ He promises to try his best.

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I Am Not Okay With This season 2 on Netflix: All you need to know (2024)
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