When Apple TV+ first announced Imperfect Women, the buzzy new show was billed as a “limited series.” And, sure, sometimes that means no cliffhangers, no multi-season arcs, no waiting around for renewal news. That’s all she wrote, folks. But if recent TV history has taught us anything, it’s that limited series don’t *always* stay limited. Big Little Lies? On its way back after an extra-long hiatus. The Four Seasons? Heading into its third season.
And now Imperfect Women is officially joining the club. Roughly five months after the explosive finale that left just as many questions as it answered, Apple TV has ordered a sophomore season. Just as juicy: It sounds like the story is going in a direction we weren’t expecting.
Will there be Imperfect Women Season 2?
Yep! Apple TV announced on Oct. 5 that they’ve officially renewed Imperfect Women, meaning the show formerly known as a limited series is now just... a series.
Prior to the renewal, co-stars and co-EPs Kerry Washington and Elisabeth Moss both hinted that the story didn’t quite feel finished — especially when it came to the complicated dynamic between their characters, Eleanor and Mary.
In fact, some of Season 1’s most lingering questions center on that connection. What is really in these women’s history? And there’s a wink in the final few moments suggesting there may be something more between Mary, played by Moss, and Nancy’s widower Robert, played by Joel Kinnaman. Who, oh you know, just so happened to have a past fling with Eleanor. One year after the truth comes out, Mary and Robert are seen together again, and the show keeps it cryptic.
As Moss put it in post-finale interviews, that ambiguity was the point: The show wants viewers to ask questions it doesn’t answer. Washington has even encouraged fans to “demand” a second season to explore what comes next.
But here’s where the big twist comes into play.
What could Season 2 actually look like?
The Apple TV+ drama wrapped up its central mystery (aka who killed Kate Mara’s Nancy) in its April 29 finale. On paper, at least, it’s a complete, self-contained story based on the book of the same name by Araminta Hall. Still, if you watched that ending, you’re probably right there with me in hoping we get more closure.
Well, here’s the twist now that we’ve got a renewal: Season 2 won’t pick up the three-friend structure we saw in Season 1. Instead, it’s basically built like an Eleanor spinoff.
“We were thrilled to see how deeply these women and their stories resonated with audiences around the world, and I’m so excited to step back into Eleanor’s shoes,” Washington said in a statement. “She’s intelligent and strong, but she also finds herself navigating complicated and sometimes messy situations.” (Whew, you can say that again.)
Apple TV’s head of programming, Matt Cherniss, said the team “jumped at the opportunity to expand the world of Imperfect Women” through Eleanor, calling the new story “an exciting and natural next chapter.”
Because Season 1 fully adapts the book, Season 2 will obviously need to go beyond the source material, and thanks to Apple’s renewal announcement, we at least have a starting direction for where things will go. According to the streamer, Season 2 moves to Martha’s Vineyard, where Eleanor returns to her hometown roots in the island’s affluent Black enclave. There, she discovers that the glossy surface hides deeper secrets and scandals that threaten to upend everything she thought she knew about her own past.
Who’s returning?
Washington, for one. Moss will sort of be back, but so far Apple has only confirmed that she’ll return as an executive producer alongside Washington. No word yet on whether Mary will grace our screens again! But given that Season 2 is primarily structured around Eleanor and set somewhere entirely new, don’t bet on a full-time return.
Having said that, the door isn’t explicitly closed, just as it isn’t for Mara (flashbacks?), Kinnaman, and Corey Stoll, who plays Mary’s husband Howard (also flashbacks?!). At this point, none have been confirmed to appear in Season 2.
What the cast thinks about what’s left to explore
If Season 1 taught us anything, it’s that these characters are never quite what they seem, a fact that bodes well for whatever’s waiting for fans on the Vineyard.
When I spoke with Kinnaman and Stoll, it was clear that the series’ biggest strength is how complicated and unknowable its characters are. “The title itself is sort of sarcastic,” Stoll said. “Everybody is imperfect… it’s the pressure to be perfect, which is ludicrous. So in some ways the show is a celebration of everyone’s messiness.”
Kinnaman, meanwhile, took a more… personal approach to the show’s themes. “I think that I just don’t understand women,” he joked. “I’m going to therapy … I’m just really trying to figure it out. And this show was another piece of that puzzle.”
(It’s safe to say the show raises just as many questions as answers for viewers and the people in it.)
That ambiguity shows up in the relationships, too. When asked whether it’s more dangerous to be misunderstood or to assume you fully understand someone, Stoll didn’t hesitate: the latter. “I think this show certainly shows you that you can think you know somebody and be very wrong,” he said.
That overarching theme feels like a pretty deep well to mine. When asked whether he’d trust his character in real life, Kinnaman’s reaction was immediate: “Hell no.”
The trouble stems from Robert's lack of a clear sense of self. “[He] just doesn’t really know who he is, and I feel like he doesn’t have a strong set of morals,” explains Kinnaman. “He’s operating from this kind of empty place. I think to be a morally just person, you have to have a foundation where you know who you are, and he doesn’t. So I think he’s capable of betraying almost anyone.”
Which, if anything, makes the idea of a second season even more compelling. Because while the mystery may be solved, the people in it are far from being figured out.
source https://www.scarymommy.com/entertainment/imperfect-women-season-2-updates
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