Season 2 of Shadow & Bone, the Netflix television series adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s novels, will be “a crazy sequel” to the first season, according to Lewis Tan. As part of the Netflix adaptation’s expanded narrative scope, the actor will join the original cast as well as numerous other new cast members, in addition to the original cast. Due to the series’ deft integration of two of Bardugo’s novel tales into a single new adaptation, it’s uncertain how all the new characters will interact or what the plot will include.
In the forthcoming season, Tan will portray Tolya Yul-Bataar. Tolya is a Grisha Heartrender who, along with his twin sister Tamar (Anna Leong Brophy), has vowed loyalty to Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei-Li) because of her supposedly divine power to control light. The novels chronicle Alina’s escape from the Darkling’s (Ben Barnes) strong troops, shielded by her self-appointed bodyguards Tolya and Tamar, who not only possess heart-stopping magic, but also sharp swords and a lifetime of combat expertise. Season 2 will very certainly delve into the brothers’ common Shu Han bloodline with Alina and showcase their powerful abilities as they protect her from a lengthy list of existential dangers.
Tan discussed why he’s so excited to join the show for the next season in an interview with Film Updates. He’s obviously a big fan of Bardugo’s Grishaverse, as he revealed why he chose the Netflix adaptation. He cited the show’s great storytelling and visual effects as two of the show’s many highlights. Continue reading his whole statement below:
“It’s just incredible … I met [author] Leigh Bardugo a few days ago. She’s awesome … It was really cool to be a part of it. I really love what they did with season one. I thought the production design, the VFX, and the writing were really, really, really well done, so I’m excited to try something new, a different genre for me, kind of … Season two is going to be insane … I’m really excited and the cast is really nice. They’ve been very welcoming. I’ve been [in Hungary] for two months now, and we’ve been working really hard.”
Tan recently participated in HBO’s Mortal Kombat remake and also stars in the freshly released Netflix film Fistful of Vengeance, the sequel to the Wu Assassins series from 2019. Tan will likely spend the next several months with his new Shadow & Bone co-stars, focusing on doing right to Tolya Yul-Bataar in all his blade-wielding magnificence. Tan expressed enthusiasm at the prospect of collaborating with Brophy on bringing the lethal Bataar twins to life on the big screen. Given that the twins are both Grisha Heartrenders in the novels, they have an innate, unspoken connection through their powers that Tan and Brophy must reproduce subtly. Tan showed his enthusiasm to take on that task.
Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse trilogy and Six of Crows duology remain mostly undiscovered in the Netflix adaptation. Season 1 of Shadow & Bone developed at a slower pace to narrate, concentrating more on Alina’s origin story and bringing fans up to speed with the Grishaverse trilogy’s conclusion. Season 1 also chronicled the events leading up to the start of the first book in the Six of Crows duology, following the razor-sharp Ketterdam criminal Kaz Brekker and his Crows, a mercenary band of assassins and thieves. Kaz and Alina’s fates grew entwined during season 1 of the Netflix adaption, as the Crows discovered their way to be free by capturing Alina. As Shadow & Bone season 1 concluded on Netflix, the radically altered story arc concluded, with Alina and Kaz becoming loose allies. That conclusion allowed plenty of room for season 2 to explore the literary universe’s most interesting narrative aspects, such as the Crows’ robbery of the Fjerdan Ice Court and the huge disclosure of the revolutionary pirate Sturmhond’s identity (Patrick Gibson).
