Warning: This article contains spoilers for Shadow and Bone Season 1, now streaming on Netflix.
Shadow and Bone showrunner Eric Heisserer has admitted that Season 1's cliffhanger ending was, in essence, a dare for Netflix to not order Season 2.
Adapted from Grishaverse creator Leigh Bardugo's novels Shadow and Bone (2012) and Six of Crows (2015), Season 1 ends with Ben Barnes' villainous General Kirigan surviving his close encounter with the Volcra and emerging from The Fold, flanked by an army of Volcra who begin to disguise themselves as humans. It's a change from Bardugo's first Grishaverse book, which left Kirigan's fate more up in the air before subsequent novels confirmed his survival. “It was me daring Netflix not to renew us [laughs]," Heisserer told Variety, when asked about the reasoning behind this cliffhanger.
It's far from the only significant alteration Heisserer and his writing staff made to Bardugo's source material in adapting it for Netflix. While the author's Six of Crows takes place years after Alina Starkov's tale in the Shadow and Bone book trilogy, Heisserer loved the novel so much he was determined to integrate its characters into Alina's adventure for the show. After Netflix eventually secured the rights to the story, Heisserer then proposed making it the Crows' mission to kidnap Alina in Season 1 -- yet another major deviation from Bardugo's original books.
Most of the series' changes, including making Alina the Grishaverse equivalent of part-Asian, have gone over well with both critics and general audiences. CBR's own Liam Nolan praised Shadow and Bone Season 1, saying Netflix's adaptation "nails the best parts of the Grishaverse while still standing on its own." And while Netflix has yet to officially renew the show, that is expected to change in the foreseeable future.
A Netflix production from Shawn Levy's 21 Laps Entertainment, Eric Heisserer, Leigh Bardugo, Pouya Shahbazian and Lee Toland Krieger, Shadow and Bone stars Jessie Mei Li (Alina Starkov), Archie Renaux (Malyen Oretsev), Freddy Carter (Kaz Brekker), Amita Suman (Inej), Kit Young (Jesper Fahey), Ben Barnes (General Kirigan), Sujaya Dasgupta (Zoya Nazyalensky), Danielle Galligan (Nina Zenik), Daisy Head (Genya Safin), Simon Sears (Ivan), Calahan Skogman (Matthias Helvar), Zoë Wanamaker (Baghra), Kevin Eldon (The Apparat), Julian Kostov (Fedyor), Luke Pasqualino (David), Jasmine Blackborow (Marie) nad Gabrielle Brooks (Nadia). The series premieres April 23 on Netflix. Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.
Source: Variety