The Other Black Girl Season 2: Cancelation & Everything We Know

After the first chapter ended with a shocking twist there’s intense demand for The Other Black GIrl season 2, but Hulu has opted to cancel the series after only one season. Adapted from the Zakiya Dalila Harris novel of the same name, Hulu’s The Other Black Girl focuses on editorial assistant Nella Rogers (Sinclair Daniels), the only Black employee at publishers Wagner Books. When Hazel-May McCall (Ashleigh Murray) is hired, Nella is no longer alone at Wagner — but Nella’s initial kinship with Hazel-May quickly takes a dramatic turn.

Nella suspects Hazel-May might be sabotaging her to advance her career. However, it becomes clear The Other Black Girl isn’t just about workplace tension and marginalization. There are shady dealings afoot at Wagner, and the publisher has a disturbing history. The shocking finale to season 1 revealed that Hazel-May’s behavior is because of her part in a secret society focused on forcing Black women to assimilate into white culture. The twist was huge, but fans of The Other Black Girl will likely never get any closure because of the cancelation.

The Other Black Girl Season 2 Is Canceled

Hulu Has Chosen Not To Renew

The Other Black Girl may have ended on a shocking and inconclusive note, but the series as a whole was given a much more anticlimactic conclusion in May 2024. After nearly 9 months of waiting, Hulu unceremoniously canceled The Other Black Girl after only one season (via The Hollywood Reporter), and no specific reason has been stated. Streaming viewership numbers aren’t very transparent, but that is the most likely culprit. Though the show fared modestly with critics (and less so with audiences), it likely didn’t garner enough views to satisfy Hulu.

Based on statements from the showrunner, plans were in place to continue the show if it was renewed, and the decision to change the ending of season 1 to deviate from the book showed there were larger ideas afoot. Unfortunately, those plans likely won’t come to fruition, and there’s little chance that it will be saved by another streamer or network. Hulu axed a heap of shows in early 2024 (Death and Other Details, This Fool, The Great, How I Met Your Father etc), and the streamer is clearly trying to strike some sort of equalibrium now that the TV industry is leveling out.

The Other Black Girl Season 2 Cast

Who Could Have Returned?

There were no announcements about The Other Black Girl season 2 cast, but it was expected the lineup wouldn’t be too dissimilar from season 1. Sinclair Daniels and Ashleigh Murray would almost certainly have reprised their roles as Nella and Hazel-May, especially since the chemistry between the two actors — both when their characters are in sync and when they’re at odds — was the highlight of the show.

However, Daniels and Murray are far from the only names in The Other Black Girl cast, and most of the other ensemble cast members could have returned since there weren’t any shock character deaths. There could have been some alterations due to unforeseen events preventing the actors from returning, as is the case with all TV shows, but the cast of The Other Black Girl season 2 was unlikely to deviate much from the established lineup. It’s also likely that The Other Black Girl season 2 would have introduced some new cast members.

The season 2 cast of The Other Black Girl would likely have included:

The Other Black Girl Season 2 Story

How Would Season 2 Have Continued After Passing The Book’s Ending?

Despite being an adaptation of a novel, predicting the plot of The Other Black Girl season 2 is incredibly difficult. There was no follow-up book to Zakiya Dalila Harris’s novel, and the show made several alterations when bringing the story to the small screen. Harris herself worked on developing The Other Black Girl for Hulu alongside Rashida Jones, so the show hasn’t taken any creative licenses unintended by the author.

At the end of season 1 Nella manages to infiltrate the offices of Wagner by tricking Hazel and Diana into thinking she’s on board with their plan and ready to become a conditioner. This is, of course, a ruse on Nella’s part, but it creates questions since Nella did use the hair grease in the book and became a conditioner herself. Season 2 of The Other Black Girl could have almost played out like a “what if” scenario for the books because it’s essentially the story of “what if Nella didn’t use the hair grease”.

While this makes plot specifics more or less unknown, it does mean that The Other Black Girl season 2 was likely to focus on Nella continuing to infiltrate Wagner while hiding the fact she never used the hair grease and underwent conditioning herself. It was expected that plenty of intrigue, mystery, nailbiting tension, and, of course, a healthy dose of comedy would be at play in The Other Black Girl season 2, but fans will likely never get closure.