Taboo spoilers below.
Way back in the bygone age that was 2017, the BBC officially announced that Tom Hardy's 19th-century caper Taboo would be coming back for a second season, meaning more James Delaney, more of his grimy cohorts from the league of the damned and even more grunting.
Six years later and we're still waiting – but one of the show's producers has finally given fans a promising update on season two, with episodes now expected to hit screens before too long.
When the show was initially confirmed for a second season way back when, creator Steven Knight promised (via RadioTimes) that James Delaney would continue to "explore many realities" as he "takes his band of misfits to a new world".
Executive producer Ridley Scott added: "We're thrilled people want to know what happens next and that the BBC and FX are up for more adventures with the devil Delaney and the league of the damned."
BBC director of content Charlotte Moore described season one as a "phenomenal success", going on to say that the "record numbers" of viewers were largely due to sticking it on BBC iPlayer.
"Launching in a new Saturday-night slot on BBC One provided us with an opportunity to take risks and showcase distinctive drama; and the growing talkability of Taboo has engaged younger audiences seeing record numbers coming to iPlayer, with the availability of the box set maximising audiences even further," she said.
"A second series can't come soon enough."
Chatting to RadioTimes.com, Knight said: "Their decision to put something like Taboo, which is pretty on the edge, on a Saturday night on BBC One was mad.
"But it was inspired too, because it worked. It got people talking, and it sort of created that slot. It was a trailblazer for that Saturday-night drama."
And season two could get even more edgy.
Originally, Hardy wanted season one to be more, well, ‘taboo’. The actor filmed sequences involving full frontal nudity, which were unfortunately leaked, and eventually cut from the show. In the final cut, a loin cloth preserved Delaney’s (and the BBC’s) dignity.
"You're lucky there was a loin cloth because I didn't want one. It's not a period drama until someone gets naked and covers themselves in blood. You can't have naughtiness like Game of Thrones on the BBC," Hardy said at the time (via Female First).
Of course, it’s been several years since Taboo first landed in 2017, and Hardy’s star has done nothing but rise ever since. So perhaps season two will see the actor’s transgressive desires realised.
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In the lead up to Taboo season two's future broadcast, we're going to compile all the latest news in one place, because that's how we roll.
Here's everything you need to know.
Taboo season 2 potential release date: When will it air?
Taboo fans received a long-awaited update on the second season at the start of this year, when show producer Dean Baker confirmed his team have finally started work on the second instalment of the BBC hit.
"Currently we are working on a second season of Taboo, and hopefully we will get to explore more Dickens [like Great Expectations] with Steve, Ridley and Tom," Baker told The Radio Times. Tentative good news.
In May 2022 it was reported that Knight and Hardy were meeting up to discuss the direction of the show. In an interview with Broadcast (as reported by Radio Times) the co-creator said: "I imagine that it will start production towards the end of next year. [Tom and I] are both keen to continue and there are lots of people who want us to continue in that direction. It's been a question of schedules and deciding where it goes next."
A realistic expectation for delivery would be 2024. We did say tentative good news.
Filming on series two was originally expected to begin in early 2018. "I'm trying to write it as quickly as I can," said series creator Steven Knight in mid-2017. "I would say we would hope to be shooting it... early next year."
But 2018 came and went, with Hardy and Knight's busy schedules apparently holding up more Taboo. Knight is the brains behind Peaky Blinders. He also wrote and directed Serenity, the thriller starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, and created See, the post-apocalyptic drama for Apple TV+, starring Jason Momoa and Alfre Woodard. More recently, he made the drama series SAS: Rogue Heroes with Connor Swindells and Jack O'Connell.
Hardy has also been pretty busy himself, having starred in Venom and its sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage. He also played the lead role in 2020's Capone and has cop thriller Havoc, from The Raid's director Gareth Evans, on the way this year too.
Hardy and Knight have most recently worked together on a new adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations for BBC One and FX, starring Olivia Colman.
Knight said the limited six-part series has been a "delight" to work on, adding: "I chose Great Expectations as the next work to bring to the screen not just because of the timeless characters, but also because of the very timely story.
"As the son of a blacksmith myself, Pip’s journey from the forge into society is a very special one to me."
"FX is honoured to begin the next chapter of collaboration with Steven Knight, Ridley Scott, Tom Hardy and their teams as they reunite for this modern adaption of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations," said Eric Schrier, president of FX Entertainment.
Charlotte Moore added: "[Great Expectations is] the perfect choice given its timely and personal narrative. [Knight's] original take on one of Britain's most loved classics will make it must see drama for a whole new generation."
Back to Taboo, we got a long-awaited update in early 2019, but it wasn't exactly great news: Knight revealed that the writing on the new series was "almost" finished, but filming wouldn't begin until late 2019 or even possibly early 2020, which obviously never came to be.
Then there was You Know What, which threw a spanner in the works for the vast majority of people working in film and TV. But filming on Taboo hadn't even begun by that point anyway, given Hardy and Knight's aforementioned busy schedules.
Another reason why the show is taking its sweet time is due to Hardy and his wife Charlotte Riley, who also appeared in Peaky Blinders as wealthy widow May Carleton, having a baby in January 2019.
Knight told Radio Times that pre-production had taken "a hiatus" for that reason.
Hardy did offer some Taboo news in an interview with Esquire in August 2021.
"The second season of Taboo is really, really important to me, and it’s taken a lot of thinking, because I really enjoyed the first one and I want to be really fulfilled by the second one," Hardy said.
"We’re still playing with ideas: you could go linear, a continuation of time, or we could drop prior to London [the first season began with Delaney returning to London after years missing in Africa], or we could quantum-leap through time! I don’t know whether to go orthodox – there’s a series of that already written – but I don’t know if that’s the right way to go."
Hardy has clearly been devoting some time to thinking about where the series could go next.
"In my head I was thinking, 'Let’s say they get to America, they get to Canada, fast-forward to 1968, the Tet Offensive, the Vietnam War, look at the CIA, the Viet Cong, the French in Saigon…. Take the Delaney family tree out in the jungle, and recreate the same family dynamics that were happening in London but with new people, thinking about how history and corruption repeats itself.
"It’s still Taboo, it’s still period, but it’s the Sixties. There’s something fun about that. Or do we go back to the 1800s? The Napoleonic Wars? The American War of Independence? But nothing’s crossed my heart and mind and desk where I’ve gone ‘That’s it!’ so I’m hanging fire."
Taboo season 2 cast: Who will star?
So far, Hardy's the only confirmed returnee for Taboo season two – he did co-create it with his dad, Chips Hardy, after all.
Hardy spoke to us about the show's origins in 2017: "It came about from doing [BBC One's 2007 miniseries] Oliver Twist and playing Bill Sykes.
"To be bluntly honest, I wanted to play Bill Sykes, Sherlock Holmes, Hannibal Lecter, Heathcliff, Marlow [from Heart of Darkness]... just every classical character in one."
During an interview with Collider, Knight explained why he has such a good working relationship with the show's leading man, and it might surprise you.
"I think it works because we don't socialise," he said. "We do occasionally but not very often. I think the relationship is totally about the work.
"The great thing about Tom is that's his passion, the work. The acting. He's not a fan of celebrity. But he just loves to act. He loves the process and the craft.
"For me, to have him occasionally available to do roles that you've written is wonderful because you know you can trust someone to really deliver what you do."
Main cast members who could potentially return include: Lorna Bow/Delaney (Jessie Buckley), Mark Gatiss (the Prince Regent), Stephen Graham (Atticus), David Hayman (Brace), Edward Hogg (Michael Godfrey), Jason Watkins (Solomon Coop) and Nicholas Woodeson (Robert Thoyt).
Then there's the recurring cast – Scroobius Pip (French Bill), Roger Ashton Griffiths (Abraham Appleby), Tom Hollander (George Cholmondeley), Marina Hands (Countess Musgrove), Lucian Msamati (George Chister) and Louis Serkis (Robert, James Delaney's half-brother) – all of whom could also make a comeback.
The following cast were all killed off in the first series, so are unlikely to reappear, unless they haunt James Delaney from beyond the grave: Oona Chaplin (Zilpha Geary), Jefferson Hall (Thorne Geary), Leo Bill (Benjamin Wilton), Michael Kelly (Edgar Dumbarton) and Jonathan Pryce (Sir Stuart Strange).
We'll be updating this page in the run-up to a second series, so keep it bookmarked it for all the latest cast announcements.
Taboo season 2 plot: What will happen next?
The first series closed with James and his surviving allies setting sail for America, and Steven Knight has given us some clues as to where he'll be taking James' story next.
"In my mind, explosive stuff is going to happen, which will be great," Knight said. "There's a great destination for it, but I don't know if we're in a position to talk about the actual details of it."
He has also teased that the show "heads west and becomes a little bit more narcotic, more opium-affected" in the second chapter.
Hardy also spoke to Entertainment Weekly about Delaney's allies and why they're so drawn to him.
"He's assembled quite the diverse collective... There's a strange nobility as well about that crew, the sort of not-so-polished members of society," he said.
"I think of the biggest things that we had in the original context of the series is that you realise that James is the least savage person in the room, whether around the company or the king. Those who are seen as more savage to those that are on the outside, those who are the voiceless have kind of banded together to use their collective intelligence to become a force to be reckoned with.
"There's something totally honest and noble about everybody who gets on that boat."
Hardy has also given hints, suggesting Taboo season two will revolve around the US spy network 'Colonnade'.
"When he says, 'We are Americans', James is very ambiguous with how much information he's going to give," he said. "In his mind, you will know when the time is right."
Radio Times attempted to predict what could happen next in Taboo season two by looking at real-life events that took place around this time period.
For example, the war between Britain and America played a huge role in season one, but this conflict ended shortly after the events of that chapter came to a close in early 1815.
As they point out: "If a second series included these events, it might make James’ plans slightly more difficult – if Britain and America are more friendly, how can he play them off against each other?"
It's also possible that James will discover more about his own heritage in America, perhaps via contact with the Native American tribe that his mother hailed from. Revelations from this could also tap into other mysteries first set up in season one, including the secret behind James’ tattoo and the murkier aspects of his past.
Taboo season 3 and beyond: What does the future hold?
There's no chance of this one getting stale – it'll be three series and out for Taboo, with Knight having a very clear idea of the show's three-act structure in his head.
"The first was 'the escape', the second will be 'the journey', and the third will be 'the arrival', and that'll be it," he revealed – so that probably equates to just 16 more hours in James Delaney's murky world, unless Hardy convinces Knight to abandon the structure altogether and move the action a few decades or even a century forwards.
Knight elaborated on his own plans during a conversation with Collider, explaining that he had always planned to map Taboo's story out over three seasons:
"If we all stick with it and we all want to keep doing it, it would be three [seasons]. That's my plan. Because I've got a geographical sort of route for the thing to take. It's basically a journey west," says Knight.
"I have a destination in mind. Which is always nice to have if you're setting off on this big journey, which is what writing three eight-hours is. It's good to know where you're headed."
Of course, it's all very much dependent on Hardy, as the main man.
"It really just comes down to Tom," Landgraf told Deadline. "It comes down to what Tom wants to do, when he wants to do it, when he is available.
"We've talked about — and are still talking about — the possibility of doing a season of which Tom would be a part of but not at the very centre of it.
"He seems very emotionally, very committed to this character, though, and very committed to this show. And Steven is still passionate and wants to write it, but It comes down to Tom's availability."
Taboo season 2 trailer: When can I watch it?
Not just yet, folks.
First up, we need that all-important air date (trailers usually land in the month leading up to the premiere).
Once we know that, we'll have a better idea.
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