Shadow and Bone – Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023
The Grishverse is back after a two-year hiatus, but now we face another wait for season 3 of Shadow and Bone, which has yet to be confirmed. Will Shadow and Bone gets a season 3 renewal? What can we expect from a new season, and what about the rumored spinoff? Here’s what we know so far.
Based on the Grishaverse books by Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone is Netflix’s big-budget fantasy show helmed by Eric Heisserer and starring Jessie Mei Li, Archie Renaux, Freddy Carter, and Ben Barnes.
Season 1 landed on Netflix in April 2021, with season 2 released almost two years later in March 2023.
How well is Shadow and Bone Season 2 Performing on Netflix?
Official Renewal Status: Not Yet Renewed
Our Renewal Prediction: Too Early to Call
A renewal of Shadow and Bone will come down to the numbers, given it hasn’t earned itself an early renewal upfront. As we’ve covered before, Netflix shows have to meet several internal metrics used at Netflix, with one of the most important metrics, we’re told, being the completion rate.
Using several sources, we’ll be keeping track of the show’s progress on Netflix plus externally below:
Let’s begin with Netflix itself, which releases hourly data for its top 40 shows and movies every Tuesday.
Here’s how it’s weekly ranking in the Netflix global top 10s looks thus far:
| Week Period | Hours Viewed(M) | Rank | Week in Top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 12th, 2023 to March 19th, 2023 | 50,400,000 | 2 | 1 |
Sadly, this is not a massive debut for Shadow and Bone season 2 and the number by itself puts the show instantly at risk, but weeks number 2 and 3 will perhaps be the most important for the show.
We also don’t have any direct 1-to-1 comparisons with season 1 either, as that was released before we started receiving hourly data. Back then, we only learned that 55 million people watched season 1 in the first 28 days.
One positive note is that season 1 saw a big bump in viewership in week 1, meaning people are either introduced to the show for the first time or rewatching (after all, a two-year wait is a long time). Season 1 scored 24.07M hours in week 1 of S2 being released.
To illustrate this, we’ve compared the show’s second season purely to other genre shows in their first week; we can see Shadow and Bone is set between two groups of shows thus far, meaning, in our opinion, it’s currently skirting the line.
| Title | Week 1 – Hours in Top 10s | Status |
|---|---|---|
| The Sandman | 69,480,000 | Renewed |
| Vikings: Valhalla S2 | 55,350,000 | Renewed |
| Shadow And Bone S2 | 50,400,000 | Unknown |
| Raising Dion S2 | 49,090,000 | Canceled |
| Fate: The Winx Saga | 48,960,000 | Canceled |
| Warrior Nun S2 | 26,220,000 | Canceled |
How does the CVE (complete viewing equivalent – divide the number of hours vs. the show’s runtime) look? Well, the chart below doesn’t paint a powerful picture for week 1:
CVE for Shadow and Bone Season 2 in Week 1
TelevisionStats.com uses multiple metrics from around the web including Wikipedia traffic, IMDb traffic, Twitter, Reddit, and Torrents, to judge what the most “in-demand” shows at any given time. Shadow and Bone look to be doing well there, with it only being outranked by The Last of Us since season 2 dropped.
Picture: TelevisionStats.com
Finally, how about critical consensus?
On that front, things look decent. Season 2 on RottenTomatoes scored well with critics (just like season 1), with an 84% rating compared to the 89% for season 1.
IMDb scores for the individual episodes in season 2 ranged from 7.6 to 8.6.
Picture: RottenTomatoes
As stated above, it’s a little too early to know whether season 3 of Shadow and Bone is coming or not. We haven’t given it an instant renewal prediction, but it’s also not an instant cancelation prediction.
We’ll have more data in the weeks and months to come, including updated data from the sources above and other sources like Nielsen and FlixPatrol.
What to Expect from Shadow and Bone Season 3
There’s a lot of story left to be told in Shadow and Bone season 3, even though much of the main book trilogy has been adapted, with season 2 covering much of the events of Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising with the finale of season 2 showing us the Darkling’s death but notably diverges from the books by splitting the pair up and introducing a new darkness into Alina’s world.
The show’s creators have teased that any new season would consist of a mix of new original material while also weaving in some of the King of Scars duology novels.
Netflix Life detailed some of the biggest burning questions for season 3, including:
- Is Alina now a Shadow Summoner?
- What’s happening to Nikolai at the end of Shadow and Bone season 2?
- What is the drug jurda parem that the Crows are trying to stop?
Shadow and Bone. (L to R) Jessie Mei Li as Alina Starkov, Archie Renaux as Malyen Oretsev in episode 201 of Shadow and Bone. Cr. Dávid Lukács/Netflix © 2023
Will there be a Shadow and Bone Spinoff?
Since season 1 debuted, we’ve consistently heard rumors of a Six of Crows spin-off.
Eric Heisserer confirmed these plans to Entertainment Weekly on March 16th, telling the access outlet the spin-off would “be its own little season of fun that our characters would get to be a part of,” but added that it depends largely on the numbers for season 2.
“There’s a lot of work that’s gone into the planning of this. The hope is then we get to act on that planning,” Heisserer told EW. “But of course, it’s about how well season 2 numbers do. And if so, then Daegan and I will continue to carry the mantle of both shows, which is also helpful because we have a lot of mouths to feed” — in terms of giving screen time to all the actors.”
Shadow and Bone: Destinies Coming Soon to Netflix
Picture: Netflix Games
Finally, in 2022 Netflix announced it would be releasing a mobile companion game for Shadow and Bone slated for release in 2023 but clearly wasn’t ready in time for the release of season 2.
Here’s what you can expect from the game per the games developer, Chimera Entertainment:
“Shadow and Bone: Destinies is a single-player role-playing game for Netflix’s gaming service on mobile devices, based on the IP of the same name. Players choose a variety of heroes to journey across the world of the Grishaverse in a story-driven quest to fulfill their destinies. Along the way, they will have to manage scarce resources, uncover clues about their destiny, and interact in a wide variety of events, such as using Grisha magic, stealth, negotiation, and combat. The game could also be described as a modern “choose your own adventure” game, with a healthy dose of RPG and episodic storytelling.”
Do you want to see the return of Shadow and Bone for a season 2 and the spin-off? Let us know in the comments down below.