Shadow and Bone cast, Six of Crows writers react to cancelation

Last week, we got the sad news that Netflix has canceled Shadow and Bone, its fantasy series based on the massively popular Grishaverse book universe by Leigh Bardugo. Netflix has developed a reputation for pulling the plug on its television shows after only a couple of seasons, but this cancelation stung more than most because it also put a stop to a planned Six of Crows spinoff. That series would have taken the fan-favorite group of criminals known as the Crows and adapted the high stakes heist at the heart of Bardugo’s Six of Crows book, which is probably one of the most beloved novels in the Grishaverse. Now, we’ll never see it.

Since the announcement that Netflix isn’t moving forward with more Shadow and Bone or Six of Crows, many members of the cast have shared statements. Let’s run through them, starting with Ben “The Darkling” Barnes, who shared several behind-the-scenes videos and pictures with his fellow cast mates:

Next up, Jessie Mei Li, who played Alina Starkov. Li shared to her Instagram that “S&B has come to an end. My first big job and I will never forget it. Walking away now towards exciting new horizons with some friends for life! Thanks for watching Grishaverse.”

Archie Renaux also chimed in; he played Mal Oretsev, Alina Starkov’s childhood best friend and slow-burn romantic partner:

Some of the Crows have been sounding off as well. Freddy Carter shared an image of Kaz Brekker’s gloves to Instagram. “Maybe at some point I’ll have the right words to express the immense gratitude I feel to everyone who put their whole hearts into making, watching and supporting ‘Shadow and Bone’. Until then, I’ll just say, thank you. No Mourners. No Funerals.”

Amita Suman, who played Kaz’s closest accomplice Inej, also shared a heartfelt message about her time playing the nimblest spy in the Grishaverse:

Six of Crows writer: “Y’all would have loved what we had in store”

Had things gone as planned, Carter and Suman would have starred next in a Six of Crows spinoff. Netflix went so far as to fully script that series while season 2 of Shadow and Bone was still in production. It already had a great cast for the Crows, and Six of Crows is probably Bardugo’s most popular Grishaverse book. All the makings were there for a great spinoff.

With the cancelation out in the open, the show’s writing team is opening up about some of their grief.

Daegan Fryklind served as a co-showrunner on Shadow and Bone season 2, in part so that the show’s original showrunner Eric Heisserer could develop Six of Crows. “Thank you to the cast, crew and the fans. What a joy it was to muck about in this world for 2 seasons,” Frkylind wrote on Twitter. “And in truth I’ll never really get over how this disbands such an incredible cast and robs them of the stories we had yet to tell. Lightning in a jar, it was. I think about the Inej episode that was in the SOC spinoff and want to scream into the infinite void.”

This is the first mention we’ve gotten of an Inej-centric episode in Six of Crows, and considering how popular a character she is, it sounds like something fans would have loved.

“One day I’m just going to do a twitter thread specifically about the Inej episode [Prathiksha Srinivasan] and [Joshua Levy] wrote just because I think the world was robbed of a painfully spectacular episode of television. All mourners all funerals in my heart,” wrote writer Christina Strain.

Srinivasan also weighed in, though she didn’t speak about the Inej episode specifically:

“With the cancellation of Shadow and Bone, there will also be no Six of Crows spin-off. I am so eternally grateful for the experience of working on SoC. This disappointment is crushing. Y’all would have loved what we had in store.”

Did Shadow and Bone season 2 ever hit number one on the Netflix charts?

We end the round-up with a couple of tweets from Lewis Tan, who joined Shadow and Bone in its second season as Tolya Yul-Bataar, a rogue Grisha working for the Ravkan prince Nikolai Lantsov. Tan shared some great behind-the-scenes photos thanking fans:

He then returned after Deadline published an article which said that “Season 2 of the big-budget fantasy drama, which launched in March, did not have the same impact Season 1 did. The series spent five weeks in the weekly Top 10 for English-language series without getting to No.1. That, coupled with the potential delay of Season 3, likely factored into the decision not to move forward.”

Tan took issue with the idea that Shadow and Bone never hit number one on Netflix. It did in many countries, and Tan had the receipts:

And here’s some extra backup from a fan:

Suffice it to say, it looks like Shadow and Bone did, in fact, hit number one on Netflix.

Nonetheless, these viewership numbers weren’t enough to save Shadow and Bone from the axe. To my eye, it looks like the streamer is using the Hollywood labor strikes as a convenient excuse to cancel the series. There is currently a petition running to try and save Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows. It has amassed over 125,000 signatures in its first five days.

Was Netflix right to cancel Shadow and Bone?

All that said, the cancelation of Shadow and Bone is a little more complicated than usual. I was one of those fans who raved about the first season of Shadow and Bone. I was pleasantly surprised at how much it actually improved on Bardugo’s source material, a rare thing when it comes to adaptations of fantasy books.

Season 2 was a very different affair. It rushed through books 2 and 3 of the original Shadow and Bone trilogy, truncating Alina Starkov’s story in a way that did a major disservice to the character, in order to get to the Six of Crows material more quickly. While a lot of people enjoyed it, there were also plenty who were pretty upset.

As a result, we had a somewhat divisive season 2, but a potential Six of Crows spinoff with a fantastic cast in the pipeline. The Crows spinoff seemed like something that many fans wanted to come to fruition whether they liked Shadow and Bone season 2 or not. Choices were made to better serve that expanded universe, perhaps at the expense of the mothership show’s second season. It’s a somewhat awkward situation.

To top it all off, Netflix itself probably isn’t blameless for some of the reception to season 2. The streamer reportedly pushed to have the Crows cross paths with Alina again in the sophomore season even though there was no basis in the source material for it. “We got a few begs, I would say, from Netflix after seeing what worked in season 1,” Heisserer told Entertainment Weekly back when the season aired. “That inclusion of the two groups together was a huge deal to them, it was a priority.”

It’s hard to truly know where things went wrong here, but Netflix prioritizing fan hype ahead of the needs of the actual story sounds like folly to me. You’d think that with the streamer laying this groundwork for Six of Crows, they might have been a little more aware that season 2 might ruffle some feathers. But here we are.

If you enjoyed Shadow and Bone, Leigh Bardugo’s books are still out there to read. And there’s always room for a rewatch of the first two seasons of the show if you want to spend more time with Li, Barnes, Carter, Suman and the rest.

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