We all saw it coming. Still, the best show of 2024 gave us a welcome surprise. At last night’s Golden Globe Awards, the FX series Shōgun not only cemented its remarkable year in gold, but also gave all of its fans an update on its upcoming second season to tide us over as we wait to return to feudal Japan.
According to ScreenRant’s reporting from a Golden Globes press conference attended by Shōgun creators Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, the pair dished on Season 2’s development as an ongoing process before Marks revealed, “we’re about six weeks until the end of the writers’ room.” Yes, by the end of February, the next installment in the saga of Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) and potentially John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis, who is not yet confirmed to be returning) will likely be written.
This news comes after the show with the most-watched debut week in FX history, won all four of the Golden Globe awards it was nominated for, including Best Television Drama. With that win, it became only the third FX show in the last 20 years to be bestowed such an honor, following the criminally underrated The Americans and Nip/Tuck. Tadanobu Asano’s stellar portrayal of disgraced and deceitful Kashigi Yabushige helped win the network its first-ever Golden Globe in the category of Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film. The show’s other wins were Sanada for Actor in a Drama TV Series, and Anna Sawai, who played Lady Mariko, for Actress in a Drama TV Series.
At the end of its first season, which was based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel of the same name, Toranaga had surreptitiously been treating people’s lives like chess pieces, keeping Blackthorne under his control by destroying his ship, and benefiting from Lady Mariko’s heartbreaking death after sending her into the lion’s den of Osaka where his rival Ishido Kazunari (Takehiro Hira) was awaiting his surrender. And he still hasn’t divulged the full extent of his plans, even with a major battle for ruler of Japan possibly on the horizon.
Safe to say that while season one more or less covered the entirety of James Clavell’s novel, there’s more than enough opportunity for the show’s writers to continue the story and create another award-winning year for one of the best shows of the 2020s.
