“From the moment Prodigal Son premiered, fans have been captivated by the astounding performances turned in by Tom Payne and Michael Sheen, as they go head-to-head in one of the most unique family relationships on television. Adding to these searing dynamics are the equally compelling portrayals from Bellamy Young, Lou Diamond Phillips, Halston Sage and the entire cast in a brilliant premiere season as told by Chris Fedak and Sam Sklaver. We’d like to thank our friends Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter, and everyone at Warner Bros. Television for helping make a series that left everyone wanting more, and we’re thrilled to have Prodigal Son return for our 2020-21 slate.”
With glowing feedback on the existing cast coming straight from the top, don’t expect any changes in the lineup. The show, which stars Tom Payne as Malcolm Bright, is balanced by a supporting cast of the character’s wealthy New York elite family, with Bellamy Young as his mother, Jessica, and Halston Sage as his TV reporter sister, Ainsley, also joined by police characters played by Lou Diamond Phillips, Aurora Perrineau, Frank Harts and Keiko Agena. Of course, the demented heart of the series is Michael Sheen, who co-headlines as Malcolm’s incarcerated father, Martin Whitly, a.k.a. serial killer The Surgeon. Yet, the arc of the supporting characters has become increasingly prevalent, notably with the fate of Phillips’s Lieutenant Gil Arroyo—a fatherly figure to Malcolm—left in the air after he was inflicted with a mortal stab wound in the finale.
However, don’t expect Phillips’s Gil to take a turn for the worse, despite the cliffhanger on which he was left. The creators have made it abundantly clear that he’s too valuable to let go, especially with him being the show’s straight-and-narrow fatherly fulcrum and potential love interest to Jessica. Indeed, as Sklaver said back in April of the notion of not bringing him back, “I would go further and say that we would be fired. He’s too great. It is a major thing that we’re going to have to deal with.”
Prodigal Son Season 2 Details
With an air of inevitability that even came with a teaser trailer, some might wonder why the Prodigal Son Season 2 renewal announcement took so long, especially since the Season 1 finale aired back on April 27—nearly a month before the renewal ultimately arrived. The approach stood in stark contrast from last year when the network quickly gave a backorder for more episodes of the inaugural season. While the topic wasn’t addressed in the renewal statement, it does seem like a case of crossing t’s and dotting i’s on cast contracts, notably the always-busy Michael Sheen. Regardless, the co-creator Chris Fedak states that everyone was “cautiously optimistic” about the show’s chances of renewal.
Indeed, despite Fox’s recent axing of high-profile crime drama Deputy after an abbreviated debut season, there was plenty of reasons for creators Sam Sklaver and Chris Fedak to be optimistic, cautiously or otherwise. After all, the series managed to hold steady from its early success in the season finale, earning 3.53 million viewers. While it’s hardly a world-beating number, it was enough to come within a hair of winning its Monday timeslot against Big Three network competition in a rerun of CBS’s All Rise.
Prodigal Son premiered on Fox back on September 23, brandishing a headliner in (freshly-killed-off) The Walking Dead alumnus Tom Payne, who played a character named Jesus on that series, transitioning to—coincidentally—this biblically titled new crime drama. His protagonist character, Malcolm Bright (née Whitly), is a police consultant profiler who happens to be the son of notorious serial killer Martin Whitly, who’s played to demented perfection by Michael Sheen. Thus, the series—in a manner that puts a spin on a similar dynamic to NBC’s The Blacklist—Malcolm uses his well-honed professional skills to solve crimes in New York City, albeit with occasional help from the mindset of a killer from his institutionalized father, who whimsically obliges.
