Betty Season 2 - What We Know So Far
Before HBO's hit drama series Betty came to life, filmmaker Crystal Moselle made Skate Kitchen, a film released in 2018 about a crew of teenage girls venturing into the male-dominated world of skateboarding. The film was extremely well-reviewed, winning a few awards on the festival circuit and getting an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The HBO series brings back the actors and characters from the feature film, expanding the narrative into a six episode first season. Moselle takes on multiple creative roles for the television adaptation, producing the series and directing all six episodes in season 1. She also wrote the pilot for Betty, called "Key Party." It turns out that HBO made a great decision backing Betty, as the series also found critical acclaim upon its release. On Rotten Tomatoes, Betty's first season stands at an accomplished 97% critics rating, with many reviewers praising the show's message of female empowerment and independence. Robert Daniels of RogerEbert.com called the series "a spontaneous and deeply sincere drama about living and skating freely."
With such a fantastic response from critics, it wasn't too surprising when Betty was officially renewed by HBO for a second season in June of 2020, shortly after the season 1 finale aired (via Deadline). Unfortunately for fans of the show, there's been little information released since then, but rest assured that a new season is on its way.
Here's everything we know about Betty season 2 — so far.
What is the release date of Betty season 2?
As of right now, HBO has not announced an official premiere date for Betty's second season. Season 1 of the drama premiered its first episode on HBO on May 1, 2020, with the five following episodes airing weekly from then on. While the renewal followed closely after the finale's airing, there are still many factors of pre-production and filming that make a release date for the next season difficult to guess.
At the time when the announcement first came out last June, the team behind Betty still had to write the new episodes, possibly cast new characters, and plan out an entire season's production. Considering it's an HBO show, the scale for their productions is generally a lot bigger than other television series. Also, Betty is reportedly filmed on location in New York City, not on a set or soundstage, which would've made filming very difficult to do during the second half of 2020, and even now. On top of that, it's possible that the creative team wants to have season 2 take place in good weather, and it's likely that by the time they were ready for filming, NYC was in full-blown wintertime. Of course, this is speculation, as HBO has released no further information to go on.
Thinking positively, if Betty managed to stay on track for a normal second season production schedule, fans of the series can probably expect new episodes to air sometime in Summer or Fall 2021. HBO will hopefully make an announcement one way or another about Betty season 2 soon.
Who is in the cast of Betty season 2?
Just like it did when Skate Kitchen became Betty, the cast of the drama series will remain largely the same moving into season 2. The original cast includes Dede Lovelace as Janay, Nina Moran as Kirt, Rachel Vinberg as Camille, Anjani Russell as Indigo, Reza Nader as Farouk, Kabrina "Moonbear" Adams as Honeybear, Jules Lorenzo as Yvette, and Brenn Lorenzo as Celia. All of these actors are relative newcomers to the industry, having only worked on Skate Kitchen and some of Moselle's short films before this series.
As for members of the cast that you might recognize, Katerina Tannenbaum, who was previously in AJ and the Queen and Sweetbitter, plays Ash, Edmund Donovan, who was in High Fidelity and Hightown, plays Bambi, while Caleb Eberhardt, who was in The Deuce, Black Christmas, and most recently the Oscar-nominated Judas and the Black Messiah, plays a character named Donald in Betty. Supporting cast member Eisa Davis is also a familiar face, as she has had a long acting career on television with appearances in many hit shows, including House of Cards, The Looming Tower, and Succession.
Although it's highly likely that there will be some new faces in Betty's second season, there have been no casting announcements yet.
What is the plot of Betty season 2?
Betty season 2 will pick up where season 1 left off with the main group of female skateboarders and their friends. HBO's official synopsis for the series says, "Betty' follows a diverse group of young women navigating their lives through the predominantly male-oriented world of skateboarding, set against the backdrop of New York City." The title is a reference to the term "Betty" used by male skaters to put down their female counterparts and not take them seriously.
At the beginning of Betty, the group of young women are attempting to have a skating session together, but they find themselves blocked by sexist male skaters who aren't very welcoming. Over the course of season 1, the women face off against many obstacles in their lives, physical and not, in order to earn their well-deserved space in the skating world. As Ashlie D. Stevens at Salon described the series in their review, Betty has "a kind of heady rawness, bolstered by lo-fi beats and golden panoramic shots of New York at dusk, and the subtle interrogation — and occasional confrontation — of complex issues of race and identity."
By the end of the season, the young women at the center of the story succeed in having a group skate together, but there are plenty of other character plotlines and questions left unanswered. Betty's strength is in the questions it brings up about society, girlhood, race, sexuality, and other important parts of life, and not necessarily whether or not it presents concrete answers. It's a character study of these complex young women, and there's definitely plenty of interesting places Betty season 2 could go.