The Family: Season Two Plans for Cancelled ABC Drama Revealed

The Family TV show cancelled by ABC. Photo credit: (ABC/Giovanni Rufino). Pictured Joan Allen, Alison Pill, Rupert Graves, and Liam James.

Because The Family TV show was cancelled, last night’s first season finale on ABC was also TV series finale. The Family, “What Took So Long,” was a cliffhanger, to say the least. The Family TV series creator, Jenna Bans, says the season one cliffhanger was always in the cards for the drama series.

Reportedly Bans and company have a lot of stories ready to go for a second season, should the show starring Joan Allen Rupert Graves, Alison Pill, Zack Gilford, and Liam James get picked up by another network. SPOILERS BELOW!

Here is more from Bans and TV Guide:

“We pitched Season 2 to the network and they had a great response,” Bans told TVGuide.com prior to the show’s cancellation on Thursday. “If anything, we feel like we have even more stories for next year. We’ve taken them to the point where the stakes for each of them could not be higher, so we’d be really happy if we could get a Season 2.”

The Family could theoretically be picked up elsewhere, but unless it does, Season 2 unfortunately will not come to fruition. But with so many loose ends — Adam is actually alive (!) and threatens to expose Ben (Liam James) on the phone, Jane (Zoe Perry) drives off with Adam, Bridey (Floriana Lima) is dead after Willa (Alison Pill) convinces her to not run her story about faux Adam — and so many questions, what would’ve happened in Season 2? Bans tells us below.

So Adam is alive. Was that always the plan?
Jenna Bans: It was always the plan. Obviously you and I had chatted about [if he was dead] before. Basically there are cliff-hangers going on and I went into a fugue state when you asked me if he was dead. [Laughs] The second thing was we were in a bit of a Jon Snow position because we’re obviously as popular as Game of Thrones! You don’t want to do a disservice to the audience and hem and haw and be vague about an answer like that, because audiences today are smart enough to know that any dancing around the topic means definitive confirmation that he’s alive. He is alive. We always knew he was alive. And we always knew we wanted that to be the last moment of the season finale.

There were hints that he might not be dead. Doug (Michael Esper) said he “took care of it,” which could’ve meant he killed Adam or he locked him away elsewhere.
Bans: Exactly. I think what you see in terms of the flashbacks in the finale is that Doug — and none of our characters — is not exactly perfect in whether they do good things or bad things. Doug fits that mold too in that he is a monster and a kidnapper and a pedophile. I don’t think he really thought it through when he put two boys down there. Now that they’re older and we see present-day Adam in the bunker flashbacks so driven and determined to escape at all costs, it was basically a constant struggle for Doug. These are two relatively strong teenage boys that could overpower him, and they almost did if Ben hadn’t freaked out and ruined the moment. I think Doug was smart enough to realize, given the opportunity to take Adam away after he got that injury and spiked a fever, he couldn’t put him back down there. There’s a lot we haven’t seen in terms of where Doug took Adam and where he’s been the in the few months. That would be something to explore Season 2. Our fans are smart. They were guessing that [Adam was alive].

[…]

Where are they driving to? Adam is threatening to come back home.
Bans: Jane is driving to Canada. She’s trying to get across the border. Jane’s single thought is about her baby right now and she knows she’ll be in major trouble once the authorities get involved. She made one big mistake for a guy she loved. I think Adam doesn’t know his plan yet. He’s gotten out and they’ve been driving for about 18 hours and I think he’s seen enough news coverage over the election to know Ben has stolen his life. Obviously it’s a huge shock to him and so I don’t think he knows his true plan yet. Season 2 would be about his plan. Right now he’s on the run. Ben has not only stolen his life but he’s stolen it in a very public way since his mother is a newly elected high-ranking government official.

[…]

Bridey’s dead. Did Willa kill her?
Bans: We obviously heavily implicated Willa. In Season 2, we would find that there are many people and many other facts that could’ve contributed to the fate Bridey has found herself in and it’s not so simple.

Do you have the culprit in mind?
Bans: We do. Bridey is an interesting character because she was one I wished we spent more time with. A lot of Bridey’s motivations didn’t make it onto the screen this year because of time. Our goal in having Bridey meet this fate is having Bridey explode audience’s minds. Floriana would come back. This is a show that exists in the past and present, so I think we would have more things to explore [with] Bridey next season.

[…]

How much of a Season 2 do you have planned out? Do you know when Ben and Adam would come face-to-face?
Bans: We do. We would do that sooner rather than later. We’re not going to draw out the idea that Adam is out there and not coming back. He’s going to come back soon. But it comes with a twist. We’ve been able to plan and structure a season in a way that would allow for Adam to come back to the Warrens’ lives and for the murder mystery to be wrapped up quickly. We revealed Adam was Ben pretty early on this year and we would take a page from that model. We bring Adam back, but that would turn into a different story. We have it loosely sketched out.

What do you think? Would you follow The Family TV series to another network or cable or streaming provider? Should The Family remained cancelled or be renewed for a second season?