{"id":868523,"date":"2026-10-02T18:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T18:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/868523\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T18:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T18:10:09","slug":"the-watcher-season-2-starts-filming-years-after-renewal-whos-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/868523\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Watcher’ Season 2 Starts Filming Years After Renewal: Who’s Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThis may be the longest gap ever between a season of a TV series getting a greenlight and it going into production. Filming will begin this fall in New York on Season 2 of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan\u2019s The Watcher<\/a> four years after the horror mystery series was renewed in November 2022.<\/p>\n

\n\tComing back for the new installment are leads Naomi Watts<\/a> and Bobby Cannavale<\/a> as well as fellow main cast members Margo Martindale<\/a> and Isabel Gravitt<\/a>. Watts, Cannavale and Gravitt will reprise their roles as Nora Brannock, her husband Dean Brannock and their daughter Ellie Brannock, respectively. MIA is the couple\u2019s son Carter, played in Season 1 by Luke David Blumm. Martindale\u2019s return means good news for her character, the Brannocks\u2019 nosy neighbor Maureen (\u201cMo\u201d) who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the end of Season 2. (Mo\u2019s husband, played by Richard Kind, died during the first season.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Watcher and another Murphy and Brennan series for Netflix<\/a>, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, debuted within a couple of weeks of each other in fall 2022, both stemming from Murphy\u2019s big five-year overall deal with the streamer. <\/p>\n

\n\tBoth did well, especially Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which remains on Netflix\u2019s Top 10 most popular English series list, leading to the Nov. 7, 2022 renewals for Season 2 of The Watcher and Seasons 2 and 3 of Monster. Work started right away on Monster, which has now released three more seasons, while The Watcher remained dormant, raising questions whether the second season would ever be made, especially after Murphy left Netflix after his overall deal came to an end a few months after the renewal to return to 20th Television at Disney, ramping up new development and production right away.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Margo<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMargo Martindale and Isabel Gravitt in \u2018The Watcher\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNetflix<\/p>\n

\n\tBrennan will serve as showrunner on Season 2 of The Watcher, a role he also holds on Monster. Murphy executive produces both series while shepherding his slate under the overall deal at 20th TV, which pays his overhead. <\/p>\n

\n\tIt was the other way around while he was at Netflix. During his exclusive deal at the streamer, he executive produced five seasons of then-Fox\u2019s 9-1-1, four seasons each of Fox\u2019s 9-1-1: Lone Star and FX\u2019s American Horror Story, two seasons of FX\u2019s Pose, two seasons of FX\u2019s American Horror Stories, and one installment of FX\u2019s American Crime Story.<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos referenced the predicament when speaking about the streamer\u2019s overall deals at Bloomberg\u2019s Screentime conference Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA big challenge, I think even in the Ryan Murphy deal when we brought it on, was he had all these commitments to everybody else,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the time passed between a season\u2019s order and its start of production may be a record, The Watcher\u2018s second installment will likely be released next year, making for a five-year gap between consecutive seasons\u2019 release, shy of the six-year record for a U.S. series held by HBO\u2019s Curb Your Enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeason 1 of The Watcher followed the Brannock family who moved into what was supposed to be their suburban dream home, and quickly became a living hell. Ominous letters from someone calling themself \u201cThe Watcher\u201d were just the beginning as the neighborhood\u2019s sinister secrets came spilling out.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe season ended with the Brannocks moving out of the house to a New York apartment but Dean and Nora found themselves pulled back to the house. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Watcher spent 5 weeks on the Global Top 10 English TV list and hit the Top 10 in more than 90 countries. <\/p>\n

\n\tSeries creators Murphy and Brennan executive produce with Crystle Roberson Dorsey (EP\/Director), Nissa Diederich, Karl Frankenfield, Scott Robertson, Todd Kubrak, Tanase Popa, Watts, Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, Eric Newman and Bryan Unkeless.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe latest, fourth season of Murphy and Ian Brennan\u2019s true-crime anthology series Monster, The Lizzie Borden Story, has held the #1 spot on the Global Top 10 English TV list since its premiere on September 17, amassing 26.6M views to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This may be the longest gap ever between a season of a TV series getting a greenlight and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[150920,88,366268,125363,26072,217,290455,92],"class_list":["post-868523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bobby-cannavale","tag-entertainment","tag-isabel-gravitt","tag-margo-martindale","tag-naomi-watts","tag-netflix","tag-the-watcher","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}