Harlan Coben’s Lazarus left viewers slack-jawed with its shock ending — but will the show be returning for a season 2?
“I’ve never done a season 2 — and we’ve been offered them in the past,” Coben, who created the series alongside Danny Brocklehurst, exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month. “We opened a little bit of a door to have a little fun with you at the end. But it’s not really a cliffhanger so much as it is, sort of, a door opener.”
Coben, 63, explained that he’ll “only” do a second season of a show if he thinks it’ll be better than the first. The author (who didn’t adapt this Prime Video show from one of his books) said that viewers of his shows will find that there are no lingering questions after the finale.
“All the questions that we start with in episode one are answered in episode six,” he added. “It is complete. Will there be a season 2? I don’t know.”
But Coben is never saying never.
Spoilers for Lazarus, below.
The show, which premiered all six episodes on Wednesday, October 22, starred Sam Claflin as Joel, a forensic psychologist who returns home after his father’s mysterious suicide. While cleaning out his dad, Dr. L’s (Bill Nighy) office, he starts to see ghosts of dead patients. Joel discovers that they’re all cold cases — and he starts to solve them.
The season finale of Lazarus finally revealed the killer — well, in this case, there three killers. The first killer was Sam Olsen (Edward Hogg), a former classmate who was obsessed with Joel’s twin sister Sutton (Eloise Little) and murdered her 20 years prior.
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Despite his connection to the Lazarus family, he didn’t actually kill any of Dr. L’s patients. Who did? Dr. L himself. Once his transgressions were discovered, he realized there was no way out, which led to his death.
The final killer was, as Claflin told Us, a “total wild card.” Earlier on in the season, it’s revealed that Joel fathered a son, Aidan (Curtis Tennant), with ex-girlfriend Bella (Karla Crome).
In the show’s final scene, Joel is going to visit the house of his therapist-turned-sort of love interest and finds that her home has been broken into. While investigating, Joel turns around to find Aidan holding a bloody sickle, signifying that he was the final killer, before the screen went black.
“The last episode completely blew my mind,” Claflin told Us. “I did not see it coming. There were moments where I thought Joel, I thought it was all him.”
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What happened when the screen went black?
“I think Joel absolutely does not get killed. No way,” Claflin added. “It definitely opens up the opportunity of Joel — almost like a Dexter situation — where I sort of try to help him.”
He added, “There’s definitely room for a series two, but it’s not up to us. It’s up to an audience, and if people really want that. I think it [was] beautifully left open ended.”
All episodes of Harlan Coben’s Lazarus are now streaming on Prime Video.
