Netflix has yet to renew Ransom Canyon, but there’s already a writers room working on season 2 scripts — and ideas on how to expand the universe.
“We’ve already started the writers’ room, even though the show hasn’t been picked up to series yet for season 2,” creator April Blair told TV Insider on Saturday, April 19, about their plans for the future. “Quinn’s going to go off to New York and come back. How is [Staten] going to win her back if he’s still haunted? I don’t feel like he could ever truly move on in his heart and his mind until that mystery [about his son’s death] was settled.”
The revelations in the finale will affect the direction of a potential season 2. “We wanted to find some closure with that, and also, who was behind it and what really happened opens up a whole new series of relationship drama between Lucas and Lauren, as you know,” Blair said. “So it gives us a lot of runway in other stories as well.”
During the first season, Staten (Josh Duhamel) learned that Lauren’s (Lizzy Greene) mom — who is also Sheriff’s (Philip Winchester) wife — was the one driving when his teen son, Randall (Hubert Smielecki), died in a hit and run. Lucas’ (Garrett Wareing) brother, Kit (Casey W. Johnson), helped cover the crime up because of his affair with Margaret (Sarah Minnich).
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“In a potential season 2, I think it’s a huge part of what’s going on. We’re still just in the room, so I don’t have every aspect to tell you. Westerns are morality tales, and so every aspect of this show, we always try to come from that foundation of love, lands, and legacy, and what that really means,” Blair continued. “For Sheriff Dan, this is his legacy and his family and the people that he loves. He has this moral choice. Does he do the right thing by his family and the wrong thing by his profession? That’s his morality moment, so we try to do that with everyone, but that’s the thing he’s grappling with, and he painfully chooses to do the right thing.”
The Netflix series, which premiered on Thursday, April 17, is based on Jodi Thomas‘ book series about a town that is full of drama, romance and hope in Texas Hill Country.
“That could be a whole spinoff of its own, the OG love triangle of Ransom Canyon,” Blair hinted about Staten’s romance with his late wife (played by Ava Phillippe in flashbacks). “We would love for her to come back. She was amazing. I literally had a cameraman on set who came up and was like, ‘That girl looks exactly like Reese Witherspoon’ I was like, ‘Funny you should say that.’”
According to Blair, Staten and Quinn’s (Minka Kelly) teen years were introduced for a reason.
“We cast that character with a lot of care, even though it was for this little bit, but we just wanted to be prepared and to be able to use it more in future seasons, or as its own show, potentially,” she continued. “I just thought it was fun, and also just what Ava brings to it is very much A-type, bossy. It just made it easier to communicate who that character was, and because Amalah looms larger than life in everyone’s world, and they’re always talking about her, that when we finally saw her face, we wanted it to be someone that was exciting.”
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Season 2 is still in its early stages but there’s already big ideas — including a time jump.
“We would need to because I don’t want to do anything in New York,” Blair shared. “Quinn needs to go away and save her ranch, and we need to see what the implications are for that punch that Davis goads Staten into doing and what that plot between Davis and Staten’s father, the senator, is like.”
She concluded: “I think we would probably do that because she says, ‘I’m going to go away for six months.’ So the idea right now, although nothing’s set in stone, is that we would do at least a six-month time jump.”
Ransom Canyon is currently streaming on Netflix.
