Class Of '09 Is Unlikely To Return For Season 2 For A Key Reason

Hulu’s Class of ’09 is a suspenseful, eight-episode puzzle, interweaving three decades-spanning timelines. Expect the thriller’s finale, titled “Graduation,” to provide a completed picture because there are no plans to bring the FX-produced limited series back for a Season 2. “It’s like a movie, in that it’s contained and not an ongoing procedural that’s gonna go for five seasons,” executive producer Jessica Levin explained to Collider in early June. “More than a film, you have a fairly constrained canvas, in terms of where you’re gonna start and where you’re gonna end, and tracking those relationships in ways that are very clear and that have a start, a middle, and a finish.”

Centered on FBI agents Ashley Poet (Kate Mara), Tayo Michaels (Brian Tyree Henry), and their fellow Quantico outsider recruits, Class of ’09 documents the life-changing impact of artificial intelligence on the U.S. criminal justice system, along with humanity in general, at three critical points in time: “The Past” (2009), “The Present” (2023), and “The Future” (2034).

“We’re lucky that we timed it to this moment in time. When we were looking at it, it was a little bit in the future, and now it’s now,” Emmy-winning creator Tom Rob Smith added, noting the coincidence of AI currently dominating headlines and national conversation. “When we were talking about it, we were worried that it would seem a little hard to explain. Now, you just say the FBI has ChatGPT, and you suddenly get it straight away, when it would have been a little bit harder and we would have had to do a little more work to explain that.”

Indeed, Class of ’09 had a long journey to the small screen. Beginning with an idea spared by Smith’s fascination with class photos (and the mysteries contained therein), the creator spent years developing scripts before encountering pandemic-related production delays. He also did his research, consulting with FBI Retired Case File Review’s Jerri Williams, reading books, speaking with agents (as well as the FBI’s deputy director), and even visiting the bureau’s Quantico academy. “Their cases were almost like books—they weren’t, as we’ve seen in television, compressed into a quick fix,” he recalled to Vanity Fair in March 2023. “It was a real journey.”

Aside from the arduous post-production editing process, the logistics of shooting multiple timelines was a challenge for the cast, which also includes Sepideh Moafi (Hour), Brian J. Smith (Lennix), Jon Jon Briones (Gabriel), Brooke Smith (Drew), Jake McDorman (Murphy), and Rosalind Eleazar (Vivienne). “It was really—really—a lot of work,” Mara added to Vanity Fair, noting that Poet’s age-up transformation process required her to sit in the makeup chair for three hours a day to get into character. “There were definitely times where we would forget or we would be confused about, like, ‘Is this before or after X happened?’ It’s a lot to remember and keep track of.”

Though a Class of ’09 reunion is unlikely, fans can see Mara, whose Black Mirror “Beyond the Sea” episode premiered on June 15, in the upcoming English-language remake of The Little Bedroom, alongside Morgan Freeman and Laurence Fishburne. Henry, for his part, is currently lending his voice to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s Jefferson Davis, and he will also star in March 2024’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.