Everything to Remember About 'All Creatures Great & Small' Season 2

It was peak timing when the All Creatures Great and Small reboot debuted its first season in the winter of 2021. The first miserable lockdown of winter required the bright and sunny dales of Yorkshire and the notes of comfort and hope the show provided. James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) was an avatar perfect for introducing the world of England's northern farm country that existed in the space between the end of the industrial age and the beginning of the technological one, and the show was a perfect escape for U.K. and U.S. viewers alike. However, it also meant the already-commissioned Season 2 had a tough act to follow.

One unique aspect of this All Creatures' first season was how much slower it moved the story than its predecessor, keeping the James and Helen (Rachel Shenton) romance a slow burn that didn't culminate until the end of Season 2. It also added an extra wrinkle in Herriot's story that didn't exist in the original series, where he meets and marries Helen within the first eight episodes of Season 1: The opportunity to leave Yorkshire if he wanted. The series ran with that in Season 2, giving viewers a season-long "will he or won't he" for James that wasn't about his love for Helen but his love for the place he'd found himself.

It also allowed the show to open Season 2 with an echo of Season 1, with Herriot back in Glasgow, now just as big a jolt to the senses as his initial journey to Yorkshire was in the series premiere. The offer of a job and the ability to come back home hung heavy over the next six episodes, with James waffling, not wanting to disappoint his family in Scotland but also not wanting to disappoint those he had grown to consider family in Yorkshire, knowing whichever choice he made, someone would be hurt.