'The Ex-Wife' Returns for Season 2 with a New Ex-Wife

The collapse of Paramount, once a production studio so mighty its name was shorthand for the Supreme Court case that broke up the studio system, has primarily manifested in the U.S. in not-so-obvious ways. They're all small-time complaints that add to a portrait of dysfunction and incompetence, like Paramount's biggest hit, Yellowstone, streams on rival streaming service Peacock; or my endless complaints about how MobLand is being marketed. (How is MobLand being marketed? Poorly; the answer is poorly.) But over in the U.K. the bellyflop of Paramount+'s ambitions has been much more visible, including the latest series from the company, The Ex-Wife, which is gearing up for Season 2.

Like The Gold, The Ex-Wife was one of the earliest shows Paramount+ greenlit for its "international slate" that never came to fruition, however, unlike several of those series which were canceled mid-filming and never completed, The Ex-Wife wound up a finished series without a streaming home in the U.S. like The Flatshare and The Burning Girls, which was only marginally worse than those that did come to Paramount+ in the States like Sexy Beast and A Gentleman in Moscow.  It actually did better than those last two, winding up streaming on BritBox in the summer of 2023.

However, Paramount's inability to guarantee a second season would happen caused the loss of the series' lead character, and somehow, most of the production team never made it to Season 2 either. At this point, the series isn't even able to say it's based on the 2022 novel by Jess Ryder, where a second wife is gaslit into believing her husband's ex is out to get her, when he's actually an abusive monster and his former wife is trying to save her life. However, Season 1 used up all the novel's material, so Season 2 is a complete flight of fancy created wholesale for the series to continue.

Here's the Season 2 synopsis:

The second season picks up three years after the conclusion of series one, with Tasha now hiding in Cyprus with her daughter Emily, while Jen has moved on and is preparing to walk down the aisle for a second time.

Living under false identities, Tasha has started a new life for herself and Emily. However, Tasha is forced to abandon her fresh start when she learns that Jack has been released from prison early – having only served a year of his sentence. Jack appears to be a changed man, grieving the death of his daughter and searching for redemption from a newly engaged Jen.

With the shadow of the past haunting all three characters, attempts at moving on only bring them closer together, but who can each of them really trust, and can anyone truly change?

The big story for Season 2 is that, hilariously, the series has recast the lead titular character, even though, as viewers learned in Season 1, she was not actually the lead, and honestly could have been played by an inanimate object. Katie McGrath (Merlin) replaces Janet Montgomery (who is now busy starring in 1923) as the Ex-Wife (who is over all of this), Jen. 

Returning cast from Season 1 includes Celine Buckens (Showtrial) as Second Wife Tasha, Tom Mison (Lost in Austen) as the serial marrying kind Jack, and Jordan Stephens (Foundation) as Tasha's ex-boyfriend and generally random extra character, Sam. Liberty Miller (Malpractice) plays daughter Emily.

The team behind The Ex-Wife has also been replaced wholesale for Season 2. Catherine Steadman (Downton Abbey), who penned all four episodes of Season 1, has been replaced by a trio of writers for Season 2: Polly Buckle (Bergerac), Nessa Muthy (Virdee), and David Turpin (The Cuckoo). Director Paul Walker (Riviera) takes over from Brian O'Malley (The Lodgers) to helm all four episodes.

The Ex-Wife Season 2 is expected to debut in the U.K. on Paramount+ and Channel 5 in mid-2025. The series will then come to BritBox in the U.S. towards the end of the year.