Hulu's 'The Great' Wraps Filming on Season 2

Huzzah! Production has wrapped on Season 2 of Hulu's period comedy-drama The Great. 

The series, which is a wildly entertaining if not exactly historically accurate, take on the life of a young Catherine the Great, chronicling her rise from outsider to Empress, and eventually the longest-reigning female ruler in Russia's history.

It stars Elle Fanning as Catherine and Nicholas Hoult as her husband Peter III alongside such familiar faces as Sacha Dhawan, Charity Wakefield, Phoebe Fox, Adam Godley, and more. 

“Season 2 of The Great has officially wrapped,” star Fanning announced on Instagram. “Wow. What a tremendous feat filming in a global pandemic. I am eternally grateful for the crew that kept us all safe and going. "

Here's a quick update from the court. #TheGreat Season 2 has officially wrapped filming! pic.twitter.com/L5zLcwzW4j

— The Great (@TheGreatHulu) July 19, 2021

"This season is going to be WILLLLDDDD! I love them with all my heart. Cannot wait for you to see what we have cooked up," Fanning wrote.

The Great's ten-episode first season saw Catherine arrive in Russia to wed Peter, only to discover that her new husband wasn't exactly the fairytale love she'd been promised. Over the course of the season, Catherine ham-fistedly plots a coup against her spouse, even as their relationship grows more complicated and she realizes how unprepared she is to become a leader in her own right. Though the show is a period story (with fantastic costumes to match!) it nevertheless wrestles with much broader and more modern concepts, such as the role of women in power, and how we remember the figures of our own past.

We don't know much about what Season 2 of The Great will entail. When last we saw our favorite Russian monarch, Catherine was pregnant (presumably with her son Paul) and her coup attempt had just begun. Since Hoult is clearly still part of the show, it seems likely that the series is going to fudge the truth about how long Peter actually lived after Catherine took power (the sort of historical revisionism I am completely fine with by the way in this case.) What we do know: The Crown's Gillian Anderson will appear in two episodes as Catherine's mother, Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp, who will reportedly arrive in Russia on a mission to save her family's reputation.

There's no word on when we might expect to see The Great return to our screens, but it's likely that Season 2 will drop later this year.