'Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light' Trailer Promises an Epic Conclusion

Out of all the British series coming to American shores in 2025, the return of Wolf Hall to PBS, a decade after the series initially debuted, might be the most anticipated. The original series covered the two books released by Hilary Mantel at the time, Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies. While there were rumors at the time of optioning the trilogy's final novel, Mantel's The Mirror & The Light didn't arrive until 2020, arriving to a very different TV landscape. Thankfully, the BBC and Masterpiece kept their word, and while it took another five years, Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light is finally here.

The series has already premiered in the U.K. in November 2024, where it was praised to the rafters by TV critics. The Guardian called it "six hours of TV magic," The Independent was less poetic, declaring it "bloody good fun." However, The New Statesman's review is the one that told us what we needed to hear: "We owe a lot to Wolf Hall’s writer, Peter Straughan, whose script is restrained, blessedly non-explicatory and relies on silence for its fullest effects. Peter Kosminsky again directs," the review reads, and "is content for things to unfold – jeopardy, he has learned, loiters in unexpected corners – and he trusts his audience to understand that even when nothing seems to be happening, everything is. In this case, the very particles of the air are replete with murderous intent."

When it debuted in 2015, Wolf Hall stood out in the landscape of prestige TV because of its patience and restraint. Its quietude set it apart from all the other retellings of Henry's first divorce. The new trailer for the series, released by PBS, promises that those silences will be heavy and filled with performances worthy of the original.