Are you ready for a brand new series to get the Netflix Bump? After You become the streaming service’s first breakout hit of 2019 — despite actually debuting months earlier on Lifetime — fellow cable anthology Dirty John is poised to be the next cable series to dominate Netflix discourse and Twitter trends. The series debuts on the site later this month. Like You before it, Dirty John stars a bad guy with a leading man’s face (Eric Bana), an unsuspecting victim (Connie Britton), increasingly impossible twists (this time that are totally real), and a shocking final episode.
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With a first season that strong, it’s likely Dirty John’s new viewers will devour the initial eight episodes in no time. So, fans will be wondering when season 2 will finally be available just as quickly. Unfortunately, the answer to that question is still a bit of a mystery (Refinery29 reached out to the network for comment). However there are still some major details about season 2 out there — you just have to be paying extra close attention to find them.
Way back in January 2018, Bravo picked up the series for a two-season deal. That meant that no matter what happened with Dirty John’s inaugural run, there would be a season 2 on the cable channel. Then, the drama premiered in November 2018 to smash hit ratings. The premiere started as the network’s most-viewed telecast in history, and the numbers only improved from there. The heart-stopping finale “This Young Woman Fought Like Hell” stands as the highest-rated episode of all of season 1. So, it’s probable Bravo wants to get its already-promised second season of Dirty John out there as soon as possible.
While it’s unclear when Bravo will churn out their return to Dirty John, they have already confirmed the next season will follow the anthology framework that has been in place since the beginning. That means the story of John and Debra is officially over, and season 2 will follow a brand new “Dirty John” and the lives he ruins along the way. It will be its own self-contained tale. As Debbie’s portrayer Connie Britton told The Wrap in November 2018, she hadn’t “even really had a conversation” with anyone at that time about Dirty John's next chapter. “But that is going to be completely different story,” she assured the publication.
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That means the next reasonable question is which Dirty John will Dirty John season 2 follow? Unsurprisingly, Bravo is keeping quiet on that topic. Yet the biggest clue for the series’ second round might be hiding in plain sight in season 1’s aforementioned finale, “This Young Woman.” Towards the end of the episode — following the season’s bloodiest twist — an overwhelmed Debra stares at her reflection in a courthouse bathroom mirror. When she hears two women enter the space, she hides in a stall to avoid the sheer strain of speaking to people. That’s when she hears the ladies, whom we realize are lawyers, chatting about a suspicious new case and its relation to the Newell family's own tragedy (which no one should spoil for you).
“Married man, having an affair. Girlfriend tells him he has to choose… so he kills the wife,” one woman tells her co-worker. “Of course he met the girlfriend on the internet. And apparently, that’s where the mom met this John Meehan.”
Not only does that murderous husband already sound like a total Dirty John, but Dirty John itself is connecting that crime and the ones we already watched unfold over season 1. Knowing what we do about John and Debbie’s life, the deadly details of that mysterious new murder case likely only scratch the treacherous surface of its marital betrayal. Dirty John is currently free to go anywhere, but a murderous husband and a internet-based cheating scandal is now the minimum requirement for season 2's scandalous heights.