Acorn TV has renewed You’re Killing Me for a second season less than two weeks after its debut, with the Brooke Shields-led murder mystery already rewriting records for the streamer. The announcement came Thursday during an ATX Television Festival panel in Austin, where Shields and co-star Amalia Williamson broke the news to the audience directly.
Dan McDermott, Chief Content Officer for AMC Global Media and President of AMC Studios, called the show the platform’s number-one series launch of all time — a striking milestone for a streamer that has built its identity almost entirely on the cozy mystery genre. The renewal follows the show becoming Acorn TV’s biggest launch ever in both subscriber acquisition and viewership.
Season one premiered May 18 as a six-episode murder mystery following bestselling novelist Allie, played by Shields, who forms an unlikely alliance with an aspiring writer and podcaster named Andi, played by Williamson, to track down the killer of a close friend. Tom Cavanagh rounds out the central trio as Jack, a newly appointed small-town police detective adjusting to life far outside the city. Critics at Rotten Tomatoes gave the series a tentative recommendation, specifically citing the chemistry between the three leads as a standout quality alongside its funny moments and consistent charm.
Shields, who serves as both star and executive producer, was vocal about her enthusiasm for the renewal. “I am crazy happy we get to do a second season,” she said, adding that acting opposite Williamson and Cavanagh had been “a dream.”
Season two will return to the fictional Maine town of Founder’s Cove, again running six hour-long episodes, with production set to begin later this year. Shields, who is 60, deliberately chose a role addressing themes of women and age — her character faces pressure from her publisher to retire her beloved fictional detective, a conflict that runs through the season. The framing has resonated with Acorn TV’s audience, which skews older than most streaming platforms and has long favoured character-driven procedurals over youth-oriented fare.
The series is created by Robin Bernheim and is a co-production between Shaftesbury and Topsail Entertainment, with AMC Studios and Dynamic Television holding worldwide distribution rights outside Canada. Season one continues its weekly episode roll-out through June 22.
