HBO’s critically acclaimed, genre-bending hit series Lovecraft Country unfortunately will not be returning for a second season, per Deadline. “We will not be moving forward with a second season of Lovecraft Country,” the network said in a statement earlier this week. “We are grateful for the dedication and artistry of the gifted cast and crew, and to Misha Green, who crafted this groundbreaking series. And to the fans, thank you for joining us on this journey.”

The show’s unique blend of horror, sci-fi, and racially-charged magical realism garnered a more than enthusiastic reception to its first season, with the finale hitting a series high 1.5 million viewers, becoming HBO Max’s most watched new episode on the streaming platform’s first day of availability. Based off Matt Ruff’s 2016 novel of the same name, Lovecraft Country’s social commentary took pop culture by storm last summer, igniting further discussion of the country’s social unrest mere months after the death of George Floyd.

The series follows protagonist Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors) and his childhood friend/love interest Letitia Lewis (Jurnee Smollet) on a road trip from 1950’s Chicago through the sundown towns of Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. Confronted by supernatural creatures emblematic of something you’d find in an H.P. Lovecraft novel, Atticus finds himself wrapped in a web of racist white supremacists who, at times, are scarier than the actual monsters in the show themselves. 

Given that the series had a roadmap to follow its entire first season – which it did so masterfully – show runner Misha Green was tasked with generating new content to expand on the novel’s story in the second season. “Misha is working with a small team of writers and they’re coming up with a take,” HBO told Deadline in February. “She had a book to go on in the first season. She and the writers wanted to go off and take some time to go out and figure out without a book with these characters, what’s the journey we want to go on. We all want to be sure she’s got a story to tell. That’s where she is right now, working on those ideas. I’m very hopeful, as is Misha, so we’re giving them the time to work.”

This isn’t anything new for HBO. Similar to hit series Big Little Lies, it was assumed that Lovecraft Country would expand the story from its source material with original new content for a second season. “I envision a second season that carries on the spirit of Matt Ruff’s novel by continuing to reclaim the genre storytelling space that people of color have typically been left out of,” Misha Green said after the season (now series) finale aired last October.

Ultimately HBO didn’t believe there was enough material moving forward to justify a second season. Upon hearing the news, Green sent out a tweet thanking fans for their support and providing a brief synopsis of what she had in mind for Season 2. 

It remains unclear whether another network will pick up the fan favorite series, but given that it was a Warner Bros. production, it is unlikely WarnerMedia will shop it around to a different network after HBO passed on it. Lovecraft Country was written by Misha Green and executive produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions and J.J. Abrams Bad Robot Productions.