When Does The New Pope Season 2 Come Out? Is It Renewed?

What is The New Pope about?

Paolo Sorrentino's follow-up to "The Young Pope" opens with a sick pope in a coma and a replacement no one expected. John Malkovich, playing the new Pope John Paul III, brings an entirely different temperament to the role. He is urbane, worldly, seemingly reasonable where his predecessor was volatile and zealous. The show pivots on this contrast, exploring what happens when a man who appears to embody restraint is given control of the Church. If you loved the Vatican intrigue and philosophical wrestling of the first series, this delivers more of that world, though it operates from a fundamentally different thesis about faith and authority.

Sorrentino shoots it all like a fever dream conducted in marble halls. The cinematography is hypnotic, often placing characters in vast architectural spaces that dwarf them, and the score pulses underneath with an unsettling grandeur. What makes the show distinctive is its willingness to treat the Catholic Church as a space where competing visions of goodness genuinely conflict. It's not cynical enough to be a pure political thriller, nor pious enough to be devotional. This tension, between sophisticated men arguing about how to save souls, is the real engine of the drama.

The show found an audience among people who appreciated the first series' strangeness and visual ambition, though critics remained divided on whether Sorrentino was saying something sustained or simply indulging in beautiful, elongated meditations. Malkovich's performance earned particular praise for its restraint and intelligence, a sharp pivot from Jude Law's agitated intensity as the original pope.

It's a serialized drama that moves at its own pace, sometimes glacial, sometimes propulsive, and it does not always know whether it's interested in plot or atmosphere. When it leans into Sorrentino's visual storytelling and lets scenes breathe, it achieves something memorable. When it gets caught up in Vatican mechanics, it can feel aimless. The show concludes its story, though not in the way most television dramas end things.

Created by Paolo Sorrentino

Is The New Pope renewed or cancelled?

Why did The New Pope end?

The New Pope was always designed as a limited series, and Paolo Sorrentino conceived it that way from the start. The show aired nine episodes across a single season on Sky Atlantic in early 2020, telling a complete narrative arc rather than setting up an ongoing story meant to stretch across multiple seasons. Sorrentino's previous HBO series Young Pope also operated on this model, so the director's preference for self-contained storytelling shaped the show's structure from inception.

The series wrapped up its central conflicts and character journeys by February 2020, concluding on its own terms rather than being cut short. Sky Atlantic and HBO, which co-produced the show, had greenlit it understanding that this would be its full scope. The critical reception was strong (the show holds an 8/10 on IMDb), so there was no creative failure driving the end. Instead, The New Pope simply delivered what it promised and then stopped, which remains a relatively rare luxury in television.

The New Pope Season 2 Release Date

Best & worst episodes

The New Pope seasons

The New Pope trailer

Where to watch The New Pope

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