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

What is The Young Pope about?

Paolo Sorrentino's The Young Pope is essentially a prestige thriller about institutional power wrapped in the robes and rituals of the Catholic Church. Jude Law plays Lenny Belardo, an obscure American cardinal who emerges from nowhere to become Pope Pius XIII, and the show tracks his effort to consolidate authority while the Vatican's entrenched factions circle him like cardinals circling actual prey. If you're drawn to shows about people maneuvering through byzantine hierarchies—think succession politics, ideological conflict, backroom negotiation—this ten-episode season delivers that in abundance, just with more incense and ecclesiastical Latin than you'd find in most corporate dramas.

What makes the show distinctive is Sorrentino's visual excess. He doesn't treat the Vatican as a historical or spiritual setting so much as a baroque staging ground, all gilt frames and marble corridors and sudden cuts to Pope Pius XIII smoking cigarettes in the dark. The tone is arch and sometimes campy, never reverent. Law leans into a kind of cold charisma, all detached smiles and wounded backstory, which keeps the character from becoming simply megalomaniacal. Diane Keaton appears as a nun who may or may not be his biological mother, a plot thread that the show pursues with full soap-opera sincerity. It's a strange show, visually ornate and emotionally murky, which isn't everyone's idea of compelling television.

Critics and viewers largely responded well to it during its run, praising Law's performance and Sorrentino's directorial control, though opinions split on whether the show's visual style transcended the plot or distracted from it. The 8.3 rating on IMDb reflects genuine engagement, even if passionate disagreement about its merits exists among fans. The show ended after one season, which feels appropriate for Sorrentino's approach—it's complete, sealed off, not designed to sprawl.

The Young Pope sits apart from typical prestige drama because it has no interest in making you like or understand the people on screen in any conventional way. It's closer in spirit to a high-concept fever dream than to The Crown or Shonda Rhimes proceduralism. If you can tolerate watching a brilliant visual stylist indulge every instinct toward excess while characters scheme in the shadows, this is sharp work. If you need clarity or warmth, you'll likely find it exhausting.

Created by Paolo Sorrentino

Is The Young Pope renewed or cancelled?

Why did The Young Pope end?

The Young Pope was designed as a limited series from the start, a ten-episode story that Paolo Sorrentino crafted with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The show aired across four weeks in the fall of 2016, telling the complete narrative of Lenny Belardo's rise to the papacy and his first days in power. Sorrentino, already an established filmmaker with Oscar wins and critical acclaim, brought the sensibility of prestige cinema to television. He wasn't interested in stretching the premise across multiple seasons or leaving threads dangling for renewal negotiations. The story he wanted to tell fit exactly into those ten hours.

The show's reception was strong enough to validate the approach. It drew solid viewership for Sky Atlantic and earned serious critical praise, becoming one of the most talked-about European dramas that year. But strength of critical response and strength of viewership are not the same thing, especially for an expensive, unconventional drama on a pay channel. More importantly, Sorrentino had no intention of returning regardless. He moved on to direct films and later created The New Pope, a spiritual successor that introduced new characters and approached similar themes through a different lens, first airing in 2020. The Young Pope ended not because it failed but because it succeeded at exactly what Sorrentino set out to do. Sometimes a show finishes because the artist said what he came to say.

The Young Pope Season 2 Release Date

Best & worst episodes

The Young Pope seasons

The Young Pope trailer

Where to watch The Young Pope

HBO Max Amazon ChannelstreamYouTube TVstreamHBO MaxstreamAmazon VideobuyApple TV StorebuyGoogle Play MoviesbuyFandango At Homebuy

The Young Pope latest news