'Pen15' Will Return Just in Time for Back-to-School Season
It's time to whip out your rolling backpacks and rainbow gel pens because Pen15 is coming back for another season. The Hulu comedy starring Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine will return in September, just in time for back-to-school season. Here's what to know about your favorite "seventh graders" before class is back in session.
Season 2 premieres September 18.
The new season consists of 14 episodes. The first seven will arrive on Hulu on Friday, September 18, while the remaining seven will debut in 2021. The second premiere date is yet to be announced. Fans have endured quite a wait since Pen15 first debuted in February 2019, but the anticipation will be over soon enough.
Maya and Anna are going through some changes.
Following Season 1's school dances, AIM encounters, and sleepovers, Season 2 taps into even more Y2K middle school memories with pool parties, tankinis, and a whole lot of hormones. From the looks of the trailer, it appears Maya Ishii-Peters (Erskine) and Anna Kone (Konkle) are experiencing some changes, both within and around themselves. Anna continues to cope with the aftermath of her parents' divorce, while Maya figures out what's going on between her and Brandt following their dalliance at the school dance.
Anna's parents' separation was actually inspired by Konkle's real life. "[My] parents split the house up for about two years—two wonderful, wonderful years—after the divorce," she said, per Deadline. "It was really confusing and there was an attachment to them and to us as a family of course. At the same time, it was very tense and I wanted to share the low feelings that come with that and I wanted to address mental health essentially."
The episodes will balance darkness and humor.
Pen15's sophomore chapter will dive into some dark themes, the starring duo revealed, while staying true to its signature absurdity and humor. Konkle said the "darker feelings" about her parents' divorce "started introducing themselves at 13 years old and we felt that could be real, honest and dark and also funny and magical."
She continued, "The fact that Maya and I got to have that story integrate with the fantasy of being witches and trying to control things and fix it—it was a really exciting unity of dark and crazy."
Erskine added, "That is what our show is aiming to do—to push the truth of what happened to us and a way to put it into our world that elicit humor, pain and sadness."
Watch this space for updates.
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