Amazon just gave you another reason to buy a nightlight and invest in literature by Black activists, thanks to Them. The horror anthology is so scary, it even scared Stephen King. That’s a feat as well as a good reason why this powerful new series needs to be on your weekend watch list.
Wondering if there’s going to be a Them Season 2? Or are you just curious about what those sad final moments in Season 1 mean? We have you covered.
Will There Be a Them Season 2?
There certainly will be. Amazon announced the horror series from Little Marvin in July of 2018. It was immediately given a two-season order. But this first season will likely be the only time we will see the Emory family.
Like American Horror Story, Them is designed to be a horror anthology series. Each season will follow a new cast and a different set of characters. “Little Marvin’s script stayed with me for weeks after I read it. He’s written something that’s provocative and terrifying,” executive producer Lena Waithe said when the series was first announced. “The first season will speak to how frightening it was to be black in 1953. It will also remind us that being black in 2018 is just as horrifying. This anthology series will examine the cultural divides among all of us and explore us vs Them in a way we’ve never seen before.”
When Will Them Season 2 Premiere?
That’s difficult to say. Though Them was originally announced in 2018, it didn’t get its showrunner and cast until a year later. Production officially began in July of 2019 before the series premiered in April of 2021. It’s unclear how much COVID-19 affected that timeline, but it seems as though it takes roughly a year and a half to produce a new season of Them. We can likely expect another installment sometime in 2022.
How Did Them Season 1 End?
With a whole lot of horror and one gut-punch of a finale. First let’s get one loose end out of the way: Betty (Alison Pill).
Midway through Them: Covenant, Betty was taken by her flirty milkman George (Ryan Kwanten). It turned out he was less of a heartthrob and more of a crazed kidnapper. George took Betty to his farm and trapped her inside of his bunker. When she tried to escape, he shot her on sight. So Betty is dead, even though her nosey neighbors will never know that.
Back to the Emorys. Them Episode 10 opened on a harrowing situation. After slowly losing her mind at the hands of her racist neighbors and cursed house, Lucky (Deborah Ayorinde) was hospitalized. Though her doctor insisted she was doing what was best, Lucky knew better. She was about to be lobotomized. Meanwhile Henry (Ashley Thomas) wasn’t in a much better situation. While trying to escape the neighborhood, Henry and his girls were surrounded by some of those very neighbors who wanted to know what happened to Betty. Of course Henry had no idea, and of course they didn’t believe him. They beat Henry up and tried to hang him all in front of Ruby (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Gracie (Melody Hurd).
Lucky managed to escape the hospital just as Henry escaped his captors. He almost shot Marty’s (Pat Healy) baby as well but changed his mind at the last minute. Instead he fled into the house with his daughters, and Lucky quickly joined them. As she entered, a ring of fire encircled the building. You know Episode 8’s flashback to curses and magic? That was very much real and Lucky, whether she knew it or not, harnessed it.
The Emory matriarch returned to a fractured home. One by one Lucky saved the members of her family who were all trapped inside their own supernatural hell. For Gracie it was being spanked by her fictional teaching idol, Miss Vera. For Ruby it was being strangled by her own mother. And for Henry it was reckoning with his own blackface-wearing ghost.
Henry tried to get Lucky to leave the house, but she wasn’t done yet. After telling her children, “We’re not running from them. We’re not running from anyone anymore,” she walked into the basement and confronted her own demon. Get ready for Lucky vs. The Black Hat Man (Christopher Heyerdahl).
The Black Hat Man tried to lure Lucky to stay with him forever by bringing Lucky’s baby boy back to life. But Lucky saw through his tricks. Instead she took the rosary from him and said, “I see you,” calling this man out on his years of hypocrisy and using the Lord’s name as an excuse to abuse others. It worked, and The Black Hat Man burst into flames.
A happy ending for everyone, right? Wrong. So very very wrong. While the Emorys were dealing their their own demons, both inner and literal, their neighbors were calling the cops. Them: Covenant ended with the Emorys holding onto one another with the police pointing guns at them while Nina Simone’s “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” plays. We have no idea what happened to the Emorys. But if America’s history is any indication, then an unfair prison sentence is the best case scenario.
Watch Them on Prime Video