‘Unorthodox’: Will There Be a Season 2 of the Netflix Series?

The Netflix mini-series released earlier this year, Unorthodox, was a hit with critics and viewers alike. A 2012 memoir by Deborah Feldman, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, served as the source material for the Netflix show. But will Unorthodox, the TV series with only four episodes, get a second season? One of the co-creators of Unorthodox recently revealed the answer.

Will ‘Unorthodox’ get another season on Netflix?

As the publication Metro reported after Unorthodox debuted on Netflix in Mar. 2020, it was “so successful that people … flocked to social media, crying out for a second season.”

But unfortunately, one of the executive producers on the series, Anna Winger, talked to Metro, and “poured cold water” on that idea.

“We’re not doing a sequel to this because we feel that we really told this story,” Winger explained of Unorthodox. “It was always designed as a mini-series.” Winger and her co-creator Alexa Karolinski designed Esty’s story to be told in four chapters. However, Winger hoped she would work on projects with the cast in the future.

“I suspect that I will work with these actors again, and with many of my collaborators from this project,” the Unorthodox producer said. “We have a lot of new things in development.”

While Winger acknowledged “it’s not the end of the road for this constellation,” it is for Unorthodox — or at least for Esty Shapiro.

“I don’t think we’ll tell this story again,” Winger shared with Metro. “We’ve told it.”

Esty’s story in ‘Unorthodox’ resonates with many viewers in just four episodes

While the Netflix series creators based most of Esty’s childhood and teen stories on Feldman’s memoir, the scenes set in Berlin are mostly fiction.

“We decided from the beginning that we actually had to change a lot,”
Winger told Metro. The Unorthodox producer explained of Feldman, on whom Esty was loosely based:

We didn’t want her contemporary self to be too close to her real-life as she’s a public personality. Very early on we decided to make her a musician rather than a writer.

However, Winger expressed that many Netflix viewers connected to Esty’s tale. She told the publication:

Esty’s journey is actually very relatable for many people – not feeling like you belong where you come from, wishing that you could find people who related to you better, wishing you related to the people you’re growing up with better.

The Unorthodox co-creator also shared with Metro how many letters of support she’d received.

“So many people have written to me, whether it’s from Mexico or Saudi Arabia, telling me, ‘This is my story,'” Winger said. “That part doesn’t surprise me because I see this story as being universal.”

Shira Haas cast as the lead in the four-episode mini-series

Israeli actress Shira Haas plays the lead, Esty Shapiro, in Unorthodox. Winger couldn’t help but gush about Haas to Metro.

“Shira is just like magic,” the executive producer shared. “She’s a really intelligent young woman and she’s deep.”

The Unorthodox co-creator added of the actress: “I think she’ll make a great director someday. She’s totally professional and worked so hard.”