Stock Up on Gel Pens, Because a Second Season of PEN15 Is on the Way

Hulu's quirky teen comedy PEN15 debuted in February to plenty of positive reviews, as well as buzz over its unique concept. Two of the show's creators, Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, play the middle-school versions of themselves, even though they're in their 30s and the rest of the cast is filled with age-appropriate teenage actors. The first season made a splash, but will there be a second one?

Oh May 1, Hulu finally confirmed the renewal status of PEN15: it is indeed getting a second season! The freshman comedy from AwesomenessTV first aired in early February of this year, and boasts Erskine, Konkle and their co-writer Sam Zvibleman as executive producers alongside Marc Provissiero, Brooke Pobjoy, Becky Sloviter, and the Lonely Island trio (Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer).

At first it was difficult to gauge whether or not Hulu would renew PEN15 for season two since, like other streaming platforms, it typically does not release viewership numbers. So, despite positive renews, it's harder to predict the likelihood of renewals in the same way that we might for shows on the broadcast networks. Fortunately now that we know season two is definitely happening, we can start thinking about what's to come for Maya and Anna.

Erskine and Konkle already have plans for season two and beyond, according to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. When they first pitched the series to Hulu, they had an idea of where the characters could go for multiple seasons already. Some of those ideas will make it into the second season.

"We were trying to shape and have them be more innocent — at least for the first season. We're going to explore more mature, darker content in the second season. The girls will possibly experiment more," Erskine told THR. "In the first season, they're a bit more innocent and playing with more childhood versus teenagers. Then in the second season maybe they experiment more with drugs or we go through things that happened to us later on in middle school and then high school and just place that in the frame of seventh grade."

One thing that will stay the same: the seventh-grade setting. The creators told THR that they intend to keep the characters in seventh grade for the entire duration of the series, rather than progressing the timeline. We're definitely curious to see how it will play out!