'Fate: The Winx Saga' Season 2: Everything We Know So Far

For months now, the Netflix top 10 list has offered a fascinating case study of viewers' constantly evolving attitudes and emotions while quarantining as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on. There was the time a gritty drama about a young chess prodigy unexpectedly jumped to the top of the list, then refused to budge for months; that weird stretch in which all anyone could talk about was a pair of eccentric big game collectors; and, of course, the beginning of 2021, when a Regency-era romantic drama took the world by (very polite) storm.

The latest glimpse into our collective psyche was Fate: The Winx Saga, a fantasy YA drama that has been stuck in Netflix's top slots since its January 22 debut. In following a group of teenage fairies while they receive monster-fighting and world-defending training at the Alfea school, the show essentially combines all the best parts of the Harry Potter series—teens learning to harness their powers at a magical boarding school—and The Craft—young women discovering the depths of their own strength. Translation: It's addictive and empowering and very fun.

Yes! In an announcement February 18, Netflix noted that the series was moving forward with a second season. "The six episodes in season one only scratched the surface of this incredibly rich world and the powerful fairies who inhabit it,” creator Brian Young said in a statement.

The renewal was fast—Winx had debuted just a month earlier—but the series was widely expected to return. For one thing, there's that whole "debuted at number one" thing, which usually sends Netflix sprinting to start developing more episodes. There's also the fact that Fate is based on Winx Club, an Italian animated series that aired on Nickelodeon in the U.S. with a voice cast that included Ariana Grande and Elizabeth Gillies; the show ran for eight seasons, with more than 200 episodes, so there are plenty of storylines to revisit in future seasons of Fate, plus a built-in fan base still eager to spend as much time in the fairy world as possible.

On top of all of this, the first season of Fate: The Winx Saga was surprisingly short, comprising just six 50-minute episodes, and ended on a major cliffhanger—two factors that would certainly send fans reeling if the show were to end after just one season.

In a statement, Netflix said that production for season two would begin in late 2021 in Ireland. With that in mind, let's do some quick calculations: The first season of Fate was announced on March 2018, but filming didn't begin until September 2019, more than a year before the episodes finally premiered. Going off this timeline, even if development and filming are able to start right away, it will likely still be well over a year before we see those efforts come to fruition in the form of a season two—though Netflix has been known to speed up its timelines when working on subsequent seasons of widely beloved shows. A late summer 2022 release feels like a safe, if overly optimistic, prediction.

What could season 2 be about?

Without giving too much away, the first season of Fate ended just as Bloom, the fire fairy at the core of the series, discovered the extent of her incredible powers in real-time while battling an army of evil creatures. (Classic teen girl stuff.) So, a second season would likely see Bloom learning more about how to control and properly wield those powers, while also delving even deeper into the rest of her fairy friends' own journeys of magical self-discovery, since they'll all need to be at the top of their game to defeat the forces of evil still hard at work at Alfea and throughout the rest of the Otherworld.

Abigail Cowen, who plays Bloom, suggested as much in a recent interview about the first season's finale. "That's just kind of a little teaser into what her powers are going to be. And hopefully for the second season, if we get a second season, I think that's just the beginning of them. I think that's why we waited until the very end to tease and show the audience—like, get ready, this is about to get very intense," Cowen told The Wrap.

She added, "I think that was empowering for [Bloom], and I'm excited to see—again, if we get a second season—where she goes with that and what that does for her and her self-esteem and her overall sense of self."

What else has the cast said about season 2?

When Sadie Soverall, who plays the rebellious Beatrix, was asked by 1883 Magazine if season two is already in the works, she said, "I hope so! I hope if there is, we get to find out a bit more about Beatrix's past because I'd love to know what happens.

Elisha Applebaum, meanwhile, recently told Brief Take that if the series returns, she's planning to tweak her approach to playing mind fairy Musa, who is almost always wearing headphones. "It was a very strange period in which I thought Musa listened to rock music. And I thought that it would be really heavy music and that she wouldn't have to think about anything else but listening to this wild music," Applebaum said of her approach to the first season. "But then when you watch it, it's obviously very calm and sort of meditative music, which would also make a lot of sense. If there's going to be a season two, that is definitely something I will have to remember and take into that, because she softens up throughout."