Season two of Flack picks up with Robyn, played by Anna Paquin, in a tight spot both at work and outside of work. The season starts with a bang: A whorehouse is raided by police, a powerful Mills Paulson client is inside and needs his PR firm to bail him out. 

Robyn holds the phone in one hand, advising the client, and a pregnancy test strip in the other. Her life is about to change yet again. 

The crises come fast and furious on Flack, upping the anxiety level for PR aces Robyn and Eve, and Mills Paulson boss Caroline — and the viewer, for that matter. It’s not an easy watch. 

Flack, which had its first season on Pop TV before shifting to Amazon Prime Video, may not work for the many viewers seeking happier, lighter fare amidst these troubling times. The dramedy is chock full of sleazy characters, but one finds oneself rooting for Robyn to pull it together  — and perhaps find more wholesome employment, though that would not make a very compelling show. 

The dialogue is snappy and full of clever put downs. Asked how Robyn is faring, Eve, played by Lydia Wilson, thinks about her colleague and responds, “Good ol’ dead-eyed tight-lipped, drown-everyone-around-you-in-a-black-sea of self-involved, self-destructive self pity Robyn.”

Daniel Dae Kim turns up as an Elon Musk-ish tech titan who has ticked off people on Twitter, and Sam Neill plays Caroline’s dying ex-husband, with Sophie Okonedo playing Caroline. 

Six-episode season one premiered on Amazon in January. Oliver Lansley created the show, and portrays nattily dressed drug dealer American Mike. 

Paquin fills Robyn with steely determination. Flack is over the top and a lot of fun, and London is a lovely backdrop to its many scuzzy dramas. 

Flack star Anna Paquin took it in stride when she learned season two would not air on Pop TV. She said she’s been working long enough to have gone through this before. 

“These things happen,” Paquin said. “The work you love sits on the shelf and does not get released. I’ve been around the roundabout enough times to really not take anything personally.”

Pop TV had stepped back from the originals business as the newly merged ViacomCBS shifted some network strategies. “Giant corporate mergers are not anything any of us can account for,” Paquin said. 

Also Read: Changing Channels

She acknowledged that a show being canceled isn’t all that big a deal in a world where people are gravely suffering from COVID. “There are real, life-and-death circumstances happening in the world all around us,” she said. “We make entertainment, and it’s great and I love it and what’s what I do with my life. But it’s entertainment. If you didn’t have your priorities in check already, this puts a lot of things in perspective.”

Paquin added: “My show left one network for another. These are high-class problems.”

She mentioned being grateful for all Pop TV did for Flack, and is pumped to shift to Amazon. “Amazon has this obviously massive reach,” she said. “We have a whole first season a lot of people have not seen, and an entire second season literally ready to go.”

Busted Pilot: ‘Flack’ Finds a Home, ‘The Flight Attendant’ Flies High, ‘All American’ Back to School

Paquin mentioned how creator Oliver Lansley hooked her in with dazzling scripts. “The writing and the darkness and the humor and the combo of all that,” she said. “In the first seconds, it’s, ‘I think I know what’s happening’ and you don’t.”

She appreciates that Amazon Prime Video execs dig Flack. “They loved the show for all its raw, raunchy, complete inappropriateness,” Paquin said. “That is the version we are airing on Amazon.”

Like many well-received shows during the pandemic, Flack, with Anna Paquin as a PR doyenne tasked with cleaning up the messes of high-profile clients, was dropped by its network, Pop TV. Season two was in the can, but as Pop TV changed its programming strategy in the wake of the merger of parent ViacomCBS, the series was canceled.

Unlike most orphaned series, Flack, offering a heady mix of drama and comedy, has found a new home. Season one, with six episodes, starts Jan. 22 on Amazon Prime Video and season two will stream later this year.

Creator Oliver Lansley mentioned an overwhelming sense of gratification when Amazon Prime got on board with Flack. “More than anything, it was relief,” he said from England. “The idea of spending a year making a series, and the whole thing not being seen by anyone, is devastating.”

Also Read: New ‘Flack’ Home Suits Star Paquin

One Network at a Time

Shows that have found new networks after cancellation, including One Day at a Time, The Expanse and Lucifer, have been a mixed bag, some getting a number of additional seasons at their new homes, others getting just one. Landing on a second network hardly ensures a series will suddenly become a smash, but at least it offers that opportunity. “You should always be excited that you have another chance,” said Neal Baer, who was showrunner on Designated Survivor after it shifted to Netflix following the political drama’s cancellation by ABC. “If you have a chance again, you’re way beyond where other shows are when they get canceled. Embrace it.”

Designated Survivor with Kiefer Sutherland got one season on Netflix in 2019 before it was canceled again. Mindy Kaling comedy The Mindy Project had three seasons on Hulu after its first three seasons on Fox. Sci-fi drama The Expanse did three seasons on Syfy before shifting to Amazon Prime Video in 2019. Season five is streaming now, and Amazon ordered a sixth and final season. Cop comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine had five seasons on Fox before getting picked up on NBC in 2019. 

While Netflix is often the network that rescues orphaned series, it canceled comedy One Day at a Time after three seasons in 2019, with the show then doing one more season at Pop TV.

Busted Pilot: ‘Flack’ Finds a Home, ‘The Flight Attendant’ Flies High, ‘All American’ Back to School

Other series that have found new networks after cancellation include Longmire, Tuca & Bertie, Last Man Standing, Mr. Mercedes and You. Cobra Kai, for one, got off to a strong start at Netflix this month after two seasons on YouTube. “No one cared about it on YouTube, and everyone’s talking about it on Netflix,” said Old Dominion University assistant professor of communications Myles McNutt. 

Amazon Prime has not committed to new seasons of Flack, but will stream the two seasons produced while at Pop TV. “As with any of these decisions, we’ll be looking to our customers to guide our decision here,” said Brad Beale, VP of worldwide content licensing, Amazon Prime Video, “and we’re optimistic we can bring in existing fans of the series and build a new audience for it.” 

‘Prime’ Time

Flack’s search for a new home was relatively smooth, according to Lansley, who described Amazon Prime as “our first port of call” after the show’s cancellation. 

Beale said Flack fits right in with other Amazon originals. “When we first watched Flack, we were very excited about giving this show a second chance, as we believe our customers will gravitate to and appreciate this unique dark comedy,” he said. “We look at Flack as an excellent complement to our existing slate of curated series and expect it to be highly bingeable, given the performances of the amazing cast and timeliness of the themes. It touches on the complexities of modern life, where problems can go viral an instant.”

With COVID causing all sorts of production headaches, including significant budgetary dings, having a season in the can available for acquisition is more enticing to a number of networks than starting series production from day one. And the pandemic has pushed streaming to the television norm among viewers, making the major digital platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu a more-desired destination for many producers. “If you’re not playing in that arena, it’s a lot harder for your things to get seen,” Paquin said. 

Airing on a streaming platform also gives the producers more creative leeway than they typically find on broadcast and basic cable. For Neal Baer, it meant bolder stories on Designated Survivor than the show had done on ABC. 

“We got to tell very controversial, socially relevant stories,” he said. “There was no holding back on content. There’s a freedom on streaming that is really compelling for a lot of writers.”

Broadcast networks answer to advertisers and the FCC. “They don’t love controversy,” added Baer. 

Streaming also allows for a deeper dive into a complicated character, such as Paquin’s PR ace Robyn. “There’s much more appetite for more complex and deeper emotional and psychological portrayal of a character,” said Linda Ong, co-founder and CEO of cultural consultancy Cultique, “as opposed to it being more plot-driven.”

Amazon vs. Netflix

Amazon Prime Video does not have the same robust brand for original content that Netflix does, say some cultural pundits. A Nielsen study of the top 10 streaming original series in 2020 had nine Netflix shows and one from Disney Plus. McNutt said Netflix does an effective job of “naturalizing” a series — taking a show it has either picked up after cancellation or one that is licensed from another network, and getting viewers to think of it as native to Netflix. How many young viewers of Friends or Schitt’s Creek, for example, think of them as Netflix originals?

“The rebrand that Netflix does, Amazon cannot do,” McNutt said. “Amazon has never had that brand identity. Netflix can rebrand a show and no other network has successfully accomplished that.”

The Netflix brand is all about watching television, said Ong, while Amazon is about buying books, toilet paper and antacid, and watching television. Still, “don’t underestimate the ability of Amazon Prime to bring in an audience,” she said. 

In a 500-scripted-show universe, having a popular streaming platform “curate” an off-the-radar program, in Ong’s words, can give the series a serious boost. “It’s a seal of approval in a sea of content,” she said. “Consumers think, if it’s on Netflix, it must be good.”

She added, “The Amazon brand has less cachet, but it still does have cachet.”

‘Flack’ Attack

Season two of Flack has aired in the U.K. on the network W, and Paquin said it was “well received.” The second season’s edgy appeal may get a similar reaction in the U.S. “I do think that people are sick of the BS,” Paquin said. “Seeing the dark underbelly as opposed to the smoke and mirrors might appeal to people even more.”

Ong believes Flack has a decent chance of breaking out on its new network. “With the right marketing and the right algorithm, if the content is good and unique and differentiated, I think there’s huge potential,” she said. 

With Amazon Prime’s history of biting comedies featuring strong female leads such as Fleabag and Catastrophe, Oliver Lansley said it feels like the proper place for Flack. “We feel like we’ve found our spiritual home,” he said. “We hope it fits well with its compatriots.”

Pop TV will bring back its dramedy series Flack for its second season in March, the network announced Monday at the Television Critics Association winter tour.

The series, which is set in the world of a celebrity crisis PR firm and stars Anna Paquin, will debut its six-episode second season on March 13, according to the network. Joining the cast for the new season is Sam Neill, Daniel Dae Kim and Martha Plimpton.

“Flack is at once gritty, in your face and laugh-out-loud funny, a testament to Anna Paquin and the rest of the amazing team – which we are thrilled now includes the powerhouse talents of acclaimed actors Sam Neill, Daniel Dae Kim and Martha Plimpton,” said Justin Rosenblatt, Executive Vice President, Original Programming and Development, Pop TV in a statement. “In the must-watch second season, the often-recalcitrant Robyn tries to reconcile her relationships while her family, friends and colleagues, all while her client dilemmas interfere, often by her own doing, with everyone’s lives building to an irreversible apex.”

Netflix has signed actress Anna Paquin to star in the screen adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, the content streaming service said Tuesday.

Paquin (True Blood, Roots) will play Nancy Montgomery in the six-part miniseries inspired by the true story of Grace Marks, a Canadian maid who was suspected of murdering Montgomery, a housekeeper, and convicted of killing their employer, Thomas Kinnear, in 1843.

Written and produced by Sarah Polley (Take This Waltz, Away From Her) and directed by Mary Harron (American Psycho, I Shot Andy Warhol), Alias Grace also stars Sarah Gadon and Zachary Levi.

Alias Grace will be broadcast on Netflix and in Canada on CBC.

“Anna is an incredibly versatile performer who always makes complex, unpredictable and fascinating choices in her work,” Polley said.  “It's always a marvel to watch her, and we’re thrilled to have her join the cast.”