The Sinner season 2: Plot, release date, trailer and what to know

Get ready for another murder mystery this summer with The Sinner season 2. Here’s everything you need to know about the hit anthology series.

What is The Sinner about?

In the first season of USA Network’s critically-acclaimed crime anthology The Sinner, executive producer and star Jessica Biel played a young mother who violently kills a seemingly random man on the beach. For The Sinner season 2, Detective Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman) returns to investigate a new suspect, the 11-year-old Julian (Elisha Henig), for the gruesome murder of his own parents.

Based on the book by the German crime writer Petra Hammesfahr, The Sinner’s first season stuck relatively close to the author’s taut psychological thriller of the same name. With The Sinner season 2, however, the next batch of eight episodes endeavors to adopt the same tone, albeit with a whole new cast of characters and a slightly different setting.

This time around, Detective Ambrose returns to his hometown in rural New York to investigate the murder of Julian’s parents, and determine why Julian committed the heinous crime. The young boy seemingly lacks no motive for murder, but as Ambrose comes to realize, there’s nothing remotely ordinary about the boy and where he comes from. Along the way, the detective must confront his hometown’s secrets and those who try to keep them hidden from view.

The Sinner managed to capture a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Biel, and two Golden Globe Award nominations for the actress and the show itself. Even though she’s not in front of the cameras for The Sinner season 2, the limited series’ second outing still boasts an impressive cast and another dramatic story that, should Television Academy or Hollywood Foreign Press Association members take notice, may garner more nominations.

Meet The Sinner season 2 cast

Aside from Pullman’s return and Henig’s bout as the eerie Julian, The Sinner season 2 also features The Leftovers and Fargo alum Carrie Coon as the mysterious Vera, a formidable community leader who struggles between upholding the area’s ideals and fulfilling her own desires. The Deuce star Natalie Paul features as Heather, the detective in training who seeks Ambrose’s help, and Hannah Gross plays her friend Marin, who disappeared from the town years ago under mysterious circumstances.

On the creative side, season one showrunner Derek Simonds, who cut his teeth on Dustin Lance Black’s series When We Rise and the acclaimed film Call Me By Your Name, returns for The Sinner season 2. Along with Biel, Michelle Purple, Charlie Gogolak. Brad Winters and John Coles are executive producing The Sinner. Antonio Campos, who directed the first three episode of Biel’s season, is also back to direct the first two episodes for this second outing.

Between the anthology format, the new story, the returning cast and crew members and the new additions, The Sinner season 2 already sounds like a television event worth checking out. Yet in the seemingly always crowded field of the “Peak TV” era, the USA Network show affords potential viewers with a possible release due to the nature of the show’s short eight episode-run and self-contained narrative.