Hulu Show Completely Canceled, No New Home Found

Y: The Last Man will not be saved. Four months after FX on Hulu canceled the series, showrunner Eliza Clark confirmed that no new home was found for the project on Friday, Jan. 14. The project took years to make the transition from graphic novel to television series and was canceled less than two months after it finally debuted. Although Y: The Last Man drew positive reviews and attracted fans of the Brian K. Vaughan-written comic, it didn’t see the kind of immediate success Hulu needed.

“For those of you who have been asking me: we tried really hard to get another platform to pick up season 2 of Y. But sadly, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. It is always incredibly difficult to move a show, and in recent years, it has only gotten harder.” Clark tweeted on Jan. 14. “So many of you have been so supportive of the show, and I am so grateful to you. I love the group of artists who made Y truly, madly, deeply. It was the best creative work environment I’ve ever been a part of. I am immensely proud of the work that we did.”

View on X

Although Clark understood the business is difficult, Clark said the news still hurt, especially since she and her team had plenty of great ideas for Season 2. She hopes to continue working with the colleagues she met on Y, and was happy to have the chance to adapt her favorite comic. “While it doesn’t end the way we would have ended the series, I still think there are complete stories told, and performances that are pretty fucking brave and exciting,” she wrote.

In her original October tweets, Clark said she and the rest of the team behind the show do not want it to end. “I have never in my life been more committed to a story, and there is so much more left to tell,” she wrote. Later, she praised FX as an “amazing partner,” and the team is “sad” the show is not moving forward. “But we know that someone else is going to be very lucky to have this team and this story,” Clark wrote. “I have never experienced the remarkable solidarity of this many talented people. We are committed to finding Y its next home.”

Amber Tamblyn, who plays Kimberly Campbell Cunningham on the show, was quick to show her support for a campaign to keep the show going. “Y: The Last Man will not get a second season on FX and while I’m disappointed, I know this extraordinary show that has so much to say, and that says it so well, will find a great new home soon. Looking forward to the next chapter,” she tweeted. “If you’re with me, let the world know.”

Y: The Last Man was based on the comic book series created by writer Vaughan and artist Pia Guerra. The show is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a mysterious cataclysmic event kills every mammal with a Y chromosome except for Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer) and his pet monkey. Meanwhile, the survivors of the tragedy, including Yorick’s mother, President Jennifer Brown (Diane Lane), are left to grapple with the new world. Ashley Romans, Oliva Thirlby, Juliana Canfield, Elliot Fletcher, Marin Ireland, and Diana Bang also star.

The project had been in development since October 2015, with plans for the show to air on FX. There were several behind-the-scenes changes over the years before Clark was hired as showrunner in 2019. In early 2020, FX announced the show would be part of the FX on Hulu lineup instead of airing on the linear network. The first three episodes were released on Sept. 13, with subsequent episodes released on Mondays. The final three episodes will be released on Oct. 18, Oct. 25, and Nov. 1.

“I love this show, and I’m very hopeful Y will find a new home, not just because it happens to employ more extraordinary women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community – both in front of and behind the camera – than any project I’ve ever been a part of, but because they’ve made something spectacular, the kind of thoughtful, contemporary, fearless evolution of the comic that [Guerra] and I always wanted,” Vaughan wrote on Instagram Sunday. “These next three episodes are the very best of the season, so please keep watching, and if you want to see this journey continue as much as I do, we encourage you to let the world know: #YLivesOn.”