Archive 81 Season 2 On Netflix - What Happened To Show, Explained

Archive 81 spoilers follow.

Archive 81 proved even more addictive than the tapes Dan was assigned to catalogue, and just as creepy. What started out as a slow-burn mystery soon transformed into a full-blown headf**k of cosmic proportions.

And by the end, fans were dying for a second season. Unfortunately, Netflix had other ideas.

Here's everything we know about what happened to Archive 81 season two on Netflix.

Archive 81 season 2: What happened?

Unfortunately, despite fan outcry, Netflix cancelled Archive 81 on March 24, 2022, two months after the show first dropped on the service.

Viewers of the series were livid, with petitions and the hashtag #SaveArchive81 quickly gaining traction, but unfortunately it amounted to nothing.

We're just going to lock ourselves in the basement and pray to The Ferryman for more episodes. Because clearly, we learned nothing from this show.

The cancellation is a shame considering showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine already had plans for continuing the Archive 81 story.

In an interview with The Wrap, Sonnenshine shared her thoughts on another season, saying: "The idea is that we continue on with these characters into a new season, should we be so lucky to get a second season.

"It wasn't conceived as a one-season show. I think there are more stories to tell. I think we end on a good cliffhanger that needs to be addressed, and we introduce a lot of characters that surround Dan and Melody that have very rich and interesting lives to explore further. So yeah, we hope to keep going."

In its first week, the show racked up a healthy 22.2 million hours viewed, earning it its place as the seventh most-watched series on Netflix (as reported by Radio Times). Not bad at all, but apparently not enough.

Archive 81 season 2 cast: Who would have been in it?

Death doesn't necessarily mean you're gone forever in Archive 81, so all of the following cast members had the potential to return, regardless of what happened to them in season one:

• Mamoudou Athie as Dan Turner• Dina Shihabi as Melody Pendras• Martin Donovan as Virgil• Matt McGorry as Mark• Julia Chan as Anabelle • Ariana Neal as Jess

Showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine revealed to Variety that Evan Jonigkeit would have also returned in the role of Samuel following his escape from the mirror world, saying: "Samuel is still very much part of the story. And I think season two is 'Where is Samuel?' Where is he? And I think that that is a very exciting branch of our story that we definitely know what we’re doing with."

Archive 81 season 1 plot: What happened?

Melody managed to save Jess in the season one finale, and by the end, Dan managed to save her by retrieving Melody from that demonic mirror world. But what about Dan?

Archive 81's first season ended with Dan waking up in New York City following the Visser's destruction. Yep, that's right. Dan is now trapped in the very past that he had become so obsessed with.

In case you suspected that this final scene might have just been another one of Kaelego's tricks, showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine confirmed Dan is indeed stuck in the '90s (via Variety).

"He's in the real '90s, and the clue for that is that it does not have the particulates floating around there," she said. "He's in 1994. And the question we're asking is, we saw people disappear into The Otherworld in different time periods, right? So what does that mean?

"It means there's little holes, little poke, poke — little entry and exit points. And that people have gotten kind of mixed up in there trying to exit, and maybe didn't exit through the right door."

With Dan lost in time, we could have expected to see more of the '90s cast who survived the Visser fire, and perhaps even younger versions of the modern-day characters, including Dan himself.

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Now that their roles have essentially been swapped, we imagine that Melody would have gone on a mission to do everything she can to rescue Dan, likely with the aid of Mark and her mother.

Speaking to EW, Sonnenshine hinted that the people responsible for killing Dan's family would have also come into play more in the future:

"We definitely know who did that, and that is season two. There are a lot of little Easter eggs or little things like that, that if you're like, 'I wonder if that's something that is part of the mythology and that will be explored further?' And, yes.

"Some things just didn't actually make it into the season. When you build a mythology series, you build out all this mythology, and then you're like, 'Oh, we don't have room for all that.' So that was a piece that we ended up saving for season two."

Archive 81 season 2 trailer: When can we see it?

Sorry. No renewal = no trailer.

Guess we're going to just dip into our own imaginations to see what exactly would have gone down.

Archive 81 is now available to stream on Netflix.

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Shop at AmazonDavid Opie

After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.

In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.

David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.

Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.

As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.

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