Taboo Season 2: Confirmed Since 2017, What’s New in 2025

Taboo Season 2 was commissioned back in March 2017, and it was planned as an eight-episode run. That is the part a lot of “newly confirmed” posts keep getting wrong. What’s actually new is a fresh, on-record nudge from Tom Hardy in 2025, where he told fans “absolutely” and said it’s “in the works”, with no release date attached.

If you have been waiting since the Season 1 finale in 2017, here’s the reality check. Renewal is not the question. The question is whether the long-stalled development finally turns into filming, and then into a real premiere date.

Is Taboo Season 2 confirmed? Yes, since 2017

The show’s second season has been official for nearly a decade. Deadline reported on March 8, 2017 that BBC One and FX renewed Taboo for Season 2, with Tom Hardy and Steven Knight returning to continue the story. This was not framed as a “maybe”, it was an ordered second season.

The next day, BBC News confirmed a second series had been commissioned and pointed to the show’s performance on BBC iPlayer as part of why it earned another run. Translation: audience interest and platform performance were strong enough to justify more episodes.

Variety reported the plan was for eight episodes again, matching Season 1’s shape. So when you see headlines claiming Taboo Season 2 is “finally confirmed,” treat that as a red flag. The confirmation happened in March 2017. What did not happen is the normal production cadence that usually follows a renewal.

What’s the latest real progress, scripts and Hardy’s 2025 update

The clearest progress marker after the 2017 commission came years later. In a 2021 update, Steven Knight said “six of the eight [episodes] are written,” which matters because it tells you the project was not just a wish list. Collider quoted Knight on November 12, 2021, and the key takeaway was simple: writing was far along, and the challenge was getting the right people’s schedules aligned.

That scheduling problem is not hand-wavy Hollywood gossip, it is the practical bottleneck for prestige TV. Hardy is not just the lead, he is central to the show’s identity and production planning. When he is booked, everything waits. The same is true for high-demand creators and directors attached to a project like this.

Then came the 2025 “is it happening or not” moment. On March 27, 2025, LADbible reported Hardy told fans they can “absolutely” expect Season 2, and that it’s “in the works.” That is a meaningful signal because it is Hardy putting his name on the status again, publicly, after years of quiet.

But it is not a release window. “In the works” can describe everything from script revisions to early planning to active pre-production. It does not automatically mean cameras are rolling, or that BBC and FX have locked a slot on the calendar.

Cast, plot, and release date, what’s not confirmed

This is where a lot of coverage goes off the rails, so here’s the clean version.

• Release date: There is no official Taboo Season 2 release date in the BBC, FX, or trade reporting cited above. No month. No year. No “coming this fall.” If you see a date, it is speculation unless it is backed by a network announcement.
• Production status: None of these sources confirm Season 2 is filming right now, or even that it has a locked production start date. The last concrete progress datapoint is writing progress from 2021, plus Hardy’s 2025 reassurance.
• Cast: Beyond Hardy, there is no authoritative “returning cast list” in the provided sources. If a site publishes a long roster as “confirmed,” it is almost certainly recycling Season 1 names without proof.
• Plot: There is no official Season 2 synopsis in these sources. You can assume continuation of James Delaney’s story because a second season was ordered, but there is no network-approved description to treat as canon.

So how do you spot credible Taboo Season 2 updates? Two rules: trust direct network statements (BBC, FX) and top-tier trades when they report on production dates, and treat aggregator “everything we know” pages as noise unless they link back to those primary sources.

The takeaway, Season 2 is real, but the wait is still real

Taboo Season 2 is not vaporware. It has been officially ordered since March 2017 for eight episodes, and the writing was largely underway by late 2021. Hardy’s March 2025 “absolutely” comment is the most encouraging recent sign because it restarts the conversation with the one person the show cannot happen without.

Why should you care? Because it resets expectations. You can be optimistic without being tricked into chasing fake release dates. The next update that actually moves the needle will be something boring and specific: a BBC or FX announcement, or a major trade report that filming has started. Until then, treat every “Taboo Season 2 release date” headline as guilty until proven otherwise.