Shadow and Bone was canceled in 2023, and yes, I’m still mad about it. This is all because one of my favorite books of all time is Six of Crows, and it was set up so well in the Season 2 finale of the Netflix series. However, sadly, that will never get to happen, which Ben Barnes just painfully reminded me as he reflected on the tragedy of the cancellation and gushed about what could have been.
In an alternate universe, Shadow and Bone wouldn’t have been one of the saddest cancellations of 2023, and we would have gotten to see the stories in the Grishaverse continue. More specifically, we would have seen the long-awaited Ice Court heist that happens in Six of Crows, as Barnes, who played the Darkling, reiterated while chatting with Mama’s Geeky:
It was a good show, and I love those stories. And I think sadly the best stories that Leigh Bardugo wrote, the Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom stories – I love those books – and I’m sad for the guys who were playing the crow characters, because they would have really gotten to expand on that world and those characters.
For those who don’t know, it was widely reported before Shadow and Bone was canceled that a writers’ room was working on a Six of Crows adaptation. It was happening, we could have gotten it, and then we didn’t…
The show got canceled with so much story left to tell, making it one of many Netflix originals to end without a proper ending. While the Darkling met his “deserved demise,” as Barnes put it, the Crows’ story was only just beginning.
For those who don’t know, the book Six of Crows starts with Kaz, Inej, Nina, Jesper and Wylan taking on the Ice Court heist job and then breaking Matthias out of prison. Season 2 ended with that job getting proposed, and Matthias was still locked up. I could taste the heist; we were so close. So, having it taken away from us was extra painful.
Barnes made that clear too, as he said:
I became very, very protective of that cast, and [I was] really kind of rooting for them all in their own lives but also as characters. And I wanted to see them thrive. And I would have liked to watch the Six of Crows story. I love a heist.
I also love a heist! And I love this heist! So, never seeing it put to screen sucks. We’ll never get to see Kaz and Inej’s relationship develop. We’ll never get to see Nina and Matthias truly fall in love. We’ll never watch Jesper and Wylan in all their sassy greatness. We’ll also never get one of the most epic heists I’ve ever read.
Plus, Shadow and Bone is still one of the best fantasy shows on streaming. It ended far too soon, and hearing the Darkling actor sympathize with all of us proves just how painful this cancellation was and still is.
Now, I’m with you all; this still hurts a lot. However, thankfully, there’s plenty of Grishaverse content to consume. You can go back and watch the first two seasons of Shadow and Bone with a Netflix subscription. More importantly, you can read the Six of Crows duology and bask in its greatness as we continue to hope for and dream about a book-to-screen adaptation of it.