Netflix restarts Forever season 2

Netflix’s Forever is moving again — and this time it’s not rumor, a listings leak, or fan wish-casting. Netflix said on May 8 that season 2 is now filming in Los Angeles, which is the first real production milestone since the show got renewed in May 2025. That matters because a renewal can sit in limbo for a long time. Cameras rolling means the next chapter is actually being made. ### What changed this week? The concrete update is simple: production started. Netflix’s Tudum site said season 2 is “now filming in Los Angeles,” and Deadline matched that with casting news tied to the production start. So the story here is not that Netflix merely still likes the show — it’s that the company has moved Forever from development back into active shooting. (netflix.com) ### Which Forever are we talking about? Not the old sitcom. This is Netflix’s YA romance based on Judy Blume’s novel, reworked by Mara Brock Akil and set in modern Los Angeles. Season 1 followed Keisha Clark and Justin Edwards, played by Lovie Simone and Michael Cooper Jr., as two Black teens navigating first love, ambition, family pressure, and the kind of heartbreak that feels total when you’re that age. (netflix.com) ### Where does season 2 pick up? Netflix is skipping ahead four years. The new season lands in summer 2023, with Keisha and Justin no longer stuck in the immediate aftermath of their breakup. They have new relationships, jobs, and adult plans. Then they run into each other again. Basically, season 2 is not trying to replay high school romance beat for beat — it’s asking whether first love can survive as friendship, or maybe mutate back into something bigger. (netflix.com) ### Who’s back, and who’s new? The core cast is returning. Simone and Cooper Jr. are back, along with Karen Pittman, Wood Harris, and Xosha Roquemore. Netflix also added three new cast members: Malaika Guttoh as Ameena, Avery Wills Jr. as Jaden, and Tre McBride as Elijah. Guttoh is joining as a series regular, while Wills Jr. and McBride have recurring roles. Netflix also said Grammy winner Khris Riddick-Tynes is coming aboard as executive music producer. (netflix.com) ### Why is Los Angeles important here? Because Forever is built around Los Angeles as more than scenery. Akil has talked about the series as a love letter to the city, and California film officials had already signaled that the show would return to the state for season 2. Production tracking also pointed to Martha’s Vineyard as another filming location, which hints that the new season may widen the world beyond the first season’s neighborhood-scale intimacy. (netflix.com) ### Was the show big enough to justify this? Big enough, yes — especially for the kind of character-driven YA drama Netflix doesn’t always keep around. What’s on Netflix tracked Forever staying in Netflix’s global Top 10 for four weeks after launch, totaling 15.9 million views in that initial run and later rising to 24.4 million views by the end of 2025. That doesn’t make it a Stranger Things-sized monster. But it does make the renewal and now the production start look pretty rational. (whats-on-netflix.com) ### So when will season 2 actually come out? Netflix has not given a release date. But with filming only just starting in May 2026, the safe read is that season 2 is more likely a 2027 release than a late-2026 one. That part is inference, not announcement — but it fits the current production timing and the usual gap between filming and launch for scripted Netflix series. (whats-on-netflix.com) ### Bottom line? The real news is that Forever is no longer just renewed. It is shooting, it has a defined time jump, and Netflix has started building the next phase of the cast around Keisha and Justin again. For fans, that turns a vague “someday” into something much more solid. (netflix.com)