'Marie Antoinette' Season 2 Will Reign Again in March 2025
Marie Antoinette may never have said, “Let Them Eat Cake,” but history seems obsessed with her anyway. The extraordinarily wealthy and somewhat traumatized young bride of Louis XVI lived a life of extremes, little parenting, and less help in adulting; she buried herself in beauty and comfort until the populace turned on her for existing, and then she lost her head. The French series from Canal+, titled simply Marie Antoinette, first debuted on PBS in 2023, promising a new, more feminist look at the young queen. While it wasn’t all that progressive a show despite those claims, it was something of a rarity, an old-fashioned costume drama that’s not all that concerned with historical accuracy but does love a good emotional sobbing catharsis. Now, the series returns for Season 2, delving into the latter years of Antoinette’s life.
The BBC already confirmed in 2024 that it was bringing the show to the U.K., and most fans knew that meant PBS should be saying something soon, one way or another, about a premiere date. The series initially ran as the 10 p.m. ET series directly following Sanditon’s final season in the spring of 2023, but that did not guarantee the show would take the same slot when it returned for a second season. However, with Wolf Hall’s return already claiming the 9 p.m. berth, Marie Antoinette Season 2 fits quite well with the lineup, which will also eventually include Call the Midwife Season 14, starting March 30, 2025.
“We are so excited that PBS’s audience will get to see the anticipated second season of Marie Antoinette,” PBS’s Vice President of Program Content Strategy and Scheduling, Maria Bruno Ruiz, said in a statement. “The tension in Season 2 builds with each episode as we experience the beginning of the end for King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. The French debt increased with more loans, the affair of the diamond necklace became scandalous, and the inner circle of Versailles closed in on the king and queen. Season 2 features incredible talent and storytelling, spectacular breathtaking costumes, and set designs that take viewers right inside the walls of the Palace of Versailles.”
