Shannara Chronicles Season 2 Casts Flash and Finding Carter Alums, Others
MTV has revealed five new cast addiitons to The Shannara Chronicles, as production on Season 2 gets underway in New Zealand.
Malese Jow (The Flash, Vampire Diaries), Vanessa Morgan (Finding Carter), Gentry White (UnREAL, TURN), Caroline Chikezie (Footballers’ Wives) and actor/writer Desmond Chiam will join returning series regulars Austin Butler, Ivana Baquero, Manu Bennett, Aaron Jakubenko and Marcus Vanco, the network announced on Wednesday morning.
Jow (above left) will play Mareth, an unpredictable young woman with magical abilities, while Morgan (above right) will portray Lyria, a mysterious woman who is romantically linked to Baquero’s Eretria.
White 
will play Garet, a sly and charismatic bounty hunter known throughout the Four Lands as “The Weapons Master”; Chikezie will portray Tamlin, the cunning queen of Leah, the only human Kingdom in the Four Lands; and Chiam will play Riga, a once revered general in the Eventine’s army, now the leader of an extremist group of Elvin soldiers known as The Crimson.
I understood 1/20th of what I just wrote. But here is more:
In Season 2 of the fantasy series, MTV tells us, the re-emergence of magic has the populace of the Four Lands terrified, and an organization called The Crimson is using fear and intimidation to sow discord among the races. Wil, scarred by the loss of Amberle and his separation from Eretria, has turned his back on his magical destiny to become a healer — until Mareth convinces him to rejoin the fight. After reuniting with Eretria, Wil and Mareth seek out Allanon, only to learn that Bandon is on a mission to resurrect a creature of darkest evil: The Warlock Lord.
Double the vampires. This confirms all vampires know each other
can’t wait
I like Shannara (more than I expected). Can’t help feeling they need more “adults” but I guess it is all about the demo.
Wow, all new diverse castings. They’re clearly trying to fight season 1 criticism. And the show went out with such a whimper in popularity, that I’d assumed it had been quietly cancelled.
I’ll give the 2nd season a chance for the goddess Caroline Chikezie, I just hope the writing is better. It got so bad, I completely lost interest after it turned into a gratuitous straight boy sex fantasy.
Shows filmed in New Zealand don’t have a lot of options for diversity. For example there are very, very few black people in the entire country (less than a tenth of 1%) and I doubt that any of them would be actors. So they would have to be flown over – which is expensive. But then there are also issues with the local acting rules, which can restrict the amount of overseas talent a production can use.
In any case last season the actors playing Allanon and the Captain of the Guard weren’t white, but that didn’t seem to count for anything.
I’m not so sure about that. There were always plenty of Maori actors on Xena: Warrior Princess. And Australia is just across the water with plenty of pretty, young actors from a variety of ethnicities.
Anyway, the season 2 diverse casting is pretty great.
I’m still bummed we won’t have Poppy Drayton in season 2 at all.
What?
Garet Jax gets cast for the Shannara TV series and the headline doesn’t focus on that…. has anyone at this site ever even read the books?
To be fair, Matt did say he understood 1/20th of what he wrote, so it’s not like he was being something he’s not.
Why is production just getting underway when it was renewed 10 months ago! MTV is a mess and they’re on the brink of bankruptcy.
Poor girl. I think she try so hard to be special. I mean the Morgan girl