the defense rests

Your Honor? Your Honor’s Final Season Airs in December

Your honor? Photo: Skip Bolen/SHOWTIME

Legal-drama nerds, I bring good tidings (and condolences). Your Honor, the most-watched debut season to ever hit Showtime, will be back in December, a fitting holiday gift for its devoted fans. However, the show will end after its second season, lead Bryan Cranston told Dax Shepard on his Armchair Expert podcast in July. The series, based on the Israeli drama Kvodo created by Ron Ninio and Shlomo Maschiac, follows New Orleans judge Michael Desiato, who does what any good parent would do when their teenage son is involved in a fatal hit-and-run: He cleans up his kid’s mess. “I am preparing for the second and last season of Your Honor, which is a limited series that I did for Showtime,” Cranston said on the pod. “As they tell me, it got higher ratings than any other series they’ve ever had — and so, one more season of that.” The Flight Attendant’s Rosie Perez joins the season-two cast as a guest star, while Cranston, Amy Landecker, Lilli Kay, Keith Machekanyanga, Andrene Ward-Hammond, Jimi Stanton, and Benjamin Flores Jr. return.

Originally envisioned as a limited series, Showtime green-lit a second season in 2021 following the success of the first run. The first season was written and produced by BAFTA-winning showrunner Peter Moffat (The Night Of), who will not be returning to the show to stay close to his family in the U.K. That could be unfortunate news for Showtime — without Moffat, Your Honor is without its original showrunner and out of original source material (the last Kvodo season bowed in 2019). David Manson originally replaced Moffat as showrunner but left the series this past spring. Instead, season-one writer Joey Hartstone will put on his legal robes as the new new showrunner. One more season of Cranston playing a crooked character? To Your Honor stans in mourning: Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. The season premiere hits streaming and on-demand on December 9 for Showtime subscribers, and officially airs on cable December 11.

This post has been updated throughout.

Your Honor? Your Honor’s Final Season Airs in December