Why Your Honor Season 3 Never Happened

This article contains spoilers for Your Honor seasons 1 and 2.

Bryan Cranston’s crime drama Your Honor abruptly ended in March 2023 after only two seasons, leaving many wondering why a third season never came to fruition. Based on the Israeli series Kvodo, Your Honor stars Bryan Cranston as Michael Desiato, a New Orleans judge whose teenage son, Adam Desiato (Hunter Doohan), accidentally kills another teenage boy in a hit-and-run. When Michael finds out that the victim is the son of mob kingpin Jimmy Baxter (Michael Stuhlbarg), he uses his connections to cover up Adam’s crime, which only pulls them both deeper into the mess.

Your Honor season 1 premiered on Showtime on December 6, 2020, airing new episodes weekly until the series finale on February 14, 2021. Your Honor season 2 arrived a little under two years later, premiering on January 15, 2023, and concluding on March 19, 2023. However, a third season of Your Honor never followed, raising questions about whether the series was cancelled, and if not, why it ended.

Your Honor Was Originally Meant To Be A Limited Series

Your Honor Was Never Supposed To Go Past Season 1 In The First Place

The primary reason that Your Honor never made it to season 3 is that it wasn’t intended to be a multi-season show in the first place. When the series was adapted for American television by Peter Moffat, Your Honor was initially conceived of, written, and produced in a limited series format. What would go on to become “season 1” was supposed to be the beginning and end of the story, with no intention of continuing on after the finale.

According to Cranston, who is also an executive producer on the series, Showtime decided to renew Your Honor for a second season because of season 1’s exceptionally high ratings. However, he only agreed to return if season 2 properly explored his character’s grief after his son’s death in the season 1 finale.

“If this really happened and you lost a child, it changes your life forever,” Cranston explained on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast ahead of the season 2 premiere in 2022. “So if you really want to show a man in abject despair, if there is any possibility of a life beyond that, let’s do it. But it has to be incrementally discovered.”

During this 2022 appearance, before season 2 had even premiered, Cranston confirmed that this would be the final season of Your Honor. Considering it was never expected to go past season 1 to begin with, there was no expectation that Your Honor would even go past season 2, so it was hardly a shock that a third season wasn’t announced even after season 2 concluded.

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Your Honor Season 2’s TV Ratings Were Worse Than Season 1

Your Honor Had Lower Viewership In Season 2

Another factor that contributed to Your Honor‘s lack of a third season is the lower ratings in season 2. Your Honor season 1 averaged approximately 590,500 viewers per episode each week (0.081 Nielsen rating), while season 2 only averaged 510,000 weekly viewers (0.049 Nielsen rating) (via Showbuzz Daily). It wasn’t a huge drop, but the decrease in viewership was enough to indicate a decrease in interest.

Since there was never supposed to be a second season in the first place, it was already unlikely that Showtime was going to renew Your Honor for yet another season, regardless of how season 2 performed. Thus, when the ratings dropped in season 2, it only further confirmed that not pursuing a third season was the right call. Had the ratings for season 2 been as good or even higher than season 1, it’s possible that Showtime would have tried to order another season, but this is still a long shot given its initial conception as a miniseries.

What Bryan Cranston Has Said About Your Honor Season 3

Cranston Would Be Potentially Interested In Producing A Third Season, But Not Starring In It

A month after the season 2 finale of Your Honor aired in March 2023, Cranston clarified his initial comments on Armchair Expert the year prior, in which he seemingly ruled out a third season. “There is some discussion,” he told Deadline. “Showtime has indicated there is interest.” What he meant was that he was unsure if there feasibly “could be” or, rather, should be another season of Your Honor because of how the story ended. “If it happens, fantastic,” he noted, “but it’d have to be some great reason to keep expanding in this world.”

Given Cranston’s Your Honor character’s fate in the season 2 finale, though, the actor didn’t see himself reprising his role either way. “I don’t know about being in it because my guy’s back in prison,” Cranston explained. Although he was’t so sure about the plausibility of returning to the screen as Michael Desiato, Cranston was still interested in producing Your Honor season 3 if it ever came to fruition. Of course, that day never came, but Cranston seems more content with the series being over for good.

Source: Armchair Expert, Showbuzz Daily, Deadline