Teen drama Grand Army is not coming back for another season on Netflix.
The streaming service canceled the Katie Cappiello-created series after just one season. Variety broke the cancellation news last week, eight months after the show’s nine-episode first season premiered in October 2020.
Netflix didn’t provide any reason for canceling Grand Army, but a behind-the-scenes drama that surfaced prior to the show’s debut might have impacted the series’ ultimate fate. When the trailer for the series was released in fall 2020, playwright Ming Peiffer ― who served as a story editor and a co-writer of episode 8 ― revealed on Twitter that she and two other writers of color on the show quit after experiencing “racist exploitation and abuse.” It’s unclear if those claims have been verified, but Peiffer has made no further comment since then.
Sorry 2, 3 writers including me. Aforementioned tweet is just top of the iceberg. I’m sickened they chose this wording for the tweet and are whoring around the American flag in the trailer as though anything about this project was united
— Ming Peiffer (@mingpdynasty) September 2, 2020
Loosely based on 2013’s Slut: The Play by Cappiello, Grand Army followed five students at the largest public high school in Brooklyn as they take on a chaotic world and fight to succeed, survive, wild out, break free, and seize the future.
It starred Odessa A’zion as dancer Joey Del Marco; Odley Jean as basketball player Dominique “Dom” Pierre; Amir Bageria as Siddhartha “Sid” Pakam, a member of the swim team struggling with his sexuality; Maliq Johnson as musician Jayson Jackson; and Amalia Yoo as Leila Kwan Zimmer, a Chinese-American girl adopted by a Jewish, Caucasian family. Across its first and only season, the series tackled several relevant topics, including rape culture, racism, sexual identity, bullying, violence, and terrorism.
In addition to having created Grand Army, Capiello also executive produced the series along with Joshua Donen, Beau Willimon, Jordan Tappis, Nicolette Donen, and Elizabeth Kling.