As with its debut, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder season 2 has made a number of changes and tweaks to its source material, Good Girl, Bad Blood – a prospect that may leave some fans feeling apprehensive.
But with author Holly Jackson joining the writing team alongside returning writer Poppy Cogan, the adaptation also offered the novelist a unique opportunity to expand on the world she originally created.
“Reading the books alongside filming, it was such a great opportunity because the stories were still so fresh in my mind,” new cast member Eden H Davies, who plays Connor’s brother Jamie, told Radio Times.
“You could really see where Holly had expanded on certain moments from the book. It was really nice to watch an idea or a thought that’s briefly touched on in the novel become something much bigger and more fully realised in the series. That was really exciting to see.”
In its sophomore season, Pip is trying to stay out of trouble when Connor begs her to track down Jamie, who had been acting strangely before disappearing without warning – all while Max Hastings’s trial draws ever closer.
“This new mystery takes Pip to unexpected places as she struggles with the idea of justice, straying even further from the ‘good girl’ she once was,” reads the official synopsis.
“Holly said something really interesting about perspective,” echoed Asha Banks, who plays Pip’s best friend Cara: “That this world has always existed, and the book is just one version of how you experience it, whereas the TV show, especially this season, lets you see it from a different angle.
“It’s like those events were always happening in the book, but readers weren’t necessarily given the privilege of seeing them play out. In the show, you are.
“When she said that, I was like: ‘Damn, she’s a smart lady.'”
Anticipating that some fans may not enjoy the TV show diverging from the book, Yali Topol Margalith (Lauren) urged viewers to “surrender” to the adaptation and embrace what the series has in store.
“When you’re reading a book, so much of it is your imagination and it feels so personal to you,” she expanded. “And then, when you’re adapting it, you’re bringing one person’s vision to life – and it’s not necessarily going to match your own associations with those spaces, the way the characters behave, or the choices they make.
“So it’s about surrendering. I really hope Holly’s fans surrender to her vision of her story. This is the truest version of the story she wants to tell.”
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A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder season 2 will arrive on BBC One, BBC Three and BBC iPlayer on Wednesday 27 May. It streams on Netflix globally. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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