2026 is already shaping up to be a big year for Tom Hardy on the small screen, and an unexpected update about his forgotten crime drama series Taboo might just have made it even bigger. Taboo is an underappreciated masterpiece co-created and written by Steven Knight, with whom Hardy has collaborated on several occasions.
Although the show was renewed for a second season soon after its initial release in 2017, work on this follow-up season quickly stalled, and nine years have passed without further developments. Knight and Hardy have both intimated their desire to return to the series in interviews, but haven’t given any concrete updates, until now.
Among Steven Knight’s best TV shows, Taboo is alone in facing almost a decade out of production without any clear timeline for its return. Yet, the show’s co-creator has finally shared a substantial piece of news about its future – one which is major cause for excitement among Tom Hardy fans.
It turns out that Knight has already worked out a plan for Taboo season 2 with the actor. So, we could see Tom Hardy returning to the screen as James Delaney very soon. A clever variation on Hardy’s best gangster characters, Delaney is arguably the actor’s most underrated crime role, and warrants far more than a single season of television.
Tom Hardy’s Taboo Just Received An Exciting Season 2 Update
Right now, Tom Hardy’s Taboo is a bingeworthy eight-episode crime masterpiece about the criminal underworld of commercial trading in London during the early 19th century. As of January 2026, however, the show could be about to develop into so much more.
At long last, Hardy’s fellow Taboo creator Steven Knight has given fans of the series precisely the update they’ve been waiting nine years for. Since it first aired on the BBC and FX in January 2017, Knight has experienced unprecedented success in his career.
His landmark period crime drama Peaky Blinders has become a Netflix original, and a string of subsequent TV hits such as SAS: Rogue Heroes, A Thousand Blows and House of Guinness have impressed critics and entertained ever-increasing masses of viewers. But as Knight’s career has taken off, Taboo has seemingly been left by the wayside.
The first season of the series was well-reviewed, and garnered almost six million viewers per episode in the United States, prompting a swift confirmation of its renewal from the BBC and FX. Yet, no further official news about season 2 followed this confirmation, and viewers have been left waiting on tenterhooks for updates ever since.
Steven Knight Has Already Planned Taboo Season 2 With Tom Hardy
This month, Steven Knight has finally shared an update about Taboo season 2, giving the millions who enjoyed the show’s first season a tangible reason to expect a follow-up soon. In an interview with the UK’s Radio Times, Knight revealed that discussions around this second season of the series are further along than anyone could have expected:
“Well, Tom and I have talked about it, and I think we know what we would do. It’s just finding the space. But I’d love to, I get asked about it – especially in the States, actually – I get asked about it a lot.“
It seems much more of a case of “when” than “if” Taboo will be making a comeback, then. Knight and Hardy already have a plan in place for how to continue the series. The two of them simply need to align their busy schedules, and the show could be back in production sooner rather than later.
Scheduling was likely the primary reason why Taboo season 2 wasn’t produced immediately after the first eight episodes, back in 2017. At the time, Stephen Knight was working on seasons 4 and 5 of Peaky Blinders – which also starred Tom Hardy – as well as developing his three-season sci-fi series See for Apple TV.
Hardy, meanwhile, was promoting the Christopher Nolan movie Dunkirk, and filming the Marvel feature Venom, in which he played the title role. By the time there was a gap in his schedule the following year, Steven Knight was directing his third feature film, Serenity.
Taboo Features Tom Hardy’s Best TV Crime Role Besides Peaky Blinders
There are plenty of reasons to get excited about the potential return of Taboo, but first among them is undoubtedly the reappearance of Tom Hardy’s protagonist James Delaney. The character responsible for Hardy’s best TV performance outside Peaky Blinders, Delaney is an unscrupulous anti-hero with a vendetta against the world’s most powerful company.
Having traversed the British Empire as an enterprising adventurer, he comes back to London profoundly affected by his experiences among African tribes. His knowledge of spiritual rituals and supernatural beliefs held by the tribes he lived among imbues him with a shamanistic aura, who appears capable of summoning forces beyond the understanding of his British adversaries.
Delaney is also of mixed heritage, since he was born to a Native American mother, and spent time on slave ships used to transport Africans to the markets and plantations of the British Empire. It’s because of this background – in addition to his affinity with African tribespeople – that Hardy’s character harbors deeply anti-imperialist sentiments.
Alongside this highly original backstory, Hardy brings his own trademark intensity to James Delaney, making him a character who’s somehow at once otherworldly and emotionally accessible. After season 1 of Taboo, it feels as though there’s a lot more of Delaney’s story that needs to be told, which is why Steven Knight’s latest update about the show is so significant.
Steven Knight & Tom Hardy Have Just Worked Together On Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man
Knight would have had plenty of time to flesh out the details of a new Taboo season with Tom Hardy over the past year and half, which saw the pair working together again on the Peaky Blinders movie. Hardy is among the biggest stars to have reprised their role from the crime drama series for the big screen.
The Immortal Man will be released in theaters on March 6, 2026, before arriving on Netflix two weeks later. After its release, it may well be that Tom Hardy has a rare gap in his schedule. Likewise, besides the continuation of his period boxing drama A Thousand Blows, Steven Knight could have a relatively quiet year for once.
It seems like the perfect time for the two of them to get back together with Chips Hardy, Tom’s father and fellow Taboo co-creator, to move forward with the show’s next chapter. There’s too much still to explore about the world of James Delaney to leave this story hanging any longer.
- Release Date
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2017 – 2017-00-00
- Showrunner
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Steven Knight
