"Maia Mitchell and Susie Porter spoke with Kyle Meredith about returning to Hulu's The Artful Dodger for Season 2, where the show widens the lens beyond Jack and Fagan and lets Lady Bell and Lady Jane Fox steer into the mess. Between the two-year gap between seasons, the new lawman Inspector Boxer closing in, and Bell's push to keep carving out a future in medicine, the series keeps its swagger while raising the stakes (and, occasionally, your gag reflex)."
"For Porter, Lady Jane is a woman navigating a rigged system and only gradually realizing how rigged it actually is. "Characters never see themselves as villains," she says, insisting Jane believes she's doing the right thing even when the fallout says otherwise. Season 2 pushes her out of her bubble of privilege and into the shock of seeing poverty up close."
"Mitchell, meanwhile, frames Bell's Season 2 arc like somebody who's done leveling up the hard way. "She's a different Belle," Mitchell says, as the show picks up six months after the end of Season 1 - post surgery, post recovery, and mid-spiral trying to save Jack from being hanged. "She's not as plucky. She's not as naive. She's lost some innocence... she's kind of stronger than ever and way more dropped in and just like a little more adult.""
Season 2 of The Artful Dodger widens its focus beyond Jack and Fagan to place Lady Bell and Lady Jane Fox at the center of the story. A two-year gap and the arrival of lawman Inspector Boxer increase legal dangers while Bell pursues a future in medicine. Lady Jane confronts privilege and encounters shocking poverty, revealing moral blind spots and complicity within a rigged class system. Historical sexism restricts women's roles and forces covert action. Bell returns post-surgery with diminished innocence, greater strength, and a more adult resolve, and the season balances heightened peril, darker moments, and preserved swagger.
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