Originally published January 3, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
Fans of The Man in The High Castle will be pleased by the news that Amazon has ordered a third season of their hit original drama. Furthermore, they have also named Bosch‘s Eric Overmyer as the new showrunner in the wake of previous showrunner Frank Spotnitz’s exit from the show.
Season one of The Man in The High Castle became Amazon Prime’s most streamed show at the time of its premiere. The series is based on Philip K. Dick’s 1962 novel which imagines the Axis powers winning World War II, with Germany conquering most of America while Japan controls the country’s West coast.
Frank Spotnitz developed the adaptation, but left amid rumours of tension with Amazon in the middle of the second season’s production. This left the existing production team to carry on without a proper showrunner, but now that Overmyer has been named as his replacement The Man in High Castle should be expected to run a little more smoothly.
“As timely as ever, the exploration of characters at a dark point for humanity has provided incredible stories for two seasons,” said Joe Lewis, Head of Comedy and Drama, Amazon Studios. “Eric and his team are doing an incredible job crafting stories about the inner lives of those who struggle to do good in a world that is not.”
The Man in the High Castle stars Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans, Luke Kleintank, DJ Qualls, Joel de la Fuente, Brennan Brown, Bella Heathcote, Callum Keith Rennie, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, and Rufus Sewell, and is executive produced by David Zucker and Isa Dick Hackett. Season two resumes with Juliana Crain (Davalos) facing the consequences of her decision to betray the Resistance and allow Joe Blake (Kleintank), a suspected Nazi agent, to escape the Pacific States with a film originally bound for the Man in the High Castle. Joe himself returns a hero to the Reich and finds himself thrust into the Nazi capital of Berlin, face to face with the father who abandoned him. Meanwhile, Frank Frink (Rupert Evans) becomes increasingly radicalised and drawn further into the resistance after seeing images of his own execution in the mysterious films.
With political tensions mounting between Germany and Japan, Trade Minister Tagomi (Tagawa) begins to regret his success in smuggling nuclear technology from the Reich and seeks solace in the strange new world he discovered at the end of season one. Meanwhile, Obergruppenführer John Smith (Sewell) struggles to reconcile the values of the Reich with the deteriorating health of his son— all while tasked with a mission from the Fuhrer for which failure is not an option. And Chief Inspector Kido (De La Fuente) begins to take greater interest in the Man in the High Castle, the films, and how Juliana Crain is connected to it all.
