The world of Hulu’s Hit-Monkey is getting even crazier and more deadly than before in season 2. Based on Daniel Way and Dalibor Talajić’s Marvel character of the same name, the next chapter of the animated show finds the titular assassin and his ghost mentor, Bryce, venturing to New York City after escaping from Tokyo with the help of Haruka. As they work to clear Monkey’s name, they will also find themselves a part of a number of new and familiar faces for them both.

Among the new characters in Hit-Monkey season 2 is Iris, voiced by The Penguin and The Resort‘s Cristin Milioti, who is the estranged daughter of Bryce he abandoned when she was a child. Bryce turns to making a deal with Keith David’s Mephisto in the hopes of reconciling his relationship with her while also avoiding his end of the bargain that would unleash Hell on Earth. Other new characters include Leslie Jones’ Eunice, Bryce’s former assassin agent, as well as a collective group of super-powered mercenaries with their own mysterious agenda for Monkey.

Fred Tatasciore returns to lead the ensemble Hit-Monkey season 2 cast in the titular role alongside Jason Sudeikis as Bryce, Ally Maki as Haruka and Olivia Munn as Akiko, as well as the show introductions of Leslie Jones, Cristin Milioti, Reiko Aylesworth, Rob Corddry, Keith David and Jim Gaffigan. With a bolder expansion into supernatural storytelling, grandiose set pieces and intricate worldbuilding, season 2 not only lives up to the high bar set by its predecessor, but arguably surpasses it.

In anticipation of the show’s return, Screen Rant interviewed creators Will Speck and Josh Gordon to discuss Hit-Monkey season 2, how Hulu “fought internally” to get the renewal greenlit, how they went about casting their new characters, the chance for season 3 after the cliffhanger season 2 finale, and an update on their delayed sci-fi comedy Distant.

Hulu Was “An Amazing Partner” For Speck & Gordon In Making Hit-Monkey Season 2

Though previously confirming having had plans for its story, Speck and Gordon found themselves waiting for a while to begin work on Hit-Monkey season 2, partly due to Marvel Television being folded into Marvel Studios. While plans for an interconnected universe consisting of M.O.D.O.K., Howard the Duck, Tigra & Dazzler and The Offenders were all scrapped, Hit-Monkey found its way to being the sole survivor, and Speck and Gordon recall Hulu having “really fought internally” to make it happen:

Josh Gordon: Well, Hulu was an amazing partner, and they really fought internally to give us that second season. So, we were psyched when we got that green light. And it was kind of hurry up and go, because we suddenly had to get it on the air not too much longer than it had already been, because there was a year gap there already. So, we completed the season in basically a year and a half, which is really quick for animation. It was a lot of hustle on Floyd County’s part, which is the animation studio, and we just jumped right into the writers room and got going. The good thing was we knew what we wanted to do with the season, because we’ve had plenty of time to think about it.

Iris Was Always Part Of The Plan For Season 2

In reflecting on building out the story for season 2, Speck and Gordon explain that the introduction of Bryce’s daughter Iris was always part of the plan for Hit-Monkey, even noting that “there were a few breadcrumbs” in season 1 to build towards this. Speck also goes on to explain that Iris’ inclusion came from wanting to bring the story to New York “that wasn’t just arbitrary“:

Will Speck: I think there were a few breadcrumbs in the first season, and we actually looked at it, and looked at the graphic novel as a jumping-off point. We knew that there were demons in Bryce’s backstory that we flashed back to in the first season, but we felt like those were good threads to pull and to continue into the narrative. Because it’s one thing to sort of redeem yourself from some of your more recent things, but your past can really haunt you, and I think being a ghost, it felt appropriate to actually have him be haunted by something deeper.

Also, we really wanted a reason to go to New York that wasn’t just arbitrary, and the idea of redeeming himself with his primary relationship and unwrapping something that had become so formative for him was really exciting for us. And then, to cast someone like Cristin in that role was just an exciting jump-off, that felt like a really good compliment for Jason. And the idea that blood runs thicker than water, and that there’s certain things in her DNA that were very similar to him. But that was just a really fun area for us to explore.

Expanding The Supernatural “Really Unlocked” Season 2 For Speck & Gordon

While season 1 featured a fair amount of supernatural elements, particularly with Bryce’s ghost, Hit-Monkey season 2 really expands on this storytelling, including his various deals with Mephisto and the latter’s plans to unleash Hell on Earth with a large army of souls killed by Monkey. Gordon recalls how expanding this element “really kind of unlocked” the story for season 2 for the duo, allowing them to go to “a bigger, more interesting place“:

Josh Gordon: Yeah, season 1 was a relatively grounded season in terms of it lived mostly in the real world. But what we noticed, not only in the show, but also in sort of the comic, was that there’s a very thin membrane between the afterlife and the living. A lot of ghosts kept appearing in the first season, from Yuki, the Japanese witch, to obviously Bryce, himself, to Elder Monkey, who comes to haunt Monkey in the human world. So, we sort of realized that there was a larger story to tell about rupturing that membrane. So, we knew that Bryce had gone to Hell, it was sort of a joke at the end of the first season, but we really wanted to kind of unwrap how did he really get back to Earth? And knowing Bryce, it was not the story that he told at the end of season 1, because he tends to lie quite a bit. So, once we unpacked that, it really kind of unlocked the season for us, and allowed us to kind of go to a bigger, more interesting place, while, as Will said, at the same time unpacking the more human stories that really drive the show.

Season 2’s Villain Group Are Tied To A “Core Theme” Of The Show

Beyond Iris, another major introduction in Hit-Monkey season 2 is a collective group of mystically powered and enhanced mercenaries who aim to bring peace to the world and end all violence. Despite seemingly being a potential ally for Monkey, he and Bryce eventually come to realize they have darker plans for how to achieve these goals, and Gordon teases that this is meant to tie into the “core theme of the show“, which is that of “the price that you pay for violence“:

Josh Gordon: Well, that was the real fun of the season was kind of building out this group of, you could call them antagonists. But it’s hard to tell, through a lot of the season, if they’re with us or against us. And we wanted them also to be tied thematically to this kind of core theme of the show, which is really a kind of rumination on the price that you pay for violence. So, these are characters that, in their own way, are trying to move away from violence, but, like a lot of people, they have not picked the right lane to do it.

So, they’re interesting villains to us. We were really happy with the voice cast that we were able to assemble, including Nat Faxon, Tramell Tillman, a lot of really amazing people there. Once you start writing them, if you do a good job, they start to write themselves, and then the actors come into the booth, and they make them their own. So, you know, Tramell, for instance, would give us 10 times the content that we needed. At the end of the session, we were like, “Okay, we really found the character there.” That was exciting.

Leslie Jones Surprised The Duo With How Much Of A “Great Partner” She Was On Hit-Monkey Season 2

The other major addition to Hit-Monkey season 2’s roster is Leslie Jones as Eunice, Bryce’s hot-headed former manager who begins giving Monkey jobs. In bringing the Saturday Night Live vet on to the show, Speck recalls being surprised by what a “great partner” Jones was to work with, praising her for being “really engaged” in the show and her character, and even expressing feeling like “she was more invested in this” than any of her prior animation work:

Will Speck: I think what happens oftentimes in animation, and in any kind of booth setting, is that you get an actor that comes in and, in the best of circumstances, they’re really engaged in a character. In the worst, which we’ve all been part of, they come and do their thing and leave. I think what was so great about Leslie is, as we were explaining the show, we realized her appetite for actually understanding every element of it, all the characters, every perspective, looking at temporary animation, getting excited about who her character could be as part of the instrument of the story.

So, I think it was just brilliant, because we knew her comedically, she was our first choice for the role, and she accepted, which we were thrilled for, but we didn’t realize that she was gonna be such a great partner. And even now, she’s like, “I can’t wait to promote the thing, I love it.” She really dug into it in a really cool way, and she’s done animation before. So, she obviously has a great voice and a good ear for it, but we like to think that she was more invested in this than she has been in anything before. Because it certainly was our experience on the receiving end of it.

Hit-Monkey Season 2’s Ending Isn’t Meant To Finish The Show (But The Team Doesn’t Know If There’s A Future)

As with season 1, Hit-Monkey season 2 leaves on a fairly open note for a potential season 3, particularly in regard to how Bryce and Monkey’s dynamic has been flipped. When asked whether they considered a more definitive ending for the show after the long wait for an answer on the first renewal, Gordon confirms he and Speck “didn’t want to wrap it up“, and though they are unsure if there’s a future, they wanted to leave audiences on “a kind of big note“:

Josh Gordon: Well, no, we didn’t want to wrap it up. In its own way, it does slightly wrap it up in a certain symmetry, but we did want to leave the door open, either for future episodes, or for the audience to kind of go somewhere. We didn’t want to wrap it up too neatly, but we needed to end it on a kind of big note. So, we always knew that that was going to be the end of the season, we kind of knew that that was going to be the end of the season even as early as season 1. So we’ve really had a lot of time to kind of construct and think about the arcs of season 2. So yeah, we were thrilled that Marvel and Hulu let us go to such an extreme place with it, and yeah, we can’t wait to hear what audiences think of it.

In reflecting on the possibility of the show eventually crossing over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Speck praises Marvel for being a “great godparent” in allowing them to build their own kind of universe separate from the long-running franchise, and while not completely averse to the possibility of such a crossover, Gordon explains their ambition was always to “build out this weird little corner“:

Will Speck: They were like a great godparent. In the process, we definitely included them on storylines and gave them the ambition, and we often got the thumbs up. What’s exciting now is that they’ve seen the show, they’re in support of it, so we definitely feel like we’re getting the benefit of Marvel as the underlying spiritual guide to this character from its origin.

Josh Gordon: But the kind of great thing about the show from the beginning has always been because we’re not part of the MCU, we can kind of be these interesting little pirates over off in the corner, which we kind of like. We get the benefit of Marvel and their support, but we don’t necessarily have to tie it into too many of the characters, and it can define and live off in its own weird little bubble, which we kind of like. We’re a little harder than the brand tends to be, and they were cool with that. They were like, “Yeah, we get it. It wants to live in its own weird little universe.” Who knows, maybe eventually, it will find its way to the MCU. But our ambition was always to just sort of build out this weird little corner.

Distant Is Stuck In “The Slipstream Of Streaming Versus Theatrical“

Beyond Hit-Monkey, Speck and Gordon also returned to the world of filmmaking with the sci-fi comedy Distant, starring Anthony Ramos as an asteroid miner who tries to rescue a crew member with the help of his AI survival suit after they crash on an alien planet. Though having completed production in late 2020, Universal has delayed the movie’s release numerous times, with the last delay seeing it pulled from the release calendar entirely. When asked about these delays, Speck explains the studio is currently determining whether to release it on streaming or in theaters:

Will Speck: I think it’s stuck a little bit in the slipstream of streaming versus theatrical, and I think that’s what’s getting worked out. But, we’re excited to share it when the time’s right. We’d love for you to cover it.

About Hit-Monkey Season 2

In New York City, Monkey finds a path to escape his life of killing, while Bryce attempts to repair the damage to those he wronged in life. But what will it cost them to undo the past?

A Japanese snow monkey, aided by the ghost of an American assassin, goes on a killing-spree, and becomes the famous “killer of killers.”

Stay tuned for our other Hit-Monkey season 2 interviews with:

Ally Maki
Fred Tatasciore

Hit-Monkey season 2 is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+!