The Other Black Girl is not progressing forward.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Other Black Girl, based on the novel of the same name by Zakiya Dalila Harris, has been canceled after one season. Hulu’s Onyx Collective series followed Nella (Sinclair Daniel), a woman who was hoping to advance in an upscale New York City publishing company and is relieved when another Black woman, Hazel (Ashleigh Murray) is hired, only to later feel like Hazel is now her competition.
The series might have been praised on Rotten Tomatoes at a whopping 86 percent fresh rating, but, as The Hollywood Reporter notes, audiences were less receptive, giving it only 50 percent. Anecdotally, it seems the lackluster response was present on social media, with some viewers loving it, while others feeling like it didn’t exactly tread new ground.
However, JaJuan Malachi wrote for Shadow and Act in 2023 that The Other Black Girl interrogates the whiplash Black people in corporate spaces must endure. Malachi described it as “drinking the Kool-Aid,” writing, “That means fully subscribing to the standard behavior of how one is expected to exist peacefully in the workplace as a Black person: small talking, not standing up for what you truly believe in and doing whatever it takes to keep your job in the corporate, predominantly white arena. In this mode, there’s little room for action or mindset outside of this routine. For Black people, this can mean compromising your integrity and core ideals/values to gain acceptance or “selling your soul” altogether if that means taking more steps toward upward mobility.”
Though the show isn’t getting a second season, the first season of the show covered the novel in its entirety, which brings into question if it should be considered a limited series now, as a Season 2 would have not had any source material.
But last year, showruners Jordan Reddout and Gus Hickey were anticipating the possibility of creating a second season, with Reddout telling The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s something we constantly talk about and would be very exciting to do.”
Hickey also said, “Since we changed the ending, we want the chance to show everyone what’s going to happen now. There’s a lot to explore.”