Liz Sarnoff also hints at the identity of the mysterious person in the Season 1 finale.

Scarpetta showrunner previews Season 2: ‘The stories definitely start to pick up, and murders happen’

Liz Sarnoff also hints at the identity of the mysterious person in the Season 1 finale.

By Kathleen Perricone

March 17, 2026 6:59 p.m. ET

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Nicole Kidman stars in 'Scarpetta' as forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Credit:

Connie Chornuk / Prime

With the release of the first season of Amazon Prime's *Scarpetta*, fans are dying to know what’s ahead for Kay, Dorothy, Pete, Benton, and Lucy, especially after that cliffhanger finale.

The upcoming second season — which is currently in production — will be based on Patricia Cornwell’s fourth and fifth books in the *Scarpetta* series, *Cruel and Unusual *(1993) and *The Body Farm* (1994).

“So the stories definitely start to pick up, and murders happen,” showrunner Liz Sarnoff tells *The Hollywood Reporter*. “*Cruel and Unusual*, [set] in the past, is a story that involves a prisoner who’s executed, so it gives us a different setting to roll into at the top of the season.”

Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis play sisters in 'Scarpetta'.

Connie Chornuk / Prime

In the finale — spoiler alert! — Kay (Nicole Kidman) takes out the present-day serial killer, a police officer she’s worked alongside since 1998, when he breaks into her home. In the aftermath, a mysterious person opens her front door and becomes a witness to the bloodshed.

Who is it? Only “the writers know,” says Sarnoff.

But fans of the show have certainly seen this person before and will learn their identity when the second season picks up “pretty soon after the events of episode 8 in present day. In the past, it picks up a little bit later.”

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The emotional storytelling is the “key to the present” adds Sarnoff. In the finale, Kay finds herself alone: her sister Dorothy (Jamie Lee Curtis) and brother-in-law Pete (Bobby Cannavale) moved out of Kay's home and into a hotel; her niece Lucy (Ariana DeBose) suspects she “killed” the AI bot of her deceased wife Janet; and her husband Benton (Simon Baker) wants a divorce.

“I think [next] season is more, for the present-day characters, what their journey is like without each other to some degree, because they’ve all split,” continues Sarnoff. “So the question is: *Do they end up getting back together? Do those splits hold, and who really is right for whom?* It’s an exploration for them more on their own at the top of the season before they’re all brought back together.”

Bobby Cannavale plays Marino, a former detective and brother-in-law of Kay Scarpetta (Nicole Kidman).

Connie Chornuk / Prime

Technically, the two *Scarpetta* books guiding Season 2 are set in the past — a departure from Season 1, which straddled two timelines borrowed from Cornwell’s *Postmortem* (the first *Scarpetta* book) and 2021’s *Autopsy*. Sound confusing? Luckily, Sarnoff has read the entire 29-book series multiple times.

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“This show, for me, has been a real labor of love,” she admits. “I learned early on that I have to stay with my instincts and be strong about that. I read the first eight books again, and I thought these two really speak to each other, and it’ll be really interesting if we can make them work together.”

*Scarpetta *is streaming now on Prime Video.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Drama”