‘High Fidelity’ Season 2 Would Have Focused on Cherise

Hulu’s High Fidelity cancellation stings quite a bit, but it’s made even worse by the fact that Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s hilarious record store employee Cherise was set to ground the second season. In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, star Kingsley Ben-Adir revealed that High Fidelity Season 2 was supposed to be “Cherise-focused,” but Hulu canceled the comedy before it had the opportunity to fully tell her story. What could have been!

When asked about Hulu canceling its High Fidelity reboot, an announcement that shocked fans and critics alike, star Ben-Adir was clear that he is not happy about the decision, particularly because he knows the writers had something special planned for the second season. “Annoyingly, Season 2 was really gonna be a Cherise-focused season,” he told the LA Times. “[Da’Vine Joy Randolph] was gonna become the lead of the show, and the story was leaning toward being about where she’d come from, her heartbreaks and her family background. And they stopped it just as that was about to happen.”

Randolph’s character spent much of the first season propping up Kravitz’s Rob, but in the latter half, she began to branch out on her own. At the end of the season, Cherise puts herself out there as an artist with a performance of Stevie Wonder’s “I Believe (When I Fall In Love),” but viewers are left in the dark about her future. Will the self proclaimed “musical visionary” finally be recognized for her talents?

Ben-Adir added that Kravitz would have brought something unique to a potential second season, as the star was intimately involved with every aspect of production. “From a selfish point of view, I think it’s a shame because I had such a good time working with Zoë [Kravitz],” said the actor, who played Rob’s ex-boyfriend Mac. “From what I read when I first went for it, she elevated it and really brought it to life as an executive producer. She was involved in everything: the tweaks, the rewrites, the edit, the detail, the reshoots, the rock, all of that stuff, that’s all Zoë, a super-talented person in all areas of storytelling, doing her thing.”

“I also enjoyed building that relationship with Zoë so much,” Ben-Adir continued. “It’s a little bit heartbreaking because we were playing this Black couple onscreen but no one goes to jail, and no one’s brother or dad is in prison. We were just two Black people in love, and we never spoke about that fact. It’s important for all people to see Black people represented in a way where it’s just like, ‘We’re just normal, we just do regular things too.'”

Read Kingsley Ben-Adir’s entire interview with the Los Angeles Times here.

Where to stream High Fidelity