Few things are as painful as a good TV show ending too soon. These stories engross audiences for many episodes before some studio decides their riveting story isn’t worth the time, robbing thousands of fans of the cathartic end they were hoping for. One of the biggest perpetrators of this heinous crime is the streaming service Netflix, with arguably its most undeserving victim being Lenore Zion and Nick Antosca‘s Brand New Cherry Flavor.
The show follows a young filmmaker who, after her movie is stolen by a slimy director, resorts to both dark magic and the horrors of Hollywood to get the justice she deserves. It’s a mind-bending piece of horror television that broke new grounds for body horror, with the disgusting lengths our main character, Lisa Nova (Rosa Salazar), goes to for vengeance offering countless moments of jaw-dropping gore. This supernatural bloodshed is always grounded in this powerful young woman’s story, a twisted tale of ancestral prophecies and lethal ambition that the season finale teased viewers would finally get the answers to. Unfortunately, they never did, because Netflix only ordered the program as an eight-episode miniseries. It’s always sad to see a good program go, but when it comes to the innovative, utterly terrifying masterpiece that is Brand New Cherry Flavor, fans deserve a second season to see the end of this bloody epic.
You’ve Never Had Anything Like the ‘Brand New Cherry Flavor’
The dark side of entertainment is a common element in many horror films, with Brand New Cherry Flavor initially appearing as a re-tread of these well-practiced concepts. It focuses on Lisa Nova, a young filmmaker who arrives in Los Angeles one dark night, frantic and recovering from some unseen tragedy with only one goal in mind: getting her movie made. She finally gets the chance to do just that when she meets famous producer Lou Burke (Eric Lange), a man with seemingly good intentions who signs on to create the film while assuring Lisa she’ll have complete control — before he sexually harasses her. Upset at her rejection, he uses complex legalese to steal the entire project, leaving Lisa dejected and wondering what her life will be without her precious movie. This is when she meets Boro (Catherine Keener), a mischievous, immensely creepy body-hopping witch. The entity promises her that if she agrees to pay her in small “favors,” Nova can get her movie back along with revenge on Burke. Lisa agrees and, to the horror of both her and the audience, begins down a dark, gore-filled spiral that truly nobody could have expected.
Brand New Cherry Flavor is a series built on subverting expectations, having viewers believe that they know where the story is going before veering into concepts as shocking as they are disgusting. As Lisa delves deeper into her fight for revenge, she learns more about what Boro is capable of. From tricking Burke into ingesting a parasite he eventually tears out of his own eye to reaping payment from the kittens she forces Nova to throw up, the series has a unique sense of body horror that manages to be gut-churning while also hilariously unbelievable. This is all buoyed by the secret that is Lisa herself, as each episode reveals that her initial meeting with Boro was no accident and that the mother she can’t remember is someone this magical, mythically old entity seemed to know well. The first season acts as a metamorphosis for the young woman, and not just because it sees her develop the sickening power to tear people apart. She realizes her desperation to create the movie was a misplaced desire to learn where she came from. It’s what made the finale so affirming for invested viewers, with Nova leaving LA for her ancestral homeland of Brazil to finally learn (for both herself and the audience) about the secrets of her bloodline.
Netflix Ended ‘Brand New Cherry Flavor’ on a Cliffhanger
Image via Netflix
The ending of Brand New Cherry Flavor was an exceptional cliffhanger that teased promising answers to the many questions that still lingered — so why was it only a limited series!? In the worst way, many horror fans understood why Netflix chose not to create more than one season of the show. It never tried to abide by people’s sensibilities, and the program explored not only intense subject matter but countless examples of creatively visceral gore, with deeply resonant messages threaded throughout every horrific scene. While extremely entertaining, these blatant terrors were a reflection of the conflict plaguing Nova’s daily life, representing not only the sickness of her industry but the deep troubles that come from not knowing oneself. By trying to cater to as widespread of an audience as possible while refusing to recognize this program’s quality and depth, Netflix cost so many people one of the wildest, most creative stories the horror genre has ever seen.
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While many films have tried to document the nastier aspects of Hollywood, few horror projects take as unflinching of an approach as Brand New Cherry Flavor. Many shows cloak realistic acts of abuse in metaphor, but not Brand New Cherry Flavor. It is shockingly grounded in the horrible moments where Nova is attacked by Burke, recognizing that it’s the realism of these scenes that is the true horror, and that any attempts to play up fantastical scares would only detract from that. The show crescendos into a multitude of other fears, with Nova’s internal conflicts reflected in the way her body is torn apart, reshaped, and put back together. It brings her core struggles of abandonment to the forefront in a way that any viewer could understand, while delivering cringe-inducing horror through its innovative bloodshed. It is as ingenious thematically as it is visually, making the fact that viewers will most likely never see its second chapter so, so disheartening.
‘Brand New Cherry Flavor’ Deserved a Second Season
While it’s extremely saddening that Brand New Cherry Flavor Season 2 is unlikely, fans shouldn’t fret because this entire story is an adaptation. It’s based on the novel of the same name by Todd Grimson, which tells the story of the first season, but continues after Nova boards that mysterious flight in the show’s final moments. It can finally offer mourning viewers the cathartic end they’re so desperate for… but it can never be as good as watching this story play out onscreen. Not because cinema is better than the written word, but because what made this narrative so thrilling was how the creators managed to use every visual marker as a representation of the inner world readers glimpsed in the book. This metaphor, assisted greatly by the amazing acting of its main cast and the surreal terror of its gory scenes, is what made the series not only a fantastic adaptation but an innovation for horror television. It’s what has many people still raving about it years after its premiere, and it’s a testament to why stories that not everyone understands should still be given the respect of getting to tell their complete narrative — AKA, get more than one season!
Brand New Cherry Flavor is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
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