Netflix’s 8-Part Psychological Horror That Deserves Another Season Is The Perfect One-Night Binge

Although the French horror show Marianne only lasted one season, the show still deserves a belated second-season renewal and makes for a fun watch in its own right. Some shows managed to earn a second season despite dismal reviews, as was the case with both Netflix’s Insatiable and HBO Max’s Velma.

In contrast, some shows never get a second season even though they badly need one to conclude their open-ended story, as was the case with Netflix’s true crime drama The Watcher. That ambiguous mystery was intriguing, but the show ended before it could get to the most compelling answers behind its enigmatic titular threat.

Netflix’s Marianne Deserved Another Season After Its Cliffhanger Ending

Similarly, Netflix’s underrated horror series Marianne deserved another outing after its first season ended on a dramatic cliffhanger. Created by Cobweb director Samuel Bodin, Marianne focused on Victoire Du Bois’ Emma, an author who learns to her horror that the scary stories she writes are coming true.

More specifically, Emma realizes that the characters she writes are able to gain a foothold in the real world via her writing. This is a uniquely worrying realization for Emma, since she has written an entire series of novels about an evil witch, the eponymous Marianne.

When Emma opts to give up on the Marianne franchise, she soon learns it isn’t that simple. The action of this critically acclaimed Netflix horror show then begins in earnest as Emma travels to her hometown only to discover that Marianne is not only real, but seemingly able to control the reality of her hometown through some mysterious means.

Marianne Season 1 Is Still A Satisfying Standalone Psychological Horror Show

Emma has to come back to the community of her childhood to try and stop Marianne, but this proves almost impossible as the villain outwits her at every turn. With a creepy appearance and seemingly limitless powers to contort reality, Marianne is reminiscent of Stephen King’s Pennywise, but arguably even more disturbing.

After all, Emma doesn’t have her best friends around to support her in her attempts to destroy the villain, and she herself has been unintentionally empowering the witch with her writing for years. Thus, the stage is set for a terrifying horror series that ends with a killer cliffhanger twist, one that will leave viewers wishing that the show was renewed.

Although Marianna never received a second outing, the show’s first season is still well worth watching seven years later. One of the most unsettling horror shows in Netflix’s back catalog, Marianne even earned praise from the master of horror himself, Stephen King, upon the show’s release. Hilariously, the author said Marianne was “Very Stephen King” in a post on X.

The writer is not wrong and, although King has praised plenty of shows that feel nothing like his work, Marianne’s small-town setting, author protagonist, and reality-warping villain all call to mind the legendary author’s output. Thus, Marianne is a must-watch for horror aficionados, despite how unfinished its plot may feel after the show’s early cancellation.