Hulu’s Emmy-nominated comedy series “Pen15” will end after the conclusion of the second season, The Wrap confirmed Monday.
The series about middle school seen through the eyes of two 7th grade girls dealing with teenage life was created by and stars Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle. The two have mutually decided to end the series.
“Anna and Maya are the stewards of ‘Pen15’ and Hulu is extremely supportive of their vision and decisions around the series. While they feel the story they wanted to tell has come to an end with the upcoming second half of season 2, Hulu will continue to leave the door open for more Pen15 in the future and look forward to working with them again!” an individual with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap.
Erskine and Konkle play versions of themselves as 13-year-old outcasts in the year 2000, where the best day of their lives can turn into the worst with the stroke of a gel pen. The rest of Erskine and Konkle’s middle school classmates are played by actual 13-year-olds.
In a recent interview with TheWrap, Konkle and Erskine said it has been therapeutic revisiting early encounters with racism and Konkle’s parents’ divorce on the series.
“It wasn’t fun in some moments, I’ll be honest, to go back to some of those traumatic memories,” Erskine explained. “And we didn’t anticipate that fully when we were writing it, but it ended up being cathartic and strangely healing because other people, after this show came out, would reach out and say, ‘Yeah, that happened to me too,’ or, ‘I felt that same way.’ So, we felt less alone. I felt like I got some closure from sharing the things that I felt so scared to share.”
The series premiered in 2019 and was renewed for a second season last year.
The comedy is written and executive produced by Erskine and Konkle along with Sam Zvibleman. Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer of The Lonely Island executive produce along with Becky Sloviter of Party Over Here. AwesomenessTV produces, and Debbie Liebling also executive produces alongside Marc Provissiero and Brooke Pobjoy from Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment.
The Hollywood Reporter was the first to report the news of the series ending.