“Getting Under Your Skin,” by genius author Simon Bouleris, has been greenlit for a second season, Dominique Veillet, Zero3’s vice president of fiction development, creation and production, told Variety ahead of the Quebec showcase at the Series Mania Forum.
The undercover drama, set in a Montreal high school, is one of seven series in the “Coming Next From Quebec” panel that is trying to grab market attention on Lille.
The first episode premiered this week on TV5 in Quebec, giving the green light for season two.
Season 1 of the eight-part series, each 24 minutes long, follows Gaspard (Félix-Antoine Benard), a teenage queer crime show buff, as he befriends and infiltrates the life of a young police officer (Anthony Therrien) who disguises himself as a student to investigate a drug trafficking network with ties to organized crime.
Bénard is best known for his starring role in the multi-award-winning 2023 film The Humanist Vampire Seeking the Consent of a Suicidal Man, while Therrien is best known for his role in three seasons of the French-Canadian version of Red Band Society. Both actors will return for Season 2 of “Getting Under Your Skin.”
“At a time when synthetic drugs are becoming more widespread and more insidious, this series addresses a timely and urgent issue,” said Veiller, who produced the first season with Caroline Langlois.
“What makes this show unique is its hybrid nature, blending a coming-of-age story with a crime drama. When those worlds collide, the result is a refreshing and interesting story that immediately draws us in and creates a strong emotional connection to the characters,” said series director Eric Piccoli, who was selected for Season 2.
Work has already begun on the second season, with Montreal screenwriter Bouleris, a playwright, poet, children’s author, and co-creator and co-writer of the Coming Next From Quebec series, Take Care, taking the student and police characters into darker territory.
“My hope is that, a year and a half later, we meet Gaspard again, who is now in CEGEP (pre-university college) and who, through a series of events, has unwittingly become embroiled in a situation as toxic as season one, a juvenile prostitution ring operating out of a particular bar in the gay village,” he told Variety. “It is in these circumstances that he reunites with Thomas, who has returned to the world of undercover work.”
“Getting Under Your Skin” is reprized by Melanie Ratt of Sphere Abacus in Series Mania.
