The first season of Off Campus, Prime Video’s hockey romance series based on the books by Elle Kennedy, has only been streaming for less than three weeks, but we already know what to expect next season (which starts filming in British Columbia this summer). Season 1 centered around the first book in Kennedy’s series, The Deal, and told the love story of music major Hannah Wells and college hockey player Garrett Graham. The show had already been renewed for a second season a few months prior to Season 1’s premiere on May 13, and in an announcement video released on May 28, it’s now confirmed that Season 2 will focus on Dean Di Laurentis and Allie Hayes.
Dean and Allie are the leads of Kennedy’s third book, The Score, and they’re both characters that audiences have already become well-acquainted with thanks to their involvement in Season 1 (Dean is Garrett’s teammate and housemate, Allie is Hannah’s best friend and roommate, and together they engage in a secret relationship of sorts throughout the season).
As showrunner Louisa Levy told Deadline in an article that accompanied the announcement, the Off Campus creative team is “so excited to continue Allie and Dean’s story as our primary romance of season two after kickstarting their romance in season one.” She goes on to reassure fans that Hannah and Garrett will still be involved in the second season, stating how she’s “looking forward to telling the next chapter of everyone’s story.”
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Of course, any discussion of the Season 2 leads must also include an acknowledgment that this news deviates from the original order of Kennedy’s books. As mentioned earlier, Dean and Allie headline the third book in the series — the second book, The Mistake, belongs to the love story of fellow hockey player John Logan and psych major Grace Ivers.
We were introduced to Logan and spent time with him throughout Season 1, and while we haven’t met Grace yet, her name was briefly mentioned as an Easter egg in the sixth episode. As well, her casting was announced less than two weeks ahead of Season 1’s release, confirming her involvement in the soon-to-be-filmed sophomore season.
Given India Fowler’s casting and Levy’s comments, it feels safe to assume that Grace and Logan will occupy a similar role in Season 2 to Dean and Allie in Season 1, and then they will go on to lead the not-yet-greenlit-but-let’s-be-honest-it’s-really-just-a-matter-of-time third season.
It’s a somewhat unconventional storytelling strategy for a book-to-series adaptation, but to be honest, given the challenge any creative team faces when tackling a TV adaptation of a popular romance book series, there probably isn’t one ideal way to translate several interconnected love stories from page to screen. Each showrunner of such a project comes armed with their own creative vision, and as we’ve seen just in the last six months with popular book-to-series adaptations such as Crave’s Heated Rivalry Season 1 and Netflix’s Bridgerton Season 4, these visions can vary wildly from one show to the next.
With Heated Rivalry, based on the queer hockey romance series, Game Changers, by Rachel Reid, showrunner Jacob Tierney has chosen to feature the repeat leads of Reid’s second, sixth, and upcoming seventh books, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, for the entirety of the show. The remaining couples from the rest of the books either already have or are expected to make their appearances in recurring roles, but the central focus will always be on Shane and Ilya.
In the case of Bridgerton, the historical romance series based on the books by Julia Quinn, the approach has been to devote one season to each book — and therefore each couple. There has occasionally been some minor development taking place ahead of a couple’s leading season, but on the whole, their major moments are confined to their singular season, with little for them to do in any subsequent appearances. Heading into its fifth of ideally eight seasons (one per book), Bridgerton has also strayed from book order on two separate occasions so far.
Now, with Off Campus, if the stellar execution of Season 1 is anything to go by, then we have nothing to worry about for Season 2 and beyond. I trust that Levy knows what she wants to do in order to best tell all these love stories, and I look forward to experiencing the aftermath of Hannah and Garrett, the culmination of Dean and Allie, and the beginnings of Grace and Logan all within the same season.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Liane Hentscher/Prime