How Sweet Magnolias Will Keep The Complicated Romance Train Rolling In Season 2

joanna garcia swisher maddie brooke elliott dana sue heather headley helen
(Image credit: Netflix)

I know it’s been nearly two full years since we last saw our favorite Sweet Magnolias and their long list of (potentially unsuitable) love interests, but if you enjoyed the small town drama as much as I did, you will probably remember that Helen, Dana Sue, and Maddie had some complex love lives by the end of Sweet Magnolias Season 1. With the new season of the Netflix hit now here, we know how the series has kept the complicated romance train rolling along for Season 2.

How Will Sweet Magnolias Season 2 Use All Of Those Complicated Romances?

Well, I do declare! Viewers certainly got to watch all of the Sweet Magnolias deal with some heartbreak and potential new forever love by the time the series wrapped Season 1 with a very dramatic, cliffhanger-inducing car crash. Basically, each of our three ladies is either having to choose between an old love and an enticing new one, or trying to see if they can bounce back from hurt quickly enough to take full advantage of whatever sparks are flying with a different gentleman caller.

In speaking with Entertainment Weekly about Sweet Magnolias Season 2, showrunner Sheryl J. Anderson revealed that everyone will still have their bags packed and be riding in the complicated romance caboose (along with wading through other, now major, plots) and said:

In Season 2, there's a lot of examination of past relationships, and how, or if, they inform, shape and change future relationships.

For a refresher on everyone’s relationship status, Helen and Ryan had broken up again, after realizing they still didn’t want the same thing when it came to having kids (he was a firm “no,” while she was a yearning “yes”), but she finally noticed that sous chef Erik had taken a liking to her…which she definitely began to reciprocate. Maddie was divorced from cheating husband Bill and had been trying to make things work with her son’s baseball coach, Cal, but Bill asked for another shot after Maddie and Cal hit the skids. Meanwhile, workaholic Dana Sue finally (FINALLY) got some lovin’ from sweet farmer Jeremy, only to be enticed by her own cheating, estranged husband, Ronnie, toward season’s end.

Whew! These ladies will have a lot of decisions to make and pieces to pick up or fully discard in Season 2, right? As Anderson noted, these kinds of difficulties do tend to impact people’s romantic relationships going forward, so even if we eventually see the trio make way for their new loves, that doesn’t mean that it will totally be smooth sailing on the…uh, romance train (with the same seeming to be true for potential teen couple Ty and Annie). 

It can be very hard to get over being cheated on so that you can trust anyone, especially with the fact that Maddie felt like Cal overstepped his bounds with her son, so she and Dana Sue will still likely be dealing with some strong feelings about their old loves. And, with how much Helen and Ryan went back and forth over their many lifestyle differences, it might be a real challenge to trust that even someone as nice and seemingly ready for family duties as Erik is the right choice. Plus, he has his own complicated past to deal with and talk to Helen about so they can start out the right way.

Basically, there’s going to be a lot more drama, romance, and a lot more surprises coming our way in Sweet Magnolias Season 2, and fans wouldn’t have it any other way! Both seasons of Sweet Magnolias are on Netflix right now, but for more to watch, check out other upcoming romantic TV shows, the 2022 Netflix TV schedule, and all of the 2022 TV premiere dates

Adrienne Jones
Senior Content Creator

Covering The Witcher, Outlander, Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias and a slew of other streaming shows, Adrienne Jones is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend, and started in the fall of 2015. In addition to writing and editing stories on a variety of different topics, she also spends her work days trying to find new ways to write about the many romantic entanglements that fictional characters find themselves in on TV shows. She graduated from Mizzou with a degree in Photojournalism.