One Sweet Magnolias Storyline That's Expanding Into A Full-Blown Plot In Season 2

chris medlin isaac sweet magnolias netflix
(Image credit: Netflix)

I hope everyone reading this is completely stocked up on their margarita fixins so that we’re all prepared to pour one out, because Sweet Magnolias Season 2 will debut on Netflix (Finally!) in just a few short days. The first season left us with a lot of questions, and the Season 1 ending did a great job of giving fans a lot to ponder over this extended break, from character relationship statuses to who Kyle’s passenger was in the car accident. But, there's another storyline that's going to expand into a full-blown plot in Season 2: Isaac’s search for his birth parents.

What’s Been Said About The Search For Isaac’s Parents In Sweet Magnolias Season 2?

For several episodes of Sweet Magnolias’ first season, Isaac (Chris Medlin) was just a nice, sorta mysterious young man who works in the kitchen staff at Dana Sue’s restaurant. But, in Episode 6, we get a better idea of who he is, when he tells their sous chef, Erik (Dion Johnstone), that he came to Serenity to look for his birth parents. Isaac then surprised Dana Sue toward the end of the finale by asking if she was his biological mother. According to TV Line, this minor plot will now become a very big one, as Sweet Magnolias Season 2 is said to have a “major” focus on Isaac looking for his parents.

This actually makes tons of sense, because while there was little known about Isaac in the first season, and he doesn’t play a big role in the main action of the series, you might recall that Dana Sue was unable to answer his question. They were having a tear-filled conversation in Sullivan’s kitchen alone, when she was alerted to the fact that there’d been a car accident involving Maddie’s son, and Dana Sue had to leave. So, Isaac’s parentage was actually another big, shocking cliffhanger for Season 1.

And, it’s not a huge stretch that the young man has made in thinking that Dana Sue might be his mother. We get hints through that first set of episodes that our now very work-focused Dana Sue was kinda wild in her younger days, and are also told that she spent some time away from Serenity, and that time is still a mystery to the audience. But, are there other options for who Isaac's mom could be? You bet there are!

Who Could Be Revealed As Isaac’s Parents In Sweet Magnolias Season 2?

Obviously, at this point, it truly could be pretty much anyone (particularly with new characters coming in). All Isaac knows is that he’s biracial and his parents are both from Serenity. There’s a possibility that Dana Sue is his mom, but my bet (and the bets of many other fans) is on another very low-key character and someone we know a bit better for being his mother and father: town reporter Peggy (Brittany L. Smith) and Helen’s currently off-again ex-boyfriend, Ryan (Michael Shenefelt).

Peggy also spent time away from Serenity, with her family moving away for her senior year of high school. Sounds like a good time for her to have had a secret baby that no one in town would know about, right? Also, Peggy is the one who alerted Ryan to the fact that Helen and her friends were renovating his family home, bringing him back to town, so we have a slight connection there. And, not only have Peggy and Helen had beef with each other since high school, but Peggy also got real mysterious when talking to Helen about Ryan in the finale, after they’d broken up again.

It could be that some of their rivalry stemmed from the fact that Peggy liked Ryan way back when, or that during one of his off-again periods from Helen, he and Peggy had a brief fling, which resulted in Isaac.

What Does Sweet Magnolias' Showrunner Say About Isaac’s Parents?

As you might imagine, this is the kind of cliffhanger mystery that Sweet Magnolias showrunner, Sheryl J. Anderson, is not going to give answers or clues to, especially with the synopsis for the new season sneakily not mentioning the plot at all. When asked about Isaac’s biological folks, Anderson said:

When we were shooting Season 1, I had cast and crew members who came up to me and would say, ‘I think I know who his parents are,’ and they’d go on to explain their theories. I’d thank them for sharing and for observing carefully [and I’d move on]. [The writers] knew who Isaac was when we first brought him to town. [We] made that decision in the writers’ room at the beginning of Season 1.

Well, at least Anderson and her team know exactly where they’re going with the story of Isaac and his birth parents, and will be making this surprising plot a main focus of the new season. Hopefully, this means that we’ll get some answers by the end of Sweet Magnolias Season 2, which will likely have its own shocks in store for us!

The new season hits Netflix this Friday, February 4, and you can see what we know about Sweet Magnolias Season 2, but for more to watch, check out what other upcoming romantic TV shows are on the way, and look into the 2022 TV schedule

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.