Hulu has renewed Good American Family for a second season — and in doing so, is officially turning the ripped-from-the-headlines drama into an anthology series. Season 1 dramatized the case of Natalia Grace, the Ukrainian-born woman with a rare form of dwarfism whose adoptive parents falsely claimed she was an adult child predator. Season 2 is leaving that story behind entirely to take on one of the most notorious true-crime sagas of the 1990s: the case of Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt, according to TVLine and The Hollywood Reporter.

Series creator Katie Robbins is returning to run the new season, with Ellen Pompeo also back as an executive producer. Notably, Pompeo — who played adoptive mother Kristine Barnett throughout Season 1 — will not appear on camera this time around, having signaled she'd be shifting toward producing duties as the show expands its true-crime universe. Andrew Stearn joins the producing team for the new installment, per Variety's report on the renewal.

From Natalia Grace to a 1993 Media Circus

The Bobbitt case needs little introduction for anyone who lived through the '90s news cycle: Lorena Bobbitt severed her husband John's penis while he slept in their Manassas, Virginia home in June 1993, an act she said followed years of physical and sexual abuse. The organ was surgically reattached. Lorena was later acquitted by reason of temporary insanity after a trial that turned her name into a punchline and a flashpoint in the national conversation about domestic violence; John was separately acquitted of marital sexual assault. The couple divorced in 1995.

Hulu's official logline leaves little doubt about the tone the new season is chasing:

"A limited series inspired by the ripped-from-the-headlines story of Lorena and John Bobbitt, a Virginia couple who incited a media circus that treated trauma as entertainment, launched a thousand dirty jokes, and ignited a gender war."

It's not the first screen treatment of the saga — Amazon released the docuseries Lorena in 2019, and Lifetime aired the dramatized I Was Lorena Bobbitt the following year. But Good American Family's dual-perspective format, which let Season 1 audiences see the same events through both Natalia's and the Barnetts' eyes, could give the network a fresh angle on a story most viewers think they already know.

That approach paid off commercially the first time around, even if critics were split. Season 1 pulled in 6.3 million viewers for its finale within six days of release and racked up roughly 140 million streaming hours across Hulu and Disney+, per figures cited by ScreenRant, despite a middling 50% critics' score and 47% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Casting for the Bobbitt roles has not yet been announced, nor has a premiere date. Hulu's bet is essentially that the American Crime Story-style true-crime anthology format — proven out by FX and Netflix with cases like O.J. Simpson's and the Menendez brothers' — still has commercial gas left in the tank, provided the network keeps picking cases with built-in name recognition and a sharp enough hook. The Bobbitt case, with its uncomfortable mix of dark comedy and genuine abuse allegations, checks both boxes, which is likely exactly why it was chosen.

For now, fans of Season 1 will have to wait to see who steps into Lorena and John's shoes — and whether the show can replicate its streaming numbers without Pompeo front and center.