Showtime Says WHO IS AMERICA? May Not Be Finished, After All

Well, well, well.

By Aug. 28, 2018

Over the weekend, Showtime aired the season finale of Sacha Baron Cohen's Who Is America?, a move which prompted the comedian to issue the following Tweet:

This, in turn, prompted a number of outlets - this one included - to take him at his word: Who Is America?'s final episode had aired, and that was that. Sure, it was hard to understand why Cohen and company would introduce and "burn off" a number of new Sacha Baron Cohen characters across a measly seven episodes, but then, maybe they didn't actually film enough material for more than one season (as this writer had been predicting for weeks). Odd, but not outside the realm of possibility.

Well, as it turns out, there's still a chance we had it right: according to Entertainment Weekly...

"Despite the comedian himself tweeting Sunday’s finale of Who Is America? was the “last EVER” episode, the network insists no decision has been made on the show which pranked political figures into making embarrassing (and revealing) mistakes.

The network had previously told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s press tour last month that they were “dying to bring the show back” for a second round, despite its modest Nielsen ratings."

In the immortal words of Lloyd Christmas: "So you're saying there's a chance?"

It would make a lot of sense if Who Is America? weren't finished. As previously noted, it seemed crazy to think the production only managed to scrape together seven episodes' worth of material (each of those episodes bolstered by an unusually-lengthy opening sequence, no less), not to mention how unusual it would be for Cohen to reveal a quintet of new characters, only to quickly render them useless for future hijinks.

It made far more sense to believe that a fair amount of additional material was still waiting in the wings, should the viewership and Showtime demand a second season. No interest? Fine, throw that extra footage on the eventual home video release and sell it to the die-hard fans. Win-win. 

At any rate, we're chalking up this one's status as "Undecided" for the time being, and will keep you informed as further updates roll in. Stay tuned.

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