Warning: This post contains spoilers for Season 1 of The Season
Here’s the recipe for an addictive summer streaming binge: Start with a healthy scoop of Crazy Rich Asians, sprinkle in some White Lotus with a dash of Big Little Lies, season well with Revenge (the ABC primetime soap variety) and go heavy on real Hong Kong locations. That’s how you end up with The Season, the six episode revenge thriller/primetime soap that’s streaming now on Hulu.
Created by Yalun Tu, the series is a cross-cultural fusion of American television tropes transported across the Pacific to one of East Asia’s wealthiest and and most photogenic territories. It’s also a sign for how streamers are increasingly seeking to take their brands global not just through blockbuster imports like Squid Games and Heated Rivalry, but also by funding original series with international casts on an international stage. And Tu’s own life story reflects the kind of audience that Hulu hopes to reach with The Season.
“I was born in the U.S., but I’m half-Chinese and half-Caucasian, and I lived in Hong Kong from 2006 to 2015 working in finance,” Tu — whose other TV credits include NCIS: Hawaii and My Undead Yokai Girlfriend — tells Gold Derby. “There’s such a big international community there, and so much energy in the city. But I also realized that world might be somewhat inaccessible [to American audiences] since it’s so specific, so I drew on my own life and experiences as a mixed-race person by centering it around a relatable main character coming to Hong Kong and being our point of view to these multiple cultures.”
Tu’s surrogate character in The Season is Cola Pierce, played by Shadow and Bone star Jessica Mei Li, freshly off the plane in Hong Kong to star a job with one of the territory’s leading financial wizards, Carrie Shen (Celina Jade). Topping the list of Carrie’s VIP clients are Fiona and Christopher Hext (Karena Lam and Toby Stephens), who own the eponymous boat that’s a party magnet for the elite of Hong Kong society, and aspiring social climbers like Cola. But she’s also got a very personal reason for wanting to infiltrate the Hext family’s inner circle; her father is their former employee and is currently serving a lifetime prison sentence as their fall guy for a crime he didn’t commit.
Over the course of Season 1, Cola tries to secure the necessary evidence to clear her dad’s name, but achieving that goal exacts a high toll on her burgeoning career and friendships in Hong Kong. The show’s freshman season ends with two destructive explosions; first, the titular sea vessel goes kablooey in the Hong Kong harbor, but fortunately not before our heroine gets the intel that ends her father’s prison term. And second, Cola blows up her future with Carrie by sleeping with her boss’s boyfriend, David (Justin Chien) and then using her personal leverage with the Hexts to become the family’s new financial wizard.
It’s an ending that gives off serious Godfather vibes — and just like Michael Corleone, a lot of people are going to be gunning for Cola if and when The Season returns for Season 2. Tu broke down some of big Season 1 moments and where the series could go next.
Boom times
As Tu tells it, the Hong Kong tourism bureau was beyond helpful in letting The Season film all over the main island and surrounding territories — including a shoot at the famed Jockey Club in the middle of Hong Kong’s answer to the Kentucky Derby. “I believe we’re the first TV show to ever film there,” he marvels. But there were requests that Hong Kong officials couldn’t accommodate… like blowing up a deluxe yacht in the harbor, a moment that we glimpse the series premiere and circle back to in the Season 1 finale.
“You cannot set fire to a boat, period,” Tu says, laughing. “So we built the boat’s interiors on a soundstage and really did set them on fire, along with some digital enhancements. I remember that we filmed that stuff on our last two days, and one of the writers came up to me and whispered, ‘Burn it all down.’ And we did!”
As White Lotus fans will recall, Season 2 of Mike White’s Emmy winning HBO series also opened with the aftermath of a yacht-set confrontation before revealing what exactly went down aboard in the finale. Tu tips his hat to that show as an inspiration. “Something that Mike White has down amazingly well is that whenever any other show starts with a bunch of dead bodies right way, people will make the White Lotus comparison,” he says. “I thought there’d be something a little different with us showing this giant burning boat in the premiere and then flashing back to when it’s sparkling and new. It makes viewers go, ‘What the heck happened?'”
“I was also really attracted to the idea that Cola ends up in the water, and the thing that was thrown overboard comes back because the universe has given something back to her,” Tu continues, referring to the crucial piece of evidence that she loses and then regains. “It’s part of this interesting approach in Chinese culture to fate or destiny that’s different from in the West. There’s something very beautiful and philosophical about it.”
Friends to enemies
Blowing up a budding friendship makes blowing up a boat look easy. Tu says that he and his writers didn’t start The Season knowing that Carrie and Cola would end up at odds. “It’s heartbreaking, because Cola really does look up to Carrie as a mentor, but she has a larger mission and that takes precedence,” the creator observes. “Carrie unfortunately becomes collateral damage.”
“But I also feel that Carrie really didn’t do anything wrong,” he continues. “If Cola had been brave or strong enough to open up to her about her father, maybe Carrie would have helped. Or maybe she would have said, ‘This is crazy, get out of here!’ But at least that would have been a choice she could have made. As we were developing the story, we just kept asking each other, ‘What would you really do if you were in Cola’s situation?’ And this is where the story took us.”
Tu also acknowledges that some viewers might be disappointed with the primetime soap trope of a man being the thing that breaks up this particular female friendship. “I completely understand those criticisms,” he says. “But I do think it makes sense for the characters; Cola’s not all about David, because he’s not part of her mission — he’s more of a backsliding byproduct of that. And Carrie’s flaw is that she thinks that finding a guy will make her become more of a fully-realized person, even though she already is that.”
As teased in the Season 1 finale, Tu teases that Season 2 will bring Cola’s choices back to haunt her. “She helped blow up a boat, and screwed over Carrie and even though it got her father out of jail, there’s got to be consequences,” he says, while also ruling out a full heel turn for the heroine. “Cola needing to bear those consequences both externally and internally in her soul is something we want to explore in a second season. I’m as excited as anyone to figure out where Cola is going to go.”
One place The Season won’t go, however, is into financial thriller territory, even if Tu has professional experience in that world, much like Industry co-creators, Mickey Down and Konrad Kay. “If left to my druthers, I probably would make this a financial show,” he jokes. “But looking at what the audience likes and what the tone of the show is, we’re leaning into the thriller story and the soap story. I want the show to be heartfelt and meaningful, but we’ll always focus on the relationships between the characters more than the business aspect of it.”
Park life
Every kid dreams of having an entire theme park to themselves, and Tu got to make that dream a reality when The Season took over Ocean Park, a prime Hong Kong attraction, for the centerpiece fourth episode where the characters are brought together for a murder mystery party.
“Originally, that episode was going to take place at this house on Victoria’s Peak, but the location team pitched me on Ocean Park,” he remembers. “I told them, ‘Are you insane? These are wealthy people — why are they having dinner at an amusement park?’ But then we toured it, and I saw the park’s aquarium; the production designers told me to trust them, and I did. Now I think that’s one of our most visually beautiful episodes.”
Since Ocean Park is jam-packed with kids and families during the day, the cast and crew waiting until night fell and then had the full run of the place — including going on the rides in between takes. That’s probably not the treatment they would have received had they tried to shoot at the territory’s other big amusement park, Hong Kong Disneyland, even with the Hulu connection.
“The nice thing about Ocean Park is that all of the decison-amkers are Hong Kong-based,” Tu says. “Whereas Disney has their own way of doing things. Your dream when you’re a kid is to go to an amusement park where you can go on all the rides by yourself. So thanks to Ocean Park for making that a reality for me.”
Back to the island
Squid Games and Shogun have proven that viewers aren’t the only ones drawn to shows from and about East Asia; Emmy voters are very into them as well. Tu would understandably love to see Hulu mount an awards campaign for The Season — as a summer premiere, it would be eligible for the 2027 Emmys — as an example of what an international production backed by an American streamer can look like.
“The team absolutely deserves it — they did a wonderful job,” he says. “They made Hong Kong look so beautiful and aspirational, and audiences about the visuals and how the show treats Hong Kong as a character. The territory has been through so many changes and has gone through so many difficulties over the past decade, and the people who live there are really proud of it, and want to see it depicted in other ways than it has been.”
According to Tu, there are “active conversations” with Hulu about a second Season, although no official green light, yet. He also credits the streamer with not trying to impose too many American-isms on what’s ultimately a Hong Kong story.
“They were pretty respectful throughout the whole process,” he says. “But there were times where they’d want to clarify things. Like in Hong Kong, the currency is also in dollars, so sometimes they would say, ‘Can we have them say Hong Kong dollars?’ And I’d have to say, ‘No they’re in Hong Kong — they’re just going to say dollars.”
