Years after its debut in 2023, The Artful Dodger is back with its sophomore season, which has gripped audiences with its explosive heists and jaw-dropping medical cases. Fangirlish sat down with the show’s creator, James McNamara, where he revealed that all of the latter “are based completely on 1850s, real medical cases.” Not to mention, there’s a stacked soundtrack that elevates the series and helps “offer a contemporary interpretation of the subject matter.” McNamara discussed the show’s romance, its female characters, and his hopes for the future in our exclusive interview.
The Artful Dodger‘s star-crossed romance between Jack “Dodger” Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and Lady Belle Fox (Maia Mitchell) has taken the internet by storm in the years between seasons. It’s difficult – in the best way – to go anywhere on social media right now without crossing paths with a DodgerFox (as the fans have affectionately penned Jack and Belle’s ship name) fan edit. As it turns out, Mitchell has even passed some along to McNamara.
He says the reaction to the show’s main couple has been “very humbling.” McNamara is “very grateful” for the impassioned response to a romance that “has always been central to the story, right from when I was first creating the show. And that really was going to sink or swim based on the chemistry of the actors, and you can never tell.”
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McNamara recounted Brodie-Sangster and Mitchell’s first scene they filmed together. The Artful Dodger fan will know it well. It’s at the end of the series premiere when Jack and Belle get rather close while he listens to her chest with a stethoscope. “It’s a very romantic scene. And I remember Maia coming off set afterwards and saying, ‘Yep, we’re good. We’ve got chemistry. This is great.’ So, and, you know, it’s a testament to those two brilliant performers between Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Maia Mitchell.” He continued:
“I’m just so fortunate to work with not only wonderful, subtle, nuanced actors, but they’re just lovely, kind people, and they’re really kind to each other. And so it’s a joy to get to see that relationship blossom and to continue to write for it.”
The Artful Dodger’s second season certainly pushes Belle and Jack to foster their relationship against the pressure of Lady Jane Fox, Belle’s mother, demanding that they not see each other. As the season reveals, Jane’s apprehension to accept their relationship comes from a deeply personal place on her own part.
McNamara revealed “that was something that I discovered between seasons.” Refreshingly, he doesn’t like “to write a character as just a villain.” So, the season reveals “there’s so much strength and so much to admire about Jane,” even when you don’t necessarily agree with her. McNamara offered a great perspective to understand Jane:
“She’s come from a different world, a different generation. She’s had a much harder life than Belle has, and she’s extremely competent, and she has been denied the opportunity to pursue her passion in the way that Belle gets to pursue hers. And so I really wanted to explain why she was so opposed to the match and not just from the perspective of, you know, society and class says no, but because I’m trying to protect you because ‘I love you’ because you’re my daughter.”
He also explained that Jane’s “beautiful” arc was “partially inspired” by Lady Dedlock’s story in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. “It just struck me as so heartbreaking that because of the shame and the stigma imposed upon women in that time, that she was so scarred and that Lady Jane was so scarred.” It was also a way to “give Susie Porter and Maia Mitchell more time on screen together” after their “electric” scenes in Season 1.
McNamara, who has no shortage of wonderful compliments about The Artful Dodger’s talented cast and crew, described Porter and Mitchell as “two of the best actors in the world, I think, working. And so I really just wanted to lean into the mother-daughter story for them this season in the same way I’d really lent into father/son with Dodger and Fagin in Season 1.”
As much as McNamara believes that Jane offers Belle “a carrot as well as a stick” by allowing Belle to go back to the hospital, he also sees Jane as having “real empathy for Belle’s ambition.” After all, Lady Jane is “effectively the governor of that colony, but always has to do it in her husband’s name.”
So Jane may judge “medicine and surgery” as “kind of disgusting and not suitable for a lady, but when she sees how passionate Belle is about it, how good she is, I think she digs inside herself and thinks, you know what, if this is her passion, she’s really good at it.”
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McNamara shared that the arc took shape through collaborative conversations (He prefers to work “like a playwright does in the English theatre”) with Mitchell and Porter. Interestingly, that’s also how Lady Fanny’s turn to the criminal world came about for Season 2. McNamara “had this idea to write a play about three Victorian ladies who accidentally killed their suitor on a weekend and had to get rid of the body.” That idea came up again in conversation with David Thewlis, who plays Fagin, and Lucy-Rose Leonard, who plays Fanny, and McNamara’s wife, Rebecca, who is the inspiration for Lady Belle.
It also had to do with a separate conversation about Thewlis wanting a love story for Fagin, but a romantic one didn’t end up working for the character. Instead, The Artful Dodger Season 2 has a “really pure, platonic love story” that’s “sort of father/daughter love story where Fagin kind of gets the criminal right hand he’s always hoped for in Jack.” McNamara also complimented Rose Leonard for bringing “so much to the scenes with David.”
He described the story as “deliciously fun to write” and explore Fanny’s eccentricities after Fanny “didn’t get as much love as a character in the first season as” he’d hoped. (We love Fanny!) “I think she’s a lot smarter than people give her credit for, and that she gives herself credit for. And that she ultimately has this kind of wicked sense of humor, where she sees it all as terrific or good fun. She’s a little bit in a wonderfully eccentric way, a little bit unhinged. And I think that that plays in perfectly into Fagin’s world,” McNamara added.
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These stories converge in different genres and tones, which The Artful Dodger balances with ease. McNamara admits that he finds it “interesting” when people sum the show’s genre “in very different ways. And to me, I think that tonal balance is what makes the show.” And what – or who – is at the core of that? Jack and Belle’s romance. McNamara describes that story as both “an anchor point” and “a really serious romantic drama” for The Artful Dodger to explore.
In fact, the response to Jack and Belle’s romance is what McNamara hoped; he wanted people to fall in love with their “love story over again.” He also wanted people to enjoy Fagin and Fanny’s adventures, and see “the strength in Lady Jane, the governor.” McNmara continued:
“Ultimately, I hope that people come away from the show feeling happy and uplifted. We try to show characters searching for comfort and safety and home in a difficult world. I think that The Artful Dodger has a kind heart as a show. It certainly has a kind heart in our casting crew, and the way that we work on set. I hope that people can feel that kindness coming through the show. That, to me, is what’s been picked up on. It’s so humbling and gratifying to see the response.”
So, where does that leave The Artful Dodger’s future? As far as McNamara is concerned, “I would love to do a third season if we get that chance. I don’t know whether we’ll get the opportunity yet, but I would all love to go back to Port Victory…. Here’s hoping. Fingers crossed.” Needless to say, the show’s fans are also craving more of every aspect of The Artful Dodger. With all the season’s cliffhangers and the tease of what’s to come with Jack and Belle’s romance, our fingers are also crossed for a Season 3.
The Artful Dodger Season 2 is streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
