In a surprise to probably no one, even the handful of people who watched the series until the end, The Bastard Executioner will not be getting a Season 2. Kurt Sutter’s latest FX series failed to ignite the interest of viewers, critics, and ultimately, even Sutter (he admits he had fallen way behind on the scripts). I wasn’t much of a fan in my review of it, but I also acknowledged it wasn’t terrible … It just wasn’t very good. We even ran recaps here on the site for a few weeks, until we realized no one cared. It was killed, basically, by a resounding “meh.”
But what’s fascinating is that it wasn’t FX who chose to end the series, but Sutter himself — that’s an extremely rare thing. He clearly saw the writing on the wall, though. As he told THR, “I don’t want to write something that nobody’s f—ing watching.”...
...Sutter himself said of the show’s low ratings and his desire to cancel it (via an ad in the Hollywood Reporter) that,
I think the mythology was a little too dense for some people. There’s a glut of period pieces on right now, and I’m sure timing has something to do it. There’s just so many f—ing variables involved in that formula. My sense is that a year from now, people will be like, “Why didn’t you make more?” (Laughs.) I mean, I get so many people telling me they’re on episode four of Sons.
But perhaps the harshest truth comes from his comment that, “And yes, some of that is ego. But some of it is just, [if no one’s watching] then I’m not necessarily doing my job.”