Sad news, She-Ra fans: sitting down for an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Noelle Stevenson broke the news on Tuesday that the Netflix show will be ending after 5 seasons. But unlike certain untimely cancellations of fandoms past, there’s nothing premature about the end of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Instead, she says, the team knew exactly how many episodes (52!) they’d be getting from the start, which means they’ve been able to wrap up all their storylines as planned.
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“That’s a real blessing for a storyteller because it means everything happens when it’s meant to happen,” Stevenson told EW. “The story definitely evolved along the way, from people who worked on it and following the story threads that seemed right and where the characters led us. We set out with a plan, we executed that plan, so it’s very satisfying to see it wrap up like this. I’m very happy with where we got to with this story. I’m really excited for people to see it. I hope they’ll be as happy as I am.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the showrunner revealed that the show really started coming into its own during season 4, when they “learned to make the show [they] wanted to be making,” adding that that’s the season “everything… the characters and viewers thought was true, got flipped around.” With characters muddying up allegiances and moral alignments left and right, Stevenson continued, that means the “board has been wiped clean a little bit” as the show heads into season 5.
“Now suddenly they have a villain who they don’t know,” Stevenson said. “They’re getting exposed to the wider universe. Even people who had been fighting for world domination are suddenly realizing how high the stakes are.”
For more details about season 5, including some deep-dives on Adora and Catra and two first-look posters, check out the full interview over at Entertainment Weekly. Spoiler warning, obviously, for season 4.
Season 5 of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power arrives on Netflix May 15.
