The Rainmaker hasn’t lost its touch. The USA legal drama returns for Season 2 in uncharted territory, stepping beyond the bounds of the original John Grisham novel. But with a few interesting choices, the TV series is as intriguing and fun to watch as ever.
A lot of the intrigue comes out of one detail: showrunner Michael Seitzman puts only a two-month gap between the end of Season 1 and Season 2. It’s a surprising move; it would be incredibly easy for Seitzman to jump forward a year or two, and get a completely clean slate. But by keeping the events of Season 1 relevant, Seitzman gets to explore the aftereffects. It’s the best of both worlds: a reset in the sense that Rudy Baylor has a new case, but enough is the same for fans to hold onto.
There are elements of The Rainmaker Season 2 that are familiar. Seitzman still has a high-powered, white-shoe lawyer as the main villain, but this time Leo Drummond has been replaced by Amanda Vonn, played by The Last of Us and Station 19 alum Merle Dandridge. Amanda just happens to be friends with Leo, and she even gets to give a big first-episode speech like Leo. (Don’t worry, John Slattery fans—USA has already confirmed that Leo will return in Season 2. Karen Bryson has also been announced as Dot Black, though her return would’ve been better off as a surprise.) And as far as legal cases go, shifting from representing a grieving mother to an abandoned 12-year-old boy is trading one bully story for the next most obvious one. Not that it matters much, because as Deck Shifflet (a still delightful P.J. Byrne) points out, Rudy fights bullies. It’s his calling.
The choice not to make a huge time jump introduces a really interesting wrinkle: Rudy has become an overnight celebrity, with clients hiring the firm just to get him and other lawyers trying to lure him away with promises of bigger success. But as anyone who saw Season 1 knows, Rudy isn’t into the law for the paycheck. Yet his newfound fame also makes doing his job a lot more difficult, and that’s an angle that audiences probably didn’t think about when they were celebrating last season, as well as something different than the usual problems in a legal drama. For his part, actor Milo Callaghan is still spot-on as Rudy. Audiences can tell that he’s changed a little because of what he went through before; there’s a little more hardness to him. But as soon as he sees an injustice, that all melts away and he’s back to being the idealistic lawyer the viewer knows and loves. So much of the show relies on Callaghan and his ability to get the audience as invested as Rudy is, and he’s still the guy you’d want fighting in your corner.
Most of the main cast returns from Season 1. A noticeable exception is Robyn Cara as Kelly Riker; one of the shifts from the book to the TV series was a need to change the book’s ending, since Rudy and Kelly go off into the sunset together at the end of Grisham’s novel. In the Season 2 premiere there’s not even a reference to Kelly. It’s fair that she’s not present because of that shift in storyline, but the premiere does such a good job of connecting all the other dots that it’s disappointing there isn’t a mention of Kelly, especially since Rudy did indeed come to care about her.
And speaking of caring, Madison Iseman‘s character Sarah has a surprising character arc that is The Rainmaker‘s biggest gamble. Without spoilers, it’s a little best of both worlds. Season 2 doesn’t undo what Sarah did, but it does make her face some consequences, and viewers get to see a little more than the straight villain she appeared to turn into at the end of Season 1. It’s refreshing, because Sarah going full villain was the most obvious end for her. To put more shades of her character back in makes her more worth watching, and Iseman is wonderful when she gets to play Sarah’s softer side again. That being said, since the promos have already revealed that she’ll be butting heads with Rudy again, the show risks eventually getting her to a point of no return. There’s only so many times she can keep being on the opposite side before he (and the viewers) have enough of her.
Byrne and Lana Parrilla are still scene-stealers as Deck and Jocelyn “Bruiser” Stone, respectively; both of them have a very keen sense of who their characters arc and they are chewing the scenery with ease (and in Byrne’s case, still having to chew a lot of food besides). The Rainmaker Season 2’s primary subplot is another piece of Bruiser’s past; instead of her dad, now it’s her ex-husband. That plot is a little more frustrating, though as usual it’s entertaining to no end to see Parrilla put people in their place.
Most importantly, it’s a relief that The Rainmaker Season 2 has gotten back to the extra layers and character beats that made the show so great in the first place. Some of that went by the wayside as Season 1 went on; the show was so focused on getting to a dramatic conclusion that it missed a lot of opportunities. That is not the case in Season 2. It has that depth of character and those flashes of wit that make it more than another legal drama. (Callaghan and Byrne’s comedic banter has particularly improved; you can tell the two actors developed a rapport over the course of Season 1.) While Seitzman’s plot framework utilizes some more familiar elements, the sparkle of the cast makes up for that. The Rainmaker is definitely back, and at the perfect time. TV viewers can use a smart, snappy underdog story.
The Rainmaker Season 2 premieres Oct. 18, 2026 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on USA. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Versant Media.
Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.
