For eight episodes, Carlotta and Dedo Klatt bugged their neighbours to find out where their daughter had gone. Now they know where she is. The trouble is where she was found: standing over a dead body, in what Apple‘s synopsis describes as being “caught seemingly red-handed”.

Where’s Wanda? returns on Apple TV for a second season of its German-language dark comedy, with Heike Makatsch and Axel Stein back as the Klatts, Lea Drinda as Wanda and Leo Simon as her brother Ole. Produced by UFA Fiction, it was Apple’s first German-language original series. The first season followed two parents who, desperate to find their missing daughter, took the case into their own hands: they recruited their son, picked up equipment from the dark web and started spying on their own town. The second season keeps the method and reverses the question. The search is over. The suspicion has started.

From missing person to murder suspect

The first season was built on an absence. Wanda was gone, and every house in town was a possible answer. The episode titles made the method visible: most were named after a family the Klatts were spying on, from the Hessels and the Roths to the Vinsons and the Novaks. What they uncovered, more often than not, had nothing to do with their daughter. The town had secrets. They were simply not hers.

Season 2 starts from the opposite position. In Apple’s description, the Klatts believe their lives are “finally returning to normal” when Wanda is found beside the body. To prove her innocence and “avoid losing her again”, they open a new investigation, and the hunt for the real killer takes them “into the criminal underbelly of their sleepy suburban town”. The official synopsis closes on two questions: whether their quest to protect the family will get them out of trouble “or ultimately lead them further astray”, and whether they can establish “the truth of what happened on that fateful day before it’s too late”.

That shift matters for a comedy about amateur sleuths. In the first season, the Klatts’ own transgressions, from wiretapping neighbours to Dedo breaking into the home of one of Wanda’s teachers, came with an alibi built in: a missing child. In the second, the case is a murder, and the person under suspicion is the one they are trying to save. The premise points to a harder problem. Parents who investigate to find a child are searching. Parents who investigate to clear a child are, at least potentially, building a defence.

A bigger ensemble for a small town

The core family is unchanged. Makatsch, an International Emmy nominee known to international audiences from Love Actually, plays Carlotta. Stein, a German Comedy Award winner, plays Dedo. Drinda and Simon return as the Klatt children, and Nikeata Thompson is back as Detective Michelle Rauch.

Around them, Apple lists a season-two ensemble that reads like a cross-section of German film and television: Sam Riley, Alexandra Maria Lara, Suzanne von Borsody, Devid Striesow, Kostja Ullmann, Palina Rojinski, Gisa Flake, David Schütter, Sascha Geršak and Torben Liebrecht, together with Harriet Herbig-Matten and Frederic Balonier from Maxton Hall: The World Between Us, plus Aaron Maldonado-Morales and Anton Dreger. Apple’s announcement credits them by earlier work rather than by character: Lara with Downfall, von Borsody with Run Lola Run, Striesow with All Quiet on the Western Front, Riley with Maleficent. Who they play in Sundersheim, the show’s fictional suburb, has not been detailed in the official material.

The team behind the camera

Royal Television Society nominee Oliver Lansley, the writer behind Flack, returns as creator, writer and executive producer. The series was co-created by Zoltan Spirandelli, director of Vaya con Dios, and is based on a story by him. Tobi Baumann, director of Faking Hitler, and Christian Ditter direct the second season. Both also directed the first, alongside Facundo Scalerandi. Nataly Kudiabor and Oliver Ossege are executive producers for UFA Fiction, a Fremantle company.

What the first season earned

The first season holds a 100 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, a figure Apple repeats in each announcement, although it rests on a small pool of reviews. The reception had a consistent shape. The Guardian’s review headline compared it to Bad Sisters, another Apple series that turns a family’s crime into dark comedy, and The New York Times called it a charming German dramedy. Reuters noted that it keeps things light despite its dark themes.

The renewal also says something about how Apple uses local production. A series written for a German setting, with German as its original language, now returns with a large ensemble drawn from the country’s film and television industry. It is a bet that a local comedy can travel as an original rather than waiting to be remade.

The comedy of the first season came from the gap between the Klatts’ respectability and their methods: an ordinary suburban couple doing the work of a surveillance operation on their own street. The second season keeps the methods and changes what they are for. If the trail leads somewhere the Klatts do not want it to go, will they follow it? Or will two parents who were willing to break any rule to find their daughter start breaking them to protect her?

Where’s Wanda? Season 2: release date, episodes, cast and where to watch

When does Where’s Wanda? Season 2 premiere? Wednesday, October 21, 2026, on Apple TV, with one episode.

How many episodes are there? Eight. After the premiere, a new episode arrives every Wednesday through December 9, 2026. The first season opened with two episodes on October 2, 2024.

Where can I watch it? On Apple TV, the streaming service formerly called Apple TV+, worldwide. The eight episodes of season 1 are also available there.

Is it in German? Yes. German is the original language. It was Apple’s first German-language original series.

Do I need to watch season 1 first? Season 2 picks up after the events of season 1, so the first season is the natural place to start.

Is it based on a true story? No. It is fiction, set in the invented town of Sundersheim.

Who is in the cast? Heike Makatsch (Carlotta Klatt), Axel Stein (Dedo Klatt), Lea Drinda (Wanda Klatt), Leo Simon (Ole Klatt) and Nikeata Thompson (Detective Michelle Rauch), with Sam Riley, Alexandra Maria Lara, Devid Striesow, Suzanne von Borsody, Kostja Ullmann, Palina Rojinski and Harriet Herbig-Matten among the wider ensemble.

Who made it? Oliver Lansley created and wrote the series, co-created by Zoltan Spirandelli. Tobi Baumann and Christian Ditter direct season 2. It is produced by UFA Fiction.