(Warning: This post contains spoilers for John Green’s novel “Looking for Alaska” and, therefore, some for Hulu’s upcoming adaptation of “Looking for Alaska”)
Fans of John Green’s “Looking for Alaska” who don’t want the upcoming Hulu adaptation of the beloved 2005 YA novel to clear up the ambiguity at the center of the story can breathe a sigh of relief, because the limited series’ creator, Josh Schwartz, says they won’t explain anything.
“We will never know what happened that night,” the “Gossip Girl” and “O.C.” mastermind told reporters during the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour Friday. “And if you’ve seen the first episode, that is as much as you will see of the event. And it is a mystery what happened and that is part of what the characters will have to grapple with, and the audience.”
For those of you who haven’t devoured the novel, the eight-episode limited series centers around teenager Miles “Pudge” Halter (Charlie Plummer), as he enrolls in boarding school to try to gain a deeper perspective on life. He falls in love with Alaska Young (Kristine Froseth), and finds a group of loyal friends. But after an unexpected tragedy, Miles and his close friends attempt to make sense of what they’ve been through.
That “unexpected tragedy” happens to Alaska at the very beginning of the book. So what Schwartz is saying here is the show won’t explain what happened beyond what Green revealed in his book — which is very little, and kind of a big point of the story.
Along with Plummer and Froseth, the series stars Denny Love, Jay Lee, Landry Bender, Sofia Vassilieva, Uriah Shelton and Jordan Connor. Also starring are Ron Cephas Jones (“This Is Us”) and Timothy Simons (“Veep”).
Schwartz is creator and executive produces with Stephanie Savage. Other executive producers include Green, Jessica Tuchinsky, Mark Waters and Marty Bowen and Isaac Klausner of Temple Hill. Fake Empire executive Lis Rowinski serves as co-executive producer. Sarah Adina Smith (“Hanna,” “Legion”) directed the first episode.
“Looking for Alaska” hails from Paramount Television and Schwartz and Savage’s Fake Empire.
All eight episodes of “Looking for Alaska” launch Oct. 18 on Hulu.