Sanditon season 2 spoilers follow.
Ahead of Sanditon's return to ITV later this year, one cast member won't be coming back for the third season.
Charlotte Spencer, who plays Esther Babington in the Jane Austen adaptation, will not reprise her role after finding her happy ending in the season two finale, TVLine reports.
Spencer will not return as the actress has joined the cast of a new crime drama called The Gold, which also stars Hugh Bonneville and Dominic Cooper.
Showrunner Justin Young explained to Decider that Esther's story has reached a natural and happy end on the show.
Related: Sanditon season 2 reveals first look at major new characters
"I think where we leave her at the end of Season 2 she's got everything she's ever wanted," he said, "She's happy, married, and now she has a child that she adores, so I think that's the end of Esther’s story as far as I’m concerned."
"I've always said with respect to this show, the way we built it is that, like a novel," the producer added. "We have to honor that characters have finite stories."
Young has also confirmed that Tom Weston-Jones won't be back as Colonel Lennox in the third season, saying that he doesn't think it's "spoiling much" to share that news.
Spencer and Weston-Jones are among the stars who have left the cast, after Theo James, Mark Stanley and Leo Suter did not return for series two.
Sanditon returned after two years off air for series two, having been cancelled and subsequently recommissioned. Scheduling conflicts meant that Stanley and Suter could not reprise their roles as Lord Babington and James Stringer respectively.
"Due to several reasons including scheduling conflicts," their representative explained, "neither Mark Stanley nor Leo Suter will be returning to the next season of Sanditon. We are extremely grateful to Mark and Leo and wish these two talented actors the very best for the future."
James, who played Sidney Parker, admitted he did not return as his "journey concluded as I wanted it to" in the first series.
Related: Sanditon boss Belinda Campbell: "Jane Austen was a radical feminist for her times"
At the end of the first series, Lord Babington (Stanley) ended up happily married to Esther, so it seems that their time on the show came to a natural end.
Season two still follows heroine Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams), while cast newcomers include Alexander Colbourne (War & Peace star Ben Lloyd-Hughes), as well as Flora Mitchell as his daughter Leo Colbourne, and Eloise Webb as his niece Augusta Markham.
The third season is expected to premiere in 2023.
Sanditon airs on PBS in the US. Season 2 streams on Britbox in the UK and will air soon on ITV.
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Jess is a freelance writer and editor with a passion for over-analysing everyone’s favourite movies and TV shows. As an English graduate from the University of York with an MA in Creative Writing, Jess worked as a magazine editor before turning freelance. Since then, Jess has written for outlets such as GQ, The Guardian, Inverse, Huff Post, Stylist, and Insider. She specialises in the representation of mental health, grief, and women in film. She’s also a major Marvel nerd and is writing a YA fantasy novel. LinkedIn
