Netflix has announced the end of its romantic drama series Sweet Magnolias, which follows the lives of two best friends, Maddie and Dana Sue, and their new girlfriend, Helen, in a fictionalized South Carolina town of Serenity, after five seasons.
The cancellation was announced on September 18, three months after the fifth season was released on Netflix. The official social-media account for the show also confirmed that the series is now over after 5 seasons.
Sweet Magnolias stars JoAnna Garcia Swisher, Brooke Elliott and Heather Headley, and is the story of three lifelong friends who navigate relationships, family issues, careers and personal changes. The series is based on Sherryl Woods’s novels and first premiered on Netflix in 2020.
Season 5 premiered on June 11, 2026, and had an initial audience that was lower than the previous season. The fifth season garnered 2.8 million views in its first week, which is roughly 30% down from its first week view total in Season 4, according to the Sun. However, Deadline had earlier said that Netflix was waiting to see how the series would do following its launch in the fifth season.
Despite the fall, the series continued to draw in viewers. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Season 5 spent three weeks in Netflix’s Top 10 worldwide English-language series, and four weeks on Nielsen’s U.S. charts.
The news also follows Netflix’s plans to make another drama starring JoAnna Garcia Swisher and written and directed by Sheryl J. Anderson, who also wrote and directed Sweet Magnolias.
The new series is based on a novel by Lauren Edmondson and called Ladies of the House. The focus is on a family winery where the owner dies suddenly and his wife and two grown daughters struggle with the business, familial dynamics and their own relationships. Anderson will be showrunner and executive producer, and Garcia Swisher and Kate Gordon will also executive produce.
Though a final cast announcement and release date have not been given, Garcia Swisher is being considered to play an on-screen role in the new series. Netflix is already in the midst of placing a series order on the project.
According to reports from the industry, the reasoning behind Netflix’s choice of Sweet Magnolias was whether or not to continue with the series or to go ahead with Ladies of the House. According to Deadline, the decision was made very late, as the options period for the cast of Sweet Magnolias expired on September 17 and the show was cancelled the next day.
The fifth season is now the last season of the show. The show consisted of five seasons and 50 episodes, with Netflix’s own Season 5 coverage stating that the latest installment is the show’s return to Serenity, with Garcia Swisher, Elliott and Headley taking on the main roles.
Ladies of the House will be the next venture for Anderson with Netflix and will feature Garcia Swisher in a new narrative following three women and a family business. Netflix hasn’t announced a date for the new series yet.
