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'Queen of the South' news, updates: USA renews series for season 2; new showrunner announced

Sheanne Aguila September 08, 2016 02:08 AM EST

Promotional image for USA\'s \"Queen of the South\" | Facebook/QueenOnUSA

With just a week before its season finale, hit drama "Queen of the South" recently earned an early renewal from USA network. Changes behind the scenes will also happen as a new showrunner has been confirmed to take over the reins in the next installment.

Aside from having a female lead character, the series is also set to be headlined by a female showrunner. Writer-producer Natalie Chaidez ("12 Monkeys") will replace Scott Rosenbaum as the show moves forward to its second season.

"Queen of the South" is an adaptation of Telemundo's (USA's Spanish-language sister network) successful telenovela "La Reina del Sur" and the best-selling book of the same title by Spanish author Arturo PÃ©rez-Reverte<sup>. The story follows the life of Teresa Mendoza (Alice Braga), a woman who takes over after her drug-dealing boyfriend gets murdered.

She finds refuge and America and crosses paths with an unlikely character from her past who helps her bring down the head of the very drug ring that forced her to be on the run. The character of Teresa is inspired by real-life late drug lord Griselda Blanco, who will be portrayed by Jennifer Lopez in a soon-to-be-aired HBO movie.

Since its launch in June, the drama garnered an average of 2.26 million total viewers with roughly half of that among the 18-49 metric. Spanning 13 episodes set to conclude on Sept. 15, season 1 opened to 1.39 million viewers. Although the ratings dipped throughout the freshman run, it has been quite steady with the most recent episode earning 1.2 million viewers.

Also starring in the series are VerÃ³nica FalcÃ³n as Camila Vargas, Justina Machado as Brenda Parra, Peter Gadiot as James Valdez, Hemky Madera as Pote Galvez and Gerardo Taracena as Cesar "Batman" Guemes.In the upcoming season 1 finale, Rafael Amaya ("El SeÃ±or de los Cielos") will have a crossover guest appearance as Aurelio Casillas.

Tune in to the season 1 finale of "Queen of the South" which airs on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 10 p.m. EST on USA.

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