The disappearance of a wealthy heir is a familiar beginning for a detective story.
A concerned family hires an investigator, local police are wary of the outsider, and almost everybody seems to have something to hide.
In Yaga, those conventions provide only the starting point.
Created by Kat Sandler, the Canadian series introduces Slavic folklore, contemporary relationships and questions about the treatment of women into its criminal mystery.
AMC+ released the first two episodes in the United States on Friday, October 23, 2026.
The season consists of eight installments of approximately thirty minutes each.
New episodes are scheduled for Fridays, with a two-part finale on November 27.
The American premiere is confirmed by AMC Global Media and supported by first-day coverage from television publications including TVLine and TV Insider.
The complete season is not yet available in the United States.
A missing heir and a town full of secrets
The story is set in Whittock, a fictional coastal town strongly influenced by a powerful fishing business.
Henry Park, a young heir to the family enterprise, has disappeared.
His relatives bring in Charlie Rapp, a private investigator portrayed by Noah Reid.
Rapp arrives in a community where everybody seems to know everybody else, yet important details about people's private lives remain carefully concealed.
He must work with Carson, a local police officer played by Clark Backo.
Their collaboration is not immediately comfortable.
Rapp approaches the case with his own habits and professional confidence, while Carson understands the local personalities and the community's tensions.
The investigation eventually draws attention to Katherine Hargrove, a university professor played by Carrie-Anne Moss.
Katherine specializes in the study of bones and has a complicated reputation shaped partly by her relationships with younger men.
The investigators must determine what is genuinely suspicious and what reflects the town's assumptions about her.
Meanwhile, the legend of Baba Yaga becomes increasingly relevant.
The series does not immediately establish exactly how its supernatural elements connect to Henry's disappearance.
That uncertainty is part of its appeal.
Can conventional detective work explain the events in Whittock, or does the mystery involve forces that do not fit an ordinary criminal investigation?
Carrie-Anne Moss plays the enigmatic Katherine Hargrove
Katherine is one of Yaga's central characters.
Carrie-Anne Moss portrays her as an intelligent, charismatic academic whose independence makes her both fascinating and unsettling to the people around her.
Moss remains internationally recognizable as Trinity in The Matrix films.
Her career also includes Memento and Jessica Jones, among other projects.
In Yaga, Katherine is more than a conventional mysterious suspect.
The series asks how an older woman who openly embraces her desires and refuses to conform to expectations is perceived by the society around her.
In an interview published by TV Insider on October 23, Moss explained that she had been revisiting the Baba Yaga legend shortly before receiving the role.
She was reading Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, a book that explores women's experiences through mythology and traditional stories.
The coincidence made the script particularly compelling to her.
Moss describes a character who does not apologize for her age, sexual agency or independence.
Reviews based on advance episodes have also emphasized Katherine's importance.
TheWrap characterizes her as an antihero whose moral complexity resists traditional expectations.
That is a critical interpretation of the material reviewed, rather than an official conclusion about the entire season.
Hudson Williams plays two connected characters
Hudson Williams, who gained international attention through Heated Rivalry, stars as Henry Park.
Henry's disappearance triggers the central investigation.
The character belongs to an influential family but is connected to a network of relationships more complicated than his position initially suggests.
Williams also portrays Logan Casey, another character who strongly resembles Henry.
The dual casting has been discussed in professional coverage of the series.
It adds another layer to a story already concerned with perception and mistaken assumptions.
Viewers must distinguish between two characters portrayed by the same performer.
Meanwhile, investigators attempt to understand what connects them.
Williams's popularity from Heated Rivalry has naturally brought additional attention to Yaga.
But Henry Park should not be mistaken for Shane Hollander, the hockey player he portrayed in the earlier series.
The characters, their relationships and their behavior are very different.
Early reviews emphasize that Yaga deliberately moves Williams into less conventionally sympathetic territory.
Rather than repeating the romantic appeal of his previous role, the series uses his presence to challenge viewers' expectations.
Noah Reid and Clark Backo lead the investigation
Noah Reid plays Charlie Rapp, the private detective hired to find Henry.
Reid is well known for portraying Patrick Brewer in Schitt's Creek.
His Yaga character is markedly different.
Rapp uses charm and confidence in his professional interactions, but his behavior can become difficult to trust.
He attempts to establish connections while keeping his own intentions carefully controlled.
Clark Backo plays Carson, the local officer who becomes his investigative partner.
Their contrasting approaches create a significant part of the police-drama element.
Rapp sees Whittock through the eyes of an outsider.
Carson understands its residents and the relationships that shape the town.
Both perspectives can be valuable.
An outsider may question assumptions that locals have stopped noticing.
But a lack of local knowledge can also produce misleading interpretations.
As a result, the investigation is not simply about collecting evidence.
It also concerns the reliability of those interpreting what they discover.
Baba Yaga is more complicated than a traditional evil witch
The series takes its name from a major figure in Slavic folklore.
Baba Yaga is commonly depicted as an elderly woman with supernatural powers who lives in the forest.
Her house is sometimes described as standing on chicken legs.
In some traditional tales, she is terrifying and dangerous.
In others, she offers assistance to those who approach her and successfully complete difficult tasks.
This ambiguity makes the figure particularly useful for contemporary storytelling.
Baba Yaga cannot always be reduced to a straightforward villain.
Depending on the story, she may be threatening, protective, cruel or unexpectedly helpful.
Kat Sandler draws on that complexity to examine how societies describe women who resist established expectations.
In Yaga, the image of the witch is connected to suspicion directed at women who appear independent or difficult to control.
A woman may acquire a threatening reputation before anybody properly understands her actions.
The series incorporates this idea into the structure of a thriller.
Viewers are encouraged to question whether Katherine is genuinely dangerous or whether the suspicion surrounding her reveals more about other characters.
The story develops that question without requiring the answers to be disclosed in an introduction to the series.
Kat Sandler adapts her own stage play
Yaga did not originate as a television concept.
It is adapted from a play written by Kat Sandler, who also serves as the television series' writer, showrunner and executive producer.
The adaptation allows her to explore the same material through a different medium.
On stage, a limited physical space can become an important source of dramatic tension.
Television allows the story to expand across streets, homes, forests and locations associated with the investigation.
That shift involves more than simply filming a theater production in different surroundings.
The narrative must be structured across eight installments, introducing developments that sustain audience interest over several weeks.
Each episode runs for approximately half an hour.
That is a relatively compact format for an adult mystery thriller.
It allows the investigation to advance without requiring an hour-long installment every week.
David Frazee and Rachel Talalay are the announced co-directors.
Blink49 Studios and Front Street Pictures produce the series in association with Bell Media.
Moss is also among the executive producers.
A Canadian original acquired for AMC+ in the United States
Yaga is a Crave Original production.
AMC Global Media acquired exclusive United States distribution rights for AMC+.
That distinction matters when discussing availability.
A series launching on AMC+ in America is not automatically available in every other territory where the company operates.
Sphere Abacus handles international distribution.
The official announcements reviewed confirm the American October 23 launch but do not establish simultaneous availability across French-speaking European markets.
A French or wider European premiere should therefore not be presented as confirmed without additional local information.
The series had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 17, 2026.
It subsequently received promotional attention at New York Comic Con on October 9.
These events preceded the streaming premiere.
They should not be confused with the date on which American subscribers could begin watching the episodes.
Alanis Morissette helps establish the musical atmosphere
AMC+ released the official Yaga trailer on September 25, 2026.
It features Alanis Morissette performing a cover of Donovan's Season of the Witch.
The choice closely matches the series' interest in folklore and suspicion.
Combined with imagery of forests, unsettling encounters and complicated personal relationships, the song establishes an atmosphere extending beyond conventional police drama.
The trailer suggests a story in which fear, desire and perceptions of femininity are important elements.
TheWrap's advance review also describes the use of familiar songs covered in Slavic languages across the series.
This approach connects the contemporary setting of Whittock with the older cultural traditions surrounding Baba Yaga.
Music becomes part of the show's identity rather than simply background accompaniment.
When are the remaining Yaga episodes released?
AMC+'s official schedule clearly distinguishes the episodes already available from those still awaiting release.
Episodes 1 and 2 premiered in the United States on October 23, 2026.
Subsequent single episodes are scheduled for October 30, November 6, November 13 and November 20.
The final two episodes are scheduled to premiere together on Friday, November 27.
The season contains eight episodes in total.
This arrangement gives viewers two installments to establish the central mystery before moving to a weekly release pattern.
As of October 24, the entire season is not available to American subscribers.
The story has begun, but its public finale is still several weeks away.
A supernatural mystery about how women are perceived
Yaga contains recognizable thriller ingredients.
A young man disappears, an outsider begins an investigation, and a community appears to be protecting long-held secrets.
Yet Kat Sandler's project is also interested in how people become defined by the judgments of others.
Through Katherine, the series examines what happens when an older woman refuses to become invisible or apologetic.
Baba Yaga provides a mythological framework for that question.
The story can explore desire, suspicion and power while maintaining the structure of a detective mystery.
Professional reviews of the advance episodes have generally recognized that combination, although critics differ in how successfully they believe every narrative element works.
The season finale has not yet reached the American public.
It remains important to distinguish reactions to the available material from a definitive judgment on the completed narrative.
With Carrie-Anne Moss, Noah Reid, Clark Backo and Hudson Williams, Yaga has an ensemble built around characters whose appearances are deliberately difficult to trust.
The question may ultimately extend beyond what happened to Henry Park.
It may also concern why the residents of Whittock are so ready to treat certain people as dangerous simply because they refuse to behave as expected.
