Divided (TV series)

Divided would be a 2032 animated comedy psychology adventure TV series developed by Jennifer Lee and Bruce W. Smith, and produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, with Lee and Smith serving as executive producers alongside Meg LeFauve and Byron Howard. It would premiere on May 3, 2032 on Disney+. The series, based on the 2029 film Multiple, the series would feature Tessa Thompson, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Oprah Winfrey, Alice Eve reprising their roles from the film, and Alan Tudyk also reprising his role from the film in the first season. Janelle Monáe would join the cast in the second season, and Jacob Tobia would join in the fourth season. Kris Bowers would also return to compose the score and curate the series' soundtrack.

Development on the series would begin in early 2030, with most of the film's cast set to reprise their roles from the film, and Divided director Lee and W. Smith being set to executive-produce the series. In late 2030, Divided co-write/executive-producer LeFauve and the film's executive-producer Howard would join as executive producers. The series' directors would consist of newcomers making their directorial debuts in order to both allow them to "have a shot at directing" and allow other Disney directors to work in their own projects. Smith would be hired to work on the series alongside Lee due to him having created the Disney animated series The Proud Family, as Lee would feel that "him being the only animator at the studio who created an animated series", his experience would benefit the series' development and production.

In April 2032, ahead of the series premiere, it would be announced that it was renewed for a second season, while a third season would be announced in February 2033. A fourth season would be announced in May 2034, and a fifth season would be confirmed in April 2035. The series would be met with a positive critical reaction, particularly for its writing, humor, faithfulness to the film, voice acting, and character development. During its second season, the series would earn a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids & Family Programming.

Premise
In the first season, set nine months after the events of the first film, Princess Jessica has to struggle with her own responsabilities as a princess with the lifes of her other seven alternative personalities, as she gets to know them even better than before, realizes that she is more than the body's host persona, and a new threat to their kingdom emerges in the form of an old enemy.

In the second season, during a scientific presentation, Genius Jessica meets another scientist girl named Helen, whom she instantly befriends. However, while during a campament on a forest, an earthquake causes the two to get lost in the forest. As the two try to find their way home, Genius Jessica begins to develop romantic feelings for Helen. However, her lack on experience on anything outside of logic causes her a lot of trouble, forcing Jessica's other personas to help her. Eventually, the two discover a terrible conspiracy behind the earthquake, which they must stop before its too late.

In the third season, Artist Jessica starts to work on her dreams to become a famous songwriter and artist. However, she ends up suffering a mental block. With the other Marys being unable to get her out of the block, she goes to a self discovery journey. As she travels througth the world, she both ends up angering a dangerous individual and finding her true inspiration.

In the fourth season, the princesses are introduced by Helen to another person with Dissociative Identity Disorder, a non-binary person named Alex, with 4 other non-binary personas. While most of the personalities are more than glad to meet them, the Cynical persona impulsively hurts them due to her cynism making her unsensible. However, when they become the only ones that may help the kingdom with an economic crisis, Cynical is forced to improve her social skills.

In the fifth season, following the events of the previous season, Jessica becomes more open to others about her Dissociative Identity Disorder, which causes friction in both the kingdom and Jessica's inner world: In the kingdom, this causes a polarized response, with some accepting their princess neverhtless, and other starting to fear her, while in their inner world, this causes tension between Wonder Jessica, who believes that the blacklash is temporary, and Pessimistic Jessica, who claims that people will always hate them now. This, in turn, causes Wonder Jessica to travel througth the kingdom in an attempt to prove Pessimistic wrong, unaware that an Anti-DID group is planning to kill her.

Main cast

 * Princess Jessica (voiced by Tessa Thompson), a princess from a futuristic kingdom who, following a traumatic experience, developed seven alternative personalities, with whom she developed a sister-like bond during the first film. Thompson would reprise her role from the film.
 * Wonder Jessica (voiced by Shahadi Wright Joseph in the inner world, by Tessa Thompson in the body), an incarnation of Jessica's curiousity in the form of a little child. Due to being the youngest persona and her innocent naivety, the other personalities would be overprotective of her, much to her annoyance. Wonder Jessica would be the most optimistic personality in the group, often telling everyone the good side of things. Wright Joseph and Thompson would reprise their role from the film.
 * Genius Jessica (voiced by Tessa Thompson), an incarnation of Jessica's high level of intelligence and nerd-like actitude, who takes the form of a drawing in a blackboard. During the second season, she would develop a romantic relationship with a female scientist named Helen. It would also be revealed that she is homophobic due to her science-centered nature, througth she would later embrace her homosexuality. Thompson would reprise her role from the film
 * Artist Jessica (voiced by Tessa Thompson), an incarnation of Jessica's love for art and music, who wishes to become a worldwide famous artist and songwriter. Thompson would reprise her role from the film.
 * Extreme Jessica (voiced by Tessa Thompson), an incarnation of Jessica's love of adventure. She would be bery impulsive, most of the time acting without thinking, througth she would show some intelligence when trapped in an adventure. Thompson would reprise her role from the film
 * Prankster Jessica (voiced by Tessa Thompson), an incarnation of Jessica's joy and love for pranks and jokes, who takes the form of a jack-in-the-box. While her love for pranks would be eternal, she would slowly become more mature and more responsible on how to do pranks and who to pull pranks on. She would also be the second most optimistic personality, aside from Wonder Jessica. Thompson would reprise her role from the film.
 * Cynical Jessica (voiced by Tessa Thompson), an incarnation of Jessica's anger and resentment, who would have a cynical actitude towards everything. Thompson would reprise her role from the film.
 * Pessimistic Jessica (voiced by Tessa Thompson), an incarnation of Jessica's sadness and fear, who would take the form of a walking tear with Mary's appearance. She would live in an eternal state of depression, often making a situation look even worse of what it truly is. Thompson would reprise her role from the film.
 * Queen Martha (voiced by Oprah Wifrey), Jessica's mother and the queen of a futuristic kingdom, who would struggle to raise Jessica due to the latter's new alternative personalities. Winfrey would reprise her role from the film
 * Alexandra (voiced by Alice Eve), a former conqueror-to-be who eventually choose to create her own path after being conviced by Jessica, and now tries to find herself. She would be one of the few people to know of Jessica's separate personalities. Eve would reprise her role from the film.
 * Captain Richard (voiced by Alan Tudyk; season 1 only), the former captain of the army that was commanded by Alexandra and her late father, David, who would try to take revenge on Jessica, blaming her for David's death. Tudyk would reprise his role from the film.
 * Helen (voiced by Janelle Monáe; from season 2 onwards), a bisexual young scientist whom Genius Jessica falls in love with. While she would spent most of the second season unaware of Jessica's other personalities, Genius Jessica would come out to her at the end of the season, which she would accept quickly.
 * Alex (voiced by Jacob Tobia; from season 4 onwards), a non-binary person who also has multiple personalities, and who befriends Jessica and her alters. They would be the first non-binary Disney character.

Recurring cast

 * Fluffy (vocal effects by Chris Sanders), Jessica's dog, who would be very energetic and friendly towards all of her personas. Sanders would reprise his role from the film.
 * Dr. Mind (voiced by Aisha Tyler), a psychiatrist know for her work on patients with multiple personalities, whose holograms would be used by Jessica in order to know how to deal with her problems between her personalities. Tyler would reprise her role from the film.
 * Captain Michael (voiced by Corey Burton), the captain of the soldiers at Jessica's kingdom, who often gets annoyed by her other personas, which he believes to be mood swings. Burton would reprise hus role from the film.
 * Adam Roberts (voiced by Robert Downey Jr.; season two only), an homphobic terrorist who creates wants plans to murder homosexuals all over the world. According to Lee, Downey would cast in the role because "he helps give the character a bit of memorability and charisma".

Guest stars

 * The Head of the Summer Forest Camp (voiced by Kristen Bell), the director and head of the "Summer Forest Camp", which would be the summer camp Jessica and Helen would go to in summer.

Season 1

 * 1) Mental Balance: Nine months after the events of the film Divided, Princess Jessica tries to handle an important buissness as princess, but her other personalities, having other plans, end up accidentally ruining everything.
 * 2) What Adventure?: After blacking out and waking up in the aftermath of an event, Jessica must find out what her Extreme persona did after forcefully taking control.
 * 3) Mental Preparation: Upon being caught making a few of her jokes, Prankster Jessica is selected to be part of a talent show by the show's judges. However, she's actually afraid of performing on stage, fearing that the audience may not find her jokes funny. Upon discovering this, the other Jessicas try to help her by practicing in their inner world.
 * 4) Mother and Daughter(s): Feeling that her relationship with her daughter is falling apart due to the other persona's presence, Queen Martha takes Jessica to a journey to the kingdom's forest. However, Jessica's other personas soon begin emerging, much to Martha's anger, to which she would choose to make the original Jessica to take control througth her own trigger.
 * 5) The Little Personality Who Could: When an incident at the energy plant causes the kingdom to blackout, Jessica and her other personas try to solve the problem. Througth her Wonder persona tries to help, the others repeteadly turn her away because of her age, causing her to become determined to prove herself.
 * 6) A New Path: Following the events of Divided, former conqueror-to-be Alexandra tries to find a new path for herself, but has no idea of where to begin with, so she goes with Jessica for help.
 * 7) Back to Square One: While watching an old memory, Jessica fondly recalls when she was a little child. Feeling that it could be a great birthday gift to her mother, Jessica lets her Wonder persona take control for a day. However, this only causes Martha to experience trouble... and to re-discover the joys of early motherhood.
 * 8) April's Fools: The personalities' first April Fools Day has arrived, but they become wary of Prankster, fearig that she may get them in trouble due to her love for pranks. However, she becomes anxious because of this, causing her to try to find a way to get control of the body for a minute.
 * 9) Drive: When asked to fly a ship for an special delivery, Jessica reveals that only the Extreme persona knows how to drive anything and, thus, she lacks a proper license. Forced to do a test, Jessica ends up crashing repeatedly, and, througth her Extreme persona offers herself to do it for them, she denies her and tries to do it herself, secretly fearing that she may lack a purpose.
 * 10) Halloween Frights: As the personas get ready for their first Halloween night together, which they all want to experience at the same time, Wonder Jessica becomes scared of the decorations and disguises, and shelters inside their mind, forcing the other personas to try to convice her to come out. Meanwhile, Genius Jessica and Prankster Jessica work together to determine when, where, and what tricks to use in each house througth the kingdom.
 * 11) It's a Dog's Life: Jessica's dog, Fluffy, excitedly tries to have some fun time with all of her personas. However, his lack of pacience causes him to try to do things with the wrong persona, eventually putting them into trouble.
 * 12) The Truth: Genius Jessica slowly begins to realize a connection between the incidents the personas faced iver the past weeks. However, the rest deems her insane or overreacting, causing her to be determined to prove she's right, to the point of disregard their safety.

Music
Kris Bowers, who would previously compose the score for the film, would return to compose the series' score. According to executive producer Chris Sonnenburg, Bowers would return due to him having experience working on TV shows, which he realized "it allows the film's score to show up easily in the series".

As in the original film, the series would feature several songs written and performed by pop culture artists. Bowers would say that the reason the series would feature songs due to the success of the film's soundtrack, which conviced Lee an W. Smith to "keep going with that kind of soundtrack througth the series". Bowers would also compose the music for a lullaby title "Mother's Little Girl", with lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Lee would hire Anderson-Lopez to write the song's lyrics because she would feel that "her talent as a songwriter and experiences as a mother made her the perfect lyricist for the song".

Bowers and lyricist Tim Rice would also write a song titled "Feel the Love" for a season 2 episode, which would be performed by Thompson as Artist Jessica. Lee would hire Rice as lyricist due to him having written the lyrics for The Lion King (1994) song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?", which Lee would call "one of the finest love songs in Disney history".

Trivia

 * This would be Disney's first animated series to be created by Walt Disney Animation Studios, instead of Disney Television Animation.
 * According to series creator Jennifer Lee, this would be because she would feel it would be an "interesting experiment" for the studio due to it being used to develop either feature-length films, featurettes, or short series. She would also use a series as a chance for several young animators to make their directorial debuts.
 * Througth the series, Artist Jessica would make imaginary paintings of several Disney characters, such as Judy Hoops from Zootopia (2016), The Proud Family from the series of the same name, and the Horned King from The Black Cauldron (1985).
 * At one point in the episode "Back to Square One", Wonder Jessica would notice Genie's lamp from Aladdin (1992) on a market, to which she would ask Queen Marthat permission to buy it, but she instead would say "No, that's fake".
 * In the episode "Halloween Frights", several Disney easter eggs would be seen:
 * A child wearing Mickey Mouse's outfit from Fantasia (1941) would be briefly seen.
 * Childs disguised as Maleficent and The Evil Queen's witch form would also be seen.
 * Jessica's costume would feature:
 * Eda's owl staff from The Owl House (2020-present).
 * Vanellope's shirt from Wreck-It Ralph (2012).
 * A wig hair resembling Jane Porter's hair in Tarzan (1999).
 * Witch Hazel's hat from the short film Trick or Treat (1952).
 * Jack Skellinton and Chernabog would be seen among the Halloween decorations througth the kingdom.
 * This would be the first Disney animated series to star a character with a mental illness.
 * Additionally, several suggestions would be made througth the series that would show other people in the series' universe aside from Jessica have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Braly would add them based on researchs that revealed that 1% of Americans have DID.
 * Most of the psychiatrists and therapysts who served as part of the film's "Psychiatrist Story Group" would return for the series to form its own "Psychiatrist Story Group".
 * Co-songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez is known for co-writing songs for Disney's Frozen franchise, which was co-directed by Lee.
 * During a season 2 episode, Artist Jessica and Prankster Jessica would mockingly perform the second verse of the song "Strangers Like Me" from Tarzan (1999) as a way to tell Genius Jessica that she's falling in love for Helen.