Liam Hoofe reviews Master of None season 2…
Aziz Ansari has always been an affable presence on screen – his turn as Tom Haverford on Parks and Rec won him a huge audience and his consistent stand-up work helped solidify his name as one of the best comedic talents around. It wasn’t until he was given the chance to write and produce his own show, though, that it become clear just what a talent the 34-year-old really is.
Master of None, the Netflix original about an Indian actor living in New York, debuted on Netflix in 2015 to critical acclaim. The season holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for several major awards, including a Golden Globe and four Emmys.
The first season of Master of None was pretty much perfect. Ansari’s script was, like his performance, full of intricate little details, humour and an incredibly human look at what it is to be in your mid 20s-early 30’s in the 21st century with some subtle, and often audacious social commentary thrown in for good measure. As the season drew to an end it was difficult to foresee how Ansari was going to improve on things, but once again the actor/comedian/writer/producer has proved us all wrong.
Season 2 of Master of None doesn’t just match season one -in many ways, it tops it. Picking up where season 1 left off, Dev is now living in the idyllic Italian city of Modena – learning how to make pasta, sipping lattes, cycling down romantic backstreets, speaking Italian and generally having an amazing time.
The show’s opening episode – ‘The Thief’ instantly sets the tone for the rest of the season. Inspired by the golden age of Italian cinema, the episode borrows heavily from The Bicycle Thieves – Dev, having just met a girl and had a great encounter apropos of nothing, has his phone stolen and is sent across the city with his mentor’s son to capture the man responsible. It’s a light-hearted modern take on an old story. Dev’s lost mobile does not hold the same significance as the stolen bicycle from the movie on which it is based, but to him, it’s the end of the world. Master of None so perfectly manages to capture the fact that life is often not like the movies, and that, to us, these tiny moments can seem like a grand narrative in itself.
At the start of season two, Dev’s life seems to be the kind of thing we all dream off, but as was the case in season one, Dev is not really sure what sure what he wants. The third episode of the season sees him head back to New York in an attempt to get his acting career back on track.
Things look to be going well for Dev at the start as he is launched into a role as the host of a cupcake based competition called ‘Clash of the Cupcakes’, but while the pay might be good, and the job is consistent, Dev never feels truly fulfilled and has to make some actual career decisions this time around that will have an effect on his whole life. In many ways, this is what Master of None season two’s whole motif is – Dev is approaching a point in his life where compromises must be made. Sure, going across to Europe to live in Italy and make pasta is great, but is it sustainable? and yeah, it’s nice to have a one-month long fling with a beautiful Italian woman, but can you expect her to drop everything that is stable in her life for such a huge risk? Dev is at a critical point in his life – one where he has to learn how to stop living in a fantasy and make some pretty serious decisions.
Master of None has a habit of tackling these very serious life decisions, often in very humorous, and very real ways. In the outstanding ‘Thanksgiving’ (written by the incredibly talented Lena Waithe) we see Dev’s friend Denise (Waithe) struggle to tell her family about her sexuality over a series of Thanksgiving holidays, set 3 decades apart. The show’s closing scene, where Denise’s mom finally accepts her new girlfriend is one of the show’s more tender and beautiful moments. It’s a spellbinding and heartfelt episode that is definitely one of the show’s best. The show never feels heavy-handed when tackling these issues either – it’s often a breeze to watch and therein lies its magic. Throughout the season the show deals with sexuality, conservative family values, religion, women’s treatment in the workplace and racial stereotypes, but it never feels like it has some heavy-handed liberal agenda, it’s so subtle in its approach that you could almost miss it altogether.
‘Thanksgiving’ is just one of many brilliant individual episodes. The aforementioned opening episode ‘The Thief’ is a great piece of storytelling, while ‘First Date’ is a really fun side story that sees Dev going through an array of different Tinder dates, with varying outcomes. The episode of the show that really blew me away though was ‘New York, I love you.’
As the title suggests, the episode is clearly a love letter to the city of New York, but it is also so much more than that. The episode follows a group of different people through their day in New York, from a hotel clerk to a deaf sales assistant (who gives us one of the season’s funniest jokes when she is arguing with her husband in a store) showing us how all of their lives intercept, before they all end up in the same screening of the latest Nicolas Cage movie. It’s a brilliant 30 minutes of television that is as hilarious as it is moving – it is a tribute to the diversities in New York that help keep the city alive and well. This perfectly captures the essence of the show – Master of None takes characters who in other shows, would be considered inconsequential, and shines a light on them, and it is this that makes the show warm and relatable – every character feels real. It is also an example of how every single episode feels both self-contained and part of a much bigger story – which is no mean feat.
The central arc of the season is Dev’s blossoming relationship with the Italian Francesca. Replacing Rachel from last season seemed a difficult task, and in lesser hands, season two could have felt like a rerun of season one. Thankfully Ansari and Yang have the sense to allow the relationship between the pair to grow organically – in fact, it is not until around 6-7 episodes in that it becomes clear that their feelings for each other may be more than platonic.
The show’s big episode – episode 9, is an hour-long, Richard Linklater inspired episode about the relationship between the two, as they spend increasing amounts of time with each other and begin to realise that there may be something more than friendship there after all.
This all culminates in the season’s finale, where Dev’s personal and professional lives come to a head. Some have decried the season’s ending as being too ambiguous, but to me, it felt like a logical conclusion. The show, like life, rarely offers up easy answers to these difficult questions. What would you do if you landed your dream job only to find out the man who got it you was a pervert? Could you just accept that the woman you think you love thinks it is easier to stay with the life that she has already made for herself?
Season two of Master of None is, in many ways, more mature than its predecessor. Dev’s life is filling with increasingly difficult decisions, but with his youth slowly fading out of view, he is beginning to realise that he no longer has the time to waste pondering what his best for his future, because his future is increasingly becoming his present.
Master of None is one of the finest shows on television right now. It’s subtle, hilarious, thought-provoking and so damn easy to watch. The characters are warm and charming and each episode tells its own, often brilliant story. Ansari shows here, that despite what the title may suggest, right now he is really a master of everything. Perfezionare!
What did you think of Master of None Season 2? Let us know in the comments below, and let Liam know on Twitter, here – @liamhoofe
