After Life: Season 2: Netflix Review
"Don't wallow, it's addictive."
It's a line spoken late in the sophomore series of Ricky Gervais' After Life - and one can't help but feel it would have been pertinent to anyone casting an eye over the script of the six part sequel to the bittersweet comedy series.
For those unfamiliar with the success of the first, After Life dealt with Ricky Gervais' widower Tony, a man filled with loathing for life and for people in general after cancer stole away his beloved Lisa (Kerry Godliman), and left him bereft and stuck in a dead end job on the local paper.
But the first series was a self-contained gem of a show; one that tapped a veracity of a messy truth and ran with it, unspoken as it was - that grief destroys everything in its path, and the road back from it is difficult, long and prone to many fails.
In the second, Tony returns, suffering to a degree with survivors' guilt and unable to sustain the relationship he appeared to be striking up with Ashley Jensen's care nurse, who looked after his father who's riddled with dementia.
But this time around, some of the thrill's gone from Gervais' show - much of it feels like a do-over, many of the side characters this time around feel one note and underdeveloped - and in one case, Paul Kaye's therapist, a grotesquely obscene caricature that's barely human and not worth spending time with. Gervais attempts to flesh out some of the characters, but still underserves them, with some feeling like skits that fall flat when they should fly.
It's a disappointment for the show - but in the central characters, it finds its heart - albeit muted.
Gervais' Tony is still sleepwalking through life, unable to move on (every episode opens with Gervais staring mournfully at a computer screen, watching good times with his wife, and every episode closes with Tony staring at a screen, red wine in hand, captive to the past) - and the truth here is again one seldom acknowledged - that moving on is at times, unachievable. Yet the script flounders with uncertainty riddling parts of it and holes showing where there were none before.
Some interactions with the Tambury Gazette's readers still throw truths into the light of everyone trying to get by in their own ways (from a 100 year old rest home resident who truly hates every day above ground to a woman whose cat is her sole companion since her husband and daughter died) and will touch some - but to those harder of heart, the script goes for the easier targets and doesn't offer the profundity it had first time around. (Though it scores points for the 36 years in the making Ever Decreasing Circles reunion.)
Yet, there is a poignancy in parts, and despite each episode following a narrative pattern, there are some moments of pathos and vulnerability as well as some wonderful explorations of regret that are affecting - there are also moments of extreme vulgarity which are unnecessary too and reek of desperation in the writing.
After Life Season 2 is not a resounding success when compared to the first, and it may not offer as much hope as the first did as it negotiates the messy world of guilt.
Any third season will have to substantially up its game and Gervais will have to provide a compelling reason to return - after all, the desire to wallow in the success is probably addictive, but feels like dipping into creatively shallow waters.
