After Life Season 2 (2020) Review

After Life Season 2 (2020) Review

 After watching the first season of the show I have now had the chance to catch up on the new second season of After Life and here is my review for it. The premise of the season sees Tony attempting to be happy and move on with his life with his relationships with his friends. 

Main Character

Ricky Gervais is back as Tony and I thought he once again did a really great job, he has less crazy and insulting lines but he nails it with the dramatic side of his character. You see even though he is trying to move on he struggles which is realistic for a person, it would have been the most unrealistic thing if after the first season finale he was fine and had completley moved on. He is still pretty funny and is for sure a more likeable character this season so he has that and Gervais does a great job here.

Supporting Characters

Honestly one of the bigger weaknesses of the first season was that of the supporting characters and I thought it was worse this season. Tom Basden as Matt gets more to do as his marriage is failing but you are never really given a reason to care about it and his performance isn't good enough to make you care. There are some great british comics on this show such as Joe Wilkinson & Roisin Conaty and they are paired up but again there isn't enough given for you to get invested and even though their natural humour helps a bit it wasn't enough for me. Then the rest of the crew in the newsroom are back and literally none are given enough time to develop as a character, there is some potential with the character of Sandy but the show again doesn't give you enough to care. I know I said I wanted to see more of the supporting characters and we do this season but I wanted a few more episodes to give them more screen time and the show fails to do that. 

Story

Just like the first season the strength of the story is that of Gervais character, he really goes through plenty this season and it is nice to see him in more of this friendly guise then last season as it does feel like a natural character progression. Again there is more of the supporting characters but I don't really care about any of their stories as they just weren't very interesting to me and at the end of last season some stories are set up but just reset for the new season such as the potential romance which didn't work for me. 

Script

The script has much better drama this season, Gervais character does a great job in making you care about his emotional plight and especially in the last episode which really makes you care. The one thing about this season is that it isn't as funny, it focuses more on cringe comedy and for me it just wasn't fun to watch and was a better show when it focused on the emotional moments. 

Style

The show does a good job in using the style to make you care about Tony's plight and depression, you see him trying to get better and we are there with him hoping he can do it. The problem for me is the pacing of the show, by trying to focus on so many characters and story in only 6 thirty minute episodes isn't enough to make you interested in it. 

Overall

Overall, again I just don't get the hype for this show, for me this season is worse then the first one it is a very average season of television and I am not excited for a 3rd season which I am sure we are set to get. 

Rating - 5/10