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March 28, 2024, 12:49:12 PM

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Master of None - Season 2

Started by BritishHobo, May 15, 2017, 08:28:50 PM

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BritishHobo

Get on it, you fucks. I'm three episodes in, and while the first couple of episodes didn't hugely wow me, the religion episode is great stuff.

Mr Faineant

I hope Arnold isn't in it. I hate Arnold.

Repeater

Hope they hired some actors this time.


BritishHobo


Episode one and two down and ready to stop now. Like the first series, it has a few decent ideas but doesn't pursue them and instead seems to rely entirely on  finding Ansari and his arrested development charming and whimsical.

Hanging around with Arnold only makes Dev bloody worse too. Two men in their 30s shouldn't sing to each other about what they're doing in public, should they? Not sure what the idea is there.

thugler

I quite like it, but I find the effortless super rich lifestyle he seems to lead in it a bit silly. It is just a comedy show though I suppose.

Mr Faineant

It's not bad. Worth watching. But I fucking hate Arnold. He ruins the show for me, even when he's not on screen. Can you imagine knowing someone who talked like that? Bastard. I'd love to curb stomp him.

colacentral

I stopped five or six episodes into the first series. I usually like Aziz Ansari and had high hopes for it, but I thought almost everything about it was bad, especially the acting. I hate the "Louie" thing it does of having an issue of the week, and two characters drily explaining both sides of it to each other. That style wasn't good in Louie either, and I was as baffled by the positive reception for alot of that as I was for the reception to Master of None (although I thought Louie had many redeeming features that made it worth sticking with.)

The miscasting of Eric Wareheim is maybe somewhat understandable considering the character was originally intended for Harris Wittels, so maybe there was a last minute element, but... Eric Wareheim? Maybe they didn't realise how one-note he would be until it was too awkward to replace him.

I was hoping to see people saying this second series was better, as I wanted to give it another chance, but it looks like if you liked it before you'll like it now, but if you didn't then you won't. Is that accurate?

The Masked Unit

Yes, it's no better or worse than the first one. I quite like it despite the various flaws. Also, I  fell in love with the Italian girl from this season.  Like, properly in love.

her?

I don't really see how Eric Wareheim is any worse than anyone else in this. I'm four episodes into the second series and so far the worst offender has definitely been the guy who plays Dev's cousin who I have to assume is actually his real life cousin. It's impossible to enjoy that episode as he stinks it up so badly.

Overall, I think it's a nice little series but nothing more. The gushing praise I've seen heaped on it is a little confusing.

Mr Faineant

It's not the actor I object to, it's the character. Those fucking shorts, his pedicure, his using the words "big bud," his referring to himself in the 3rd person, his stupid fucking little videos, his face and mouth, he's just a flapping cunt and I hate him. He actually puts me in a mood when I'm watching, which is weird.

Carried on with this as I was promised by someone that it got a lot better. On ep 6 now and it has improved but it's very patchy for such a critically acclaimed series and seems really pleased with itself at all times. I agree with the comparisons to Louie on paper, but the scripts and ideas (and everything really) on this are nowhere near as good.

Also I think the key to Louie working is that that the character's fundamentally unhappy and no matter what good/bad things happen he will stay that way. Dev always seems happy bordering on smug, except when he's pining for a girl. Who the fuck wants to watch a successful man in his thirties take a 3-month holiday to Italy where the worst thing that happens is he loses a potential girlfriend's number? Louie would have been hit by thirty mopeds as soon as he stepped off the plane.

kngen

The impossibly smug episode from series one where he met a girl and they went on a trip somewhere was my breaking point.  I can't even think about that without getting annoyed.

Edit: So, aye, by the sounds of it, I don't think series 2 is for me, either.

hewantstolurkatad

http://www.metacritic.com/tv/master-of-none/season-2
http://www.metacritic.com/tv/transparent/season-2

I really think TV critics are so fucking shit that they incapable engaging any kind of serious criticism. If this was on television instead of netflix everyone would forget about it after 2 episodes. Instead they mindlessly sit through the season in one go and think that they didn't stop watching is some testament to its quality.

Yeah the Netflix binge system is really used to paper over a shedload of cracks in stuff.

That said, the sheer unremitting praise it's getting on the avclub is really baffling. And 99% of the comment sections are things about it being life-affirming and a work of sensitive genius. Really not getting it.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Old Gold Tooth on May 20, 2017, 11:48:04 AM
Yeah the Netflix binge system is really used to paper over a shedload of cracks in stuff.

That said, the sheer unremitting praise it's getting on the avclub is really baffling. And 99% of the comment sections are things about it being life-affirming and a work of sensitive genius. Really not getting it.

They seem like a lot of the same people who believe Aziz is one of the best stand-up comics around today. People are just wrong sometimes.

BritishHobo

Aziz in the taxi at the end of episode 5 is some self-indulgent stuff.

I do agree with people about Arnold. Dev gets away with the cringeworthy cutesy shit somehow, but Arnold is kinda creepy.

Self-indulgence levels through the fucking roof with the double-length episode 9. An hour! For no reason whatsoever!!

Only persevering with this out of sheer bloody mindedness to finish the series now. I hope the Italian girl's fella murders both her and Dev and eats them and the last episode follows him back to Italy where he lives a Lecter-style life of fine culture and cannibalism.

BritishHobo

Christ, an hour?! I'm halfway through episode 8 at the moment, and while the idea's admirable, it's just leaving me cold.

colacentral

There's a semi-negative article / review of this in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2017/may/24/master-of-none-aziz-ansari-sitcom-many-flaws

... but the writer can't quite bring himself to be honest and say that he thinks it's shit.

Thank god for that. Agree with every comment in that and more so.
The avclub's episode by episode reviews are getting seriously weird in their fawning adoration. I mean, its well made but I don't honestly think I laughed more than five times in the entire thing. Proper Emperor's new clothes syndrome going on with this one.

Repeater


Moribunderast

Wow, tough room! I'm not really a fan of Aziz as a stand-up but really enjoyed the first season of this and LOVED the second. Reading through complaints in this thread and just didn't see them while watching, except maybe Wareheim's character. I thought the final two episodes' romantic dramedy was done really well, loved the initial episode in Italy, really enjoyed the New York I Love You episode and thought the Thanksgiving episode had some beautiful moments. Aside from Big Little Lies it's probably my favourite show of the year, thus far.

I find Aziz to be a really affable and charming lead and thought the Italian lass was wonderful. The budding friendship/working relationship with Chef Jeff was entertaining due to him constantly giving off vibes of being a dick and having that confirmed at a hilarious time - for some reason, fucking RAVEN getting the scoop and acting like her show (which I assume does not actually exist?) is some hard-hitting news show ("We don't hide from the issues on Raven!") made me howl, along with Aziz's evasive answers regarding the friendship.

I seem to remember this show got a similar reception here in the first season so I guess it's one I just chalk up to people seeing/disliking stuff that I simply don't see while watching the show. I'm sure it does have flaws but I found the series to be sweet, vital and refreshingly modern when it comes to tackling dating. Also nice that it continues to give a bit of voice to communities that you rarely see covered in mainstream tellyland.

hewantstolurkatad

Fairly hating season 2 so far, I find Aziz a bit of annoying little creep in it tbh.
Still find his dad a pretty fun inclusion in spite of the terrible performance, he kind of comes across like he's probably a funny guy in reality or something.

The show is at its best when it focuses on cultural stuff. The stuff about modern dating and whatnot is loaded with observations that I wouldn't bother saying to anyone because they seem so trite to me.


I do wonder if a lot of the positivity levelled towards it is just down to the considerable lag Hollywood is having with catching up to modern romance. Like, Aziz is 34 and he's only just reached a point where he can have his own show made despite quite a lot of early success. Overall he seems like someone who's a bit close to being in the late 20s in terms of how he has embraced all this stuff too.
I can see a lot of the write ups about it being excessively positive about stuff in it in a "finally people on TV are talking about things like they are in my life!" way.

hewantstolurkatad

Maybe I'm wrong, but is the love interest a lot more poorly developed than last season? At least the last one seemed like someone you could conceivably imagine his character dating, this one is more a character you could imagine Aziz masturbating to the half assed thought of.

Repeater

God the 1 hour special is shite. Not because it's an hour, that'd be fine if it was fine, but it's an hour of Dev being adorable (then creepy). Fuck it. Francesca is just a nothing innit? Right, also, they use 2 of the most hackneyed plot devises ever, I thought he'd be better than that. The fucking, rehearsing a heartfelt speech in front of a friend and the dream sequence. Fuck all the way off man.

ASFTSN

Are there any U.S. Netflix shows that aren't about being a smug fucker in California or New York?

steveh

I liked this more than the first series and there were three or four episodes I thought were very good but I still found it a frustrating watch. It's like an argument between two writers, one of whom wants to do issues episodes and one who wants do a romantic soap but they can't find the common ground to fit the two sides together. For every smart piece of writing that impresses there's an equal reliance on elements lazily borrowed from elsewhere.

Eric Wareheim when he goes into smug mode makes me want to hit the fast forward button every time.

It really is a big bag of billy bollocks. Infantilisation writ large.
Smug manchild has dream existence and endless free time in which he pursues fanny and food. Any obstacles that might make him relatable to the audience? Nah.

Oh! Wait... maybe sometimes the girls he likes don't like him back? And the food is maybe not so good? And the alpha male asshole he loves to hang around with is a BAD alpha male asshole.

It's like someone looked at Pee Wee Herman and thought the way to improve it was to play it straight.