Did 'A Man on the Inside' recreate the magic of its great first season?
Ted Danson's back, but second seasons of mystery shows are hard
Thoughts on the Season Two of Netflix's A Man on the Inside — with spoilers for all the episodes — coming up just as soon as I compare curtain bangs to the mass murder of civilians...
Last night, while discussing the penultimate episode of The Chair Company's first season, as well as the news that HBO had already renewed the series, I noted how hard it is for serialized comic mysteries to follow up their first whodunnit with new ones. It's happened a lot lately: Only Murders in the Building, The Afterparty, The Flight Attendant, even in mockumentary form with American Vandal. The point I overlooked is that it's hard for almost any serialized mystery show to tell a second story as good as their first, regardless of whether jokes are involved. Veronica Mars never found another arc as potent as the title character investigating her best friend's murder. The creators of Twin Peaks fought tooth and nail against ABC's demand that they reveal who killed Laura Palmer, because they knew the show couldn't come up with another narrative organizing principle as potent as that one — and the later episodes of their second season proved them right. It's happened with Broadchurch and many, many others.
Alan Sepinwall
More often than not, what happens is that the initial mystery has a deep emotional tie to the character or characters investigating it, where the killer and/or victim is someone the detective knows well. It's a dymanic that can't be easily replicated. You can try to approximate that emotional component in later stories, but it's almost impossible to come up with a relationship that's just as potent for our heroes. Without that, you've just got a mystery, and/or a comedy, which can be interesting enough, but rarely quite as effective as the original.
Which brings us to A Man on the Inside, whose second season debuted last week on Netflix. Created by Michael Schur, one of the most reliable TV writers of the last 20 years (Parks and Rec, The Good Place), it stars the legendary Ted Danson as Charles, a retired college professor who becomes an undercover operative for a private detective. The first season begins with Charles still deep in his grief over the death of his wife, going through the motions and barely interacting with anyone, including daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis). Veteran investigator Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada) needs someone to infiltrate the Pacific View retirement community and figure out which resident committed an apparent jewel theft. Simply getting out of the house and being around other people his own age helps Charles realize he still has plenty of life to live. And this specific case, which involves a Pacific View resident gradually succumbing to dementia, forces him to directly confront his wife's painful final days. Like so many detective shows, it has an engaging mystery, but what takes it to another level is how the case allows Charles to work through his own problems. He finds the jewels, grows closer to Emily, and becomes genuine friends with Pacific View people like Calbert (Stephen McKinley Henderson).
