The following is a short review of the second season of Easy.
Last year, mumblecore filmmaker Joe Swanberg gave us a Chicago-based anthology series on relationships called Easy. While I enjoyed watching the series, I was, admittedly, a little bit disappointed that Easy wasn’t more up my alley. Although the first season’s cast featured several familiar faces, I wasn’t really hooked on the first season. Thankfully, the second season of Easy reveals a better product.
Some of the characters from the first season return for some of the season’s best episodes. ‘Open Marriage,’ with returning stars Elizabeth Reaser and Michael Chernus (who both appeared in the series premiere ‘The F**king Study’) was my favorite episode of the season, as I thought it was refreshing to see an episode about an open marriage that didn’t end with the married couple being vocally unhappy.
At the end of the episode, when they are back in bed together after a night out on their own, you see that they still love each other. Sure, maybe a future episode will reveal a broken marriage, but that’s not what we see. ‘Open Marriage,’ is a non-judgmental take on a different kind of relationship. It may be nice to travel the world, but home is where the heart is — and you don’t necessarily have to chose one over the other.
Other standout episodes include ‘Side Hustle,’ and ‘Lady Cha Cha.’ The former revolves around the jobs that two individuals do ‘on the side,’ to be able to do what they truly want. The woman gains material for her writing during her side-gig as a call-girl, and the man gathers material for his stand-up comedy from his job as an Uber-driver.
‘Lady Cha Cha,’ on the other hand, follows a couple that we first met back in season one. The episode follows this lesbian couple (played by Kiersey Clemons and Jacqueline Toboni) as one of the two is starting to have an interest in burlesque, and the episode is, essentially, an exploration of differing views on freedom and empowerment, as well as general relationship possessiveness.
All in all, I do think that the second season of Easy is a clear improvement on the debut season of the intimate and, at times, awkward relationship dramedy anthology series. However, I don’t think that Easy, as a show, has justified being deemed as must-watch television, even if there are some great episodes scattered throughout the series thus far.
B+
– Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen
I'm Jeffrey Rex 