The new season of Netflix’s ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ is menacingly sardonic and funny, its choreographic weirdness sprinkled with just the right amount of petulance and darkness.
It’s hard to figure out which season is better, really, for while the first season curiously explored Lemony Snicket’s absorbing mythology of the Baudelaires and their distant uncle, Count Olaf, and came up with an ingenious mix of humor and terror, the second season does not fall short either, of fresh and mind-blowing antics, disguises, and peculiarities, to offer.
The second part of the trilogy, the season stretches through the events in the middle five books of Lemony Snicket’s clever tale of the Baudelaire kids: Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, as they try to outrun the wicked, but singularly cunning, Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris). Of course, this grotesque narrative isn’t really written by Snicket, who, himself, is a character inside the story.
The books are penned by Daniel Handler, who also wrote ‘All the Wrong Questions’, the prequel to the 13-book ‘Unfortunate Events’ series.
The first two episodes cover the fifth book, ‘The Austere Academy’, where we find the Baudelaires enrolling in the mysteriously bleak Prufrock Preparatory School. Except for Sunny, who can now do typewriting jobs, everything in this new season strikes practically the same. The lives of the Baudelaires are still infested with misfortunes, and as much as we sympathize with the kids, we are amused on how such misfortunes bring chaos to their lives.
Fortunately, and this may be the most relevant compensation, the children are still intelligent and inventive as ever, that they almost always discover every deceit Count Olaf tries to pull off before it completely ruins their lives. Not that killing them is Count Olaf’s utmost mission–nope, he simply wants their massive inheritance. To do this, he still enlists the aid of his often dimwitted but extremely obedient team.
Some small but interesting changes include the arrival of new characters that may either help the kids escape Count Olaf or deliver them to him. Austere Academy introduces us to the Quagmire kids, Isadora and Duncan, whose parents may have suffered the same fate as the Baudelaire’s. Hector, the loving handyman from Village of Fowl’s Devotee, who, unlike most people in town, genuinely likes the Baudelaires.
There are some characters that are best left out in the discussion, for now, but what they have to bring into the picture, can never be less mindblowing.
Still, there are rough patches in this outing, the middle episodes were mostly stuck in a loop of utterly repetitive proceedings. Fortunately, the events in The Carnivorous Carnival save the season before it becomes completely monotonous.
Not that being monotonous eliminates its entertainment, this season is lit up by the smaller things and their humongous effect to the entire narrative. The audience will be thrilled by the inclusion of Nathan Fillion’s Jacques Snicket, Lemony’s younger brother, whom the actor imbued with charismatic eloquence and wit. The same thrill thrives in the presence of Carmelita Spats, and the nightmarish disorder she brings to the lives of all she doesn’t like. A mysterious librarian, and the narcissistic vice principal Nero, spice up the proceedings, but mostly, they help us deepen our understanding of the Baudelaires.
The 10 -episode second season of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ is now streaming on Netflix
