Backlog Review: Bored to Death Season Two

Annoyingly, my opinions aren’t always 100% correct all the time (surprising, I know). I’ll admit, it took me until half way through Season Two to properly get Bored to Death. I’ll fully take the blame on this one, but it’s interesting to examine why it took me so long to understand. For one thing, I think it was a sub-par first season. I re-watched parts of the first season of Bored to Death just to check if I’d completely screwed up, but alas no; that first season is still not very good. Mostly, the slip up (for yours truly, at least), came in the advertising. A detective noir show on HBO starring Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson and Zak Galifianakis conjures a certain image to mind. That show is funny, quick and stylish; it focuses on the interplay between normal life and funny well directed detective stories. It also doesn’t exist quite yet. Parts of this imaginary show seep into the existing Bored to Death; it shares a cast, it shares some key ideas and even parts of a few episodes. Some of the characters, like Patton Oswalt’s crazy spy shop salesman, or Vikram the driver, come from this show, as does a stellar OST. The rest of the show is quite different and it’s this confused dichotomy that stopped me from fully understanding Bored to Death.

It helped with finally getting it, of course, that the second season of Bored to Death is just that much better than the first season. Some problems still remain; I continue to be creeped out by the self-insert nature of the Jonathan Ames character, especially as he starts to date his own student (although I do appreciate the real Ames casting himself as the crazy Jewish stalker). The characters still espouse the benefits of weed too much for me to care anymore, and Jenny Slate is still annoying for the parts of the show she’s in. Most egregiously, Jonathan Ames remains a bad character who doesn’t quite care or emote enough, something made a little worse in this season as the detective plots become a lot crazier. He’s also quite self centered, although this is utilised more for comic effect (one scene that comes to mind is when he uses the dominatrix as a therapist.) I do also still think the visual direction of the whole show could be a little better but it matters less now that the detective plots give a little visual flair by being in more interesting locations.

However, I did say I liked the second season a lot more, and I also said that I finally got the show. So what did I get? Well, Bored to Death seemed to be moving a bit away from the detective plots and more towards three chill guys hanging out and dealing with their problems, which become much more major. Jonathan and his wacky detective hijinks are now only a third of the ensemble, so even though I said those detective stories were becoming more interesting they’re also fading into the background a bit. More prescient is George’s magazine which has somehow contracted a bad case of the religious right and is now firing George and *gasp* conducting drug tests. George also has to deal with cancer, and while this turns out a red herring the emotional journey he goes through is very real. When George and Jonathan have a father/son moment in the hospital, I felt it because the characters this time were making a lot better written. George may still have a problem of making big speeches about the world but he also shows a lot more of his personal life and insecurities. Similarly making me care is Zak Galifianakis’ Ray, having relationship problems that hit hard because he remains the sappy but relatable character. I’m still a little sore he isn’t funnier, but I see again that’s just my expectations for Galifianakis rather than a fault of the show. The success he finds with his comic book is also nice but someone has to one day explain to me why anyone would ever read ‘The Adventures of Super Ray’ (maybe I’m just not much of a comics guy).

In fact, the chilling out stuff works so well I wonder why Jonathan is a detective in the first place. His cases often have some thematic relevance and give him something to do but they really aren’t needed. They make the show confused and it saddens me that I took so long to understand that at it’s heart Bored to Death is just about three guys chilling. Jonathan’s detective career is a smoke screen and isn’t nearly enjoyable enough to be worth keeping. Other shows have had elements that could easily be stripped away to reveal a simpler show underneath, but none so frustratingly as Bored to Death. I do now like this show butI keep the right to have my major reservations about it.

This is the shortest review I’ve ever written fyi (mainly because I already said much of what I thought in the review of season one). I’ll be back in a few days with a review of a comedy mystery show I enjoyed much more unconditionally; Search Party