The Four Seasons

They figured out how to make it even better. Eight episodes of warm, funny, and completely lovable television.

Season 2 of The Four Seasons does something rare. It takes everything that worked in season 1 and turns it up without breaking it. The warmth is warmer. The comedy lands harder. The characters feel even more like people you actually know and love. By the time the final episode ends, all you want is more. That is the highest compliment you can give a show like this.

The group is back together after a hard year. Nick is gone, Ginny is pregnant, and the remaining friends have to figure out how to carry on their tradition of four yearly trips while carrying the weight of grief, new life, and the usual beautiful mess of long friendships. The show uses that premise perfectly. Comedy about middle age and loss only works when the characters feel real enough to hurt for, and this cast makes that effortless.

Tina Fey and Colman Domingo

If you watch season 2 for one reason, watch it for Kate and Danny. Tina Fey and Colman Domingo have chemistry that makes every scene they share feel both funny and true. Their friendship arc this season, testing it and coming out the other side, is the beating heart of the whole show. Fey's physical comedy in the penultimate episode is some of the funniest television this year, with Domingo playing the perfect straight man. They are great together in the way that only two genuinely good comedians who trust each other can be.

Everyone belongs here

One of the things that made season 1 special was that no character felt like the odd one out. Season 2 deepens that. Will Forte's Jack is still the perfect blend of sweet and clueless. Kerri Kenney-Silver's Anne carries the grief of the season on her shoulders and never lets it become heavy. Marco Calvani's Claude gets more room to breathe this time and uses every second of it. Even the newer additions slot into the group like they have always been there. Every character is lovable in a way that feels earned rather than forced.

The writing understands that what makes a friend group work is not that everyone gets along perfectly. It is that they keep showing up anyway. Each of the four trips this season throws something new at these people, and watching them work through it together is both funny and quietly moving. There is a scene mid-season where the whole group just sits around a table eating and arguing about nothing in particular, and it is better than most dramatic climaxes on television right now.

A show that keeps getting better

Season 1 was a surprise. Season 2 is a confirmation. This is one of the best comedies Netflix has made, and it earns that by caring about its characters more than most shows bother to. It is funny without being cruel, emotional without being manipulative, and warm without being soft. There are more seasons coming and that feels like a very good thing indeed.