The Four Seasons: Series 2 - Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

IT COULD have been easy to lose interest in the characters that make up The Four Seasons, given their wealth, the fact they get four holidays a year and yet still spend most of their time bickering among themselves and generally bemoaning their lot in life.

But Tina Fey’s comedy-drama - which she co-created and wrote with Tracey Wigfield and Lang Fisher, based on the 1980s movie by Alan Alda - enters its sophomore run of episodes in rude health.

It feels somehow older, wiser and funnier, benefiting from characters we have grown to understand for all of their shortcomings.

That’s not to say they’re annoyance free. They do sometimes test our patience, much like they test each other’s.

But there’s a witty and artful intelligence to the way these characters exist, a lot of which resonates. There’s even a certain perverse fun for viewers of a similar age to try and spot identifiable traits in themselves, to see which of the characters they most resemble (although would you dare to admit it aloud?).

Yet while certainly skewering to older audiences, the comedy is so well drawn that it’s even hugely enjoyable to my 14-year-old son, who didn’t want this series to end.

The idea is fairly simple. Three couples convene four times a year for a getaway that’s designed to celebrate lifelong friendships and take a break from the everyday trials and tribulations of life. The trouble is, each couple finds it hard not to bring their issues with them.

Season one was marked by the death of one member of the couples: Steve Carell’s Nick, who had also during the course of the season left his wife, Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), to hook up with a much younger woman, Ginny (Erika Henningsen), who ended up falling pregnant.

By the start of season two, which commences in spring, Ginny is about to give birth, with Anne providing unlikely support (and a temporary home).

The other couples have joined them for an upstate hike to scatter Nick’s ashes from his favourite mountain. These include gay duo Danny and Claude (Colman Domingo and Marco Calvani) and married couple Kate (played by Fey) and Jack (Will Forte).

And it’s clear from the outset that just about everyone has issues. For Kate and Jack, it’s the continued deterioration of their mental states (Jack, in particular, is struggling) and - as a result - their marriage. In many ways, they’re the most normal couple of the trio, navigating midlife and all of its disappointments and challenges in perhaps the most logical way. At least they act their age.

Danny and Claude, on the other hand, are feeling broody. Or at least Danny is, having previously been lukewarm on the idea. And Anne is attempting to balance her unlikely new role as a kind of surrogate mother and grandma with the feeling that she is becoming too much of a recluse and living in the past, allowing past mistakes to hold her back.

With each season afforded two episodes, the characters have a fair amount of time to mix comedy with drama, while growing as people (or not).

But what makes this show so richly enjoyable is showing just how difficult and unpredictable life can be, even for people whose age suggests they should have more of their shit together - or at least be hitting certain milestones.

And yet life seldom delivers what’s expected… or even what you wish for. Every time a character seems to catch a break, life throws another curveball.

During the summer seaside vacation, for instance, Jack seems to find a bro-mate (or bro-mance) to play with on the beach and generally hang out. But he’s two steps away from coming over too needy. While Anne also winds up using him [the friend] for sex. It leads to a complicated dynamic - that's also ripe for comedy.

At the same time, Jack and Kate have decided to ‘freeball’ - the name given to their decision to ‘grow apart on purpose’. It works out as bad an idea as it sounds.

Danny and Claude, meanwhile, are still deliberating over parenthood.

By Fall (and a Thanksgiving get together at Anne’s), they have adopted a dog… and are struggling. Jack, meanwhile, is clinging on to his sanity by a thread. And Ginny is pondering a life of single motherhood and fearful of flying from the comfort and safety of Anne’s nest.

A one-off Thanksgiving episode that goes back in time to a previous get together, during Covid, while Nick was still alive, affords more insight into the decisions and key moments that have brought the characters to where they are in the present… and is well done, again blending situational comedy around Covid (which initially felt ill advised but proved well judged) with some serious drama.

Winter, meanwhile, finds the couples in Italy, where Danny and Claude now live, for a final couple of episodes that round things off on a real high for the series.

The payoffs delivered here are both highly amusing and emotional, leaving most of the characters in part ‘fixed’ and in part staring at scary new chapters in their lives: some massive, others not so.

Anne’s journey is perhaps the biggest arc of the series, allowing Kenney-Silver to really come into her own: her transition from lonely and sometimes resentful ex-wife to someone who is prepared to give life a second go (even opting to remain in Italy at the conclusion of the series) feels somehow life affirming.

But there’s also a beautiful line in self-deprecating humour throughout her performance, not least while in Italy where her appearance resembles a seasonal witch that gets everyone pointing fingers and making outlandish requests.

Her journey is bittersweet too… Fey offers no giddy Hollywood payoffs, opting instead for subtle wins that are more reflective of life. And Kenney-Silver imbues her performance with equal parts determination and vulnerability. It makes it easier to root for her.

Elsewhere, Fey, as co-writer, affords herself another of the season’s great moments, during a monologue in which she reveals all of her insecurities to Jack (at his behest) during the closing stages of a marathon: it’s a beautifully written piece of soul cleansing that, again, feels somehow widely resonant.

Domingo and Calvani also put in some terrific work during the final episodes… their often childish bickering from earlier in the series somehow feeling more mature and meaningful once they are also confronted with some big decisions. For while they may always seem on the verge of falling out, there is also a deep sense of love between the two of them, nicely conveyed by both.

And Forte also deserves a mention for making his Jack so likeable in spite of his rampant anxieties. In a less skilled performance, he could come across as just plain whiny and annoying. But there’s a genuine sense that he’s simply aiming to please… to do what he thinks is right in spite of his own doubts and inferiority complex. And he makes that battle within himself somehow endearing - light-hearted and yet soulful.

It’s why you root for Kate and Jack too.

But therein lies the beauty of The Four Seasons and its triumphant second season: I’ve come to view these characters as friends of my own in some small way; sometimes irritating, sometimes smug, yet still great company to be around. And prepared to get things wrong, or look silly, while dealing with issues that feel all too real.

It’s a show that gets what it is to be middle aged, with the wide variety of feelings that this can bring.