Better Late Than Never: Master of None Season 2

One of the more entertaining shows in 2015 was Netflix's Master of None. Aziz Ansari, less than a year removed from the remarkable Parks & Recreation, all but single-handedly brought the series together. He wrote or co-wrote, directed and starred in every episode, creating the character of Dev,  a thirty-ish Indian actor living in New York, trying to build a career and a romantic life in Manhattan. The series dealt with his career, his relationship with his family, and his attempt to find a relationship. Ansari was nominated for three Emmys and won for writing in 2016. Given how much work is involved in the project, its perhaps not that surprising that it took until this May for Season 2 to arrive. And just having seen the first three episodes, I can say that it more than deserved the nine nominations it got, including Best Comedy series.

For the first episode alone, it deserves a prize. Dev has relocated to Italy where he was studying to become a pasta chef. In an episode, shot in black & white, and two-thirds in Italian, Ansari brilliant satirized the 1940's realist Italian classic The Bicycle Thief.  In this episode, Dev finds himself wandering through Italy on his birthday, encountering a beautiful woman, and setting up a date - only to have his cell phone stolen. Even if you knew nothing about the film, there was something truly magnificent about the scope and daring of it.

The other two episodes were nearly as well done. Dev's best friend Arnold came to Italy to visit him and attend a wedding, only to reveal that the woman getting married had been, for him, the one that got away. A whirlwind of food and love, it was both humorous heartbreaking. And in the episode titled, 'Religion', Ansari revisited much of the same territory he did in the marvelous episode 'Family, only this time finally dealing with Dev's (and by extension, his own) Indian Muslim heritage. Dealing with how Dev managed to get his far more devout cousin to indulge in pork for the first time, the episode eventually came around to Dev's own very light religious leanings. The episode eventually ended on a sweet note including probably the most benign reading of the Koran you'll see in any TV series this year.

Will Dev manage to reunite with the girl who broke his heart and flew to Tokyo last year? Will he be able to move on? (Given that one of the episode's is basically a recounting of a bunch of failed first dates, I'm not betting on it.) Will he manage to have a more successful career than he managed last season?  Will they finally manage to utilize the rest of the cast outside of Dev a bit better? It's hard to say at this stage. What I am relatively sure of is that Master of None is one of the best auteur driven comedies on any network. It's definitely a lot easier for me to relate to than Atlanta, and when it's firing on all cylinders, which as you can tell, is often, its one of the funniest and most endearing shows on TV. I hope I don't have to wait another year and a half for Season 3.

My score: 4.5 stars.