‘Master of None’ Season 2 Follows Its Own Rhythm

Monet Clayton

As fans tune in to “Master of None” Season 2, they should know they’re in for something new. Dev has fled New York for the more provincial pastures of Italy—a change drastic enough to alter a show’s entire alchemy. But even when Dev packs his bags to take his story back to New York—that seemed inevitable, right?—“Master of None”’s second season refuses to repeat the beats it already hit in its first chapter. This installment follows its own rhythm, with digressions and backstories that allow viewers to see even more of the characters’ worlds without ever seeming complacent. And series co-creator Alan Yang creates all of those changes by design.

It’s a move other shows have made as well—just look at “The Leftovers,” which morphed into an almost entirely new series in its second season. Or “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” which blew up its love triangle and sent Rebecca Bunch in a whole new direction. Yang and “None” co-creator (and star) Aziz Ansari share that sentiment. And so, off to Italy the series went. In the first few episodes, we see Dev dealing with his usual malaise—loneliness, first-world problems—in the small town of Modena.

Thanks to its home on an unrestricted streaming network, this season also features bigger disparities in episode length: it contains both the series’s longest episode (almost an hour) and its shortest episode (just over 20 minutes). There are also several radically digressive episodes—including a montage of Thanksgivings in Denise’s household, and an episode titled “New York, I Love You” that barely features the show’s usual cast of characters. Instead, it follows a succession of strangers around New York—a cab driver, a cashier, and a doorman.

The show is so open and empathetic and big-hearted that you don’t mind when it transitions from a shot of lovers rolling around in the classic Italian film “L’Avventura” to a “Master of None” recreation of same. It sees the world not as a series of conflicts to be overcome, but as a series of experiences to be had, learned from, and understood through art. It believes in people and our stupid brains, and our even stupider hearts and movies, and love and snow and family and pasta and New York City. As the world erupts with constant barrages of chaotic news, it feels more necessary than ever, this little love letter to the endless beauty of possibility.

“Master of None’s” second season, in other words, is not about someone who has every option still open to them, but about someone who’s starting to realize that getting older means making compromises and that even small compromises feel massive in the moment. The season’s central idea is that sometimes, the thing you want and the thing that’s right are miles apart, and closing the gap between them might be impossible. But sometimes it’s not, and that’s when you run toward the future.

“Master of None” Season 2 is available May 12 on Netflix.