Season Review: Undone Season Two

Overview:

Right after grabbing some existential clarity after the events of the first season of Undone, Alma soon finds the floor once again giving out from beneath her, yet in very different ways. She’s presented with a life that’s seemingly peaceful and happy, but it’s not long until new stresses and doubts take her over. Alma has never better understood her family, but she’s also never had more questions about them. She heads down a dangerous yet introspective path, with her sister Becca in tow, and these two sisters strive to get to the bottom of all of their family’s problems.

Our Take:

Second seasons aren’t easy, even for the most conventional of television shows. The problem with knocking it out of the park with a show’s freshman year is an inevitable sophomore slump. The first season of Undone, from Kate Purdy and Raphael Bob-Waksberg, is so fully formed right out of the gate and connects much faster than BoJack Horseman. There’s such a beautiful, complete story that’s told across season one, but the season also ends on a gloriously ambiguous note where returning to this world and answering those questions risks alienating some of the audience. It pales in comparison to the limitless possibilities of the imagination’s open-ended nature. Despite these trepidations and the possibility of diminishing returns, the second season of Undone expands upon this story in a different, but effective manner. Undone uses the infinite nature of the multiverse to get to the bottom of character deficiencies and compounded generational trauma, just like light refracted through a raindrop, to produce a special season of television.  

There are so many directions that the second season of a program like Undone could go, but it’s perfectly fitting that the series uses something as high-minded as a multiverse (something that’s become increasingly in vogue) as a tool for probing character studies, the multitudes of humanity, and the butterfly effect of possibilities that are triggered by any innocuous character change. It’s fantastical, yet grounded; universal, yet personal. It’s a pivot in storytelling that’s both a seismic change of pace, but also completely in line with what’s come before it. This is the magic of Undone and this season is a worthy expansion to the story, but also an enlightening addendum that can be ignored or viewed in the vacuum of itself and still make sense. 

This second season turns into an enlightening look into how disappointment and doubt can be perpetual obstacles regardless of the life that one has. These insecurities just manifest in different ways. New possibilities warp into fresh disappointments. Alma confronts a grim, stark subversion of the “happily ever after” adage now that she, in theory, has exactly what she wants, yet continues to feel malaise. Alma worries that she’ll fail to meet the expectations of her “other” self or be considered a disappointment through that filter. However, the concept of doubt and letting one’s self down is a raw fear that someone doesn’t need to break the laws of time and space to understand and experience. 

Much like Alma, Undone is pulled in two directions between reality and fantasy and the dissonance that’s created between their clashing consistently results in Undone’s most compelling material. This second season does give answers to the first season’s questions, but in doing so actually proposes even more fascinating and layered questions that cleverly build upon the first season’s framework. Alma finds herself lost in another fantastical fugue that tests her and her conception of herself in new ways, but each new revelation threatens to tear her down in more devastating ways and only further highlight her fragility. 

It’s this tension that’s created over whether Undone pushes Alma down a path of wellness or destruction that makes each episode haunting in its own way. There are some fascinating setpieces this season that involve shared memories and the reconciliation of timelines that dazzle on a sci-fi level, but they’re also just complex ways to highlight the plurality of one’s self. Everything is everything. In the end it doesn’t matter if this is a science fiction series or a family melodrama, it’s the important questions that it explores about identity and confidence that truly resonate and help Undone stand apart. 

Undone’s second season turns the tables and becomes more of a dive into Alma’s mother and her connection with her as opposed to the bond that’s established between Alma and her father in season one. However, these episodes allow Alma to share this burden with her sister, Becca, which also effectively raises the stakes and is enough of a change so that this season doesn’t just feel like a retread of the first one. It makes for a satisfying way to unpack more layers to Alma, but also draw deeper parallels between her and the important people in her life and if she’s destined to make the same mistakes, rise above them, or pull others down with her. A toxic dynamic begins to form between Alma and Becca that’s all too familiar and hard to watch play out. What’s most haunting is that this season of Undone attempts to treat time travel like a sci-fi catch-all that fixes problems and sweeps failures under a cosmic rug and then doesn’t worry about the universal consequences.

With only eight episodes, it doesn’t feel as if any time is wasted in the second season of Undone. However, this story really comes into its own during the season’s second-half. It blossoms into this beautiful story about family, togetherness, and acceptance that’s worth the time that it takes to reach this touching destination.The earlier episodes can be a little more nebulous in nature, but this feels intentional and it’s fitting for the show’s themes. The first season of Undone doesn’t shy away from how a family can function as refractions of one identity, but these new episodes so clearly articulate this thought. Alma is a reflection and culmination of her past generations, just like how energy and atoms redistribute in the universe to create new matter over time.

Rosa Salazar continues to be an absolute delight in this role and a whole new side to her character comes alive in this season as she explores and exhibits fascination over these discoveries. It’s a deeply layered and circuitous role and yet Salazar brings nuance to each facet of Alma. The first season gives her more than enough to do, so it really means something in saying that season two becomes even a showpiece for the actress. It’s a true joy that there’s more of her in this role to experience and it’s exciting to consider what else could be added to the equation in a third season that dissects Alma even further. 

None of the other performances in the series fall short or feel disconnected to Undone’s unconventional atmosphere, but just nobody else stands out in the way that Salazar does. That being said, this year is much more of a two-hander between Alma and Becca, which allows Angelique Cabral to shine in her role. There’s effortless chemistry between Cabral and Salazar, but Constance Marie as Camila, the family’s matriarch, is also seriously expanded upon and gets to feel more like a living presence in this world.

The other major calling card for Undone is the show’s trippy rotoscoped animation, which the first season makes excellent use of as Alma’s reality increasingly crumbles. Undone is more subtle with its animation in season two and it’s not only the final two episodes where these surreal impulses go into overdrive. Inventive rotoscoping flourishes are largely present to ornament transitions between time and space instead of omnipresently invading peaceful moments, like in season one. However, Undone doesn’t need to lean into its science fiction elements to emphasize its beauty. Some of the most gorgeous sequences from the season occur during muted flashbacks in Mexico. It’s this compulsion to celebrate authentic pockets of culture where the animation really comes alive this season.

Undone is just as puzzling, unique, and emotional as it was in its first season. Undone’s second season asks more thought-provoking questions than season one and its deepening of the series’ themes is more satisfying, yet there’s an overall stronger standard and mystique to the first season. These new episodes craft a touching narrative that’s all about the importance of acceptance and moving on in life, even if you have unbelievable powers that transcend time and space. The family-style time travel mystery that forms is a fun spin on the formula, which pushes these episodes into very unexpected territory during its final act. The places that Undone decides to visit in order to conclude this emotional narrative will likely throw much of the audience for a loop (think Schindler’s List meets Back to the Future). It’s a direction that’s not exactly telegraphed during the first season of Undone, yet a conclusion that still feels authentic to the show’s character-probing cause and effect journey. 

‘Undone’s’ eight-episode second season is available to stream April 29, only on Amazon Prime