Within only three weeks, the second season of LOVE LIFE is complete. The last four episodes take audiences on a journey of redemption. Can we forgive Marcus (William Jackson Harper) for the sins of his past? That question has been the challenge since the episode one reveal. It’s a difficult hurdle that creator Sam Boyd wisely embarks on, turning LOVE LIFE into an evolved romantic comedy.
In the back half episodes, three out of the four are 🤩, with the weakest link involving Mia’s (Jessica Williams) origin story in episode seven. While her history is much needed for the season two story arc, it didn’t gel as well as the creators intended. Well, outside of the hilarious line, “my mom is fucking my dad!”
From the guy’s bonding camping episode with Yogi (Christopher Powell) and Kian (Arian Moayed) to Marcus learning how to forgive – each character felt like a hybrid rom-com mixed with someone you would be friends with IRL. The moment Yogi tells Kian to drink while driving and justifying it by being on vacation had me 😂 . Why? Because that may or may not have happened to me in my twenties (and no, we didn’t drink while driving).
What floored me, though, in LOVE LIFE was the transition between episodes nine and ten. And, even more importantly, how this show got there. It’s not your parent’s romantic comedy in that these characters mess up. A lot. But once redemption hits, audiences get to go on this adventure from Marcus’s healing to “what comes next.”
Usually, a rom-com cuts to the credits after the “happily ever after” moment, but not in LOVE LIFE. Instead, we get to see Marcus transition from being a “little ass boy” to putting in the relationship work. It’s in these moments where love turns from being this flirtatious romantic fun thing to serious real-life partnership responsibilities that LOVE LIFE cements itself as must-watch TV.
As the brilliant Keith David playing the narrator, states, “He now knew that being a man meant stepping up to the plate not once but in perpetuity. And even just having a plate to step up to made him as lucky as a person can get.”
LOVE LIFE is available to step up the plate to and watch on HBO Max.
PS: Kudos for the SAY ANYTHING like plane sequence that had me thinking of Lloyd Dobler “daring to be great.”
