American Vandal: Season 2 (All Episodes)
October 1, 2018 9:12 AM - Season 2 (Full Season) - Subscribe
Peter and Sam travel to a prestigious private high school in Bellevue, Washington, to document the story of a filthy vandal called the "Turd Burglar."
Craptastic!
posted by iamkimiam at 2:24 PM on October 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by iamkimiam at 2:24 PM on October 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah. That's why this season was such rough watching in the early episodes, and it's only because I am an inveterate double screener that I was able to continue with it. It still had a lot of what made the first season so hilarious and amazing; the characters, the seriousness with which it engaged with the extremely specific high school cultural touchstones, dramatizing the impact of social media on teen culture; but it was harder and more unpleasant to watch.
posted by misfish at 3:16 PM on October 2, 2018
posted by misfish at 3:16 PM on October 2, 2018
OK. Let's cut the crap.
This season was just as great and brilliant as the 1st one. The writers have an amazing flair for creating believable characters to root for and against and then for and then maybe against again until finally you find out you should have just kept rooting for them the entire time you dummy. And, wow, some amazing performances. They should win some kind of award for casting because they keep finding these super-talented young actors that 100% deliver. The way these kids just (seemingly effortlessly) switch from heavy drama to high comedy on a DIME in this format just blows me away. And not just from scene to scene but from moment to moment.
I watched both seasons with my 14 year old son - who's just started as a freshman in highschool - and for him, this season double resonated from the intense focus on social media. It was a brilliant way to tackle some similar issues from the first season in a completely fresh way. And, as a designer, I was very impressed with all the motion graphics work that contextualized and brought it all to life on screen.
There's so much to love, so many details they get juuuuust right. Incorporating the iPhone texting bug, where of course OF COURSE the confessed Turd Burglar Kevin is an Android fanatical partisan and it turns into a key plot point. I live in the Seattle area and they got the contrast between Bellevue and Rainier Beach down to a T. The middle school kid that's dragged into the Horsehead collective. The school administration that doesn't give a damn about the truth, they just want the whole thing to go away.
Much like this article on decider.com I also couldn't get enough of DeMarcus. I really hope we get to see more from Melvin Gregg because he's not only hysterical, but that scene in the car where he talks about getting catfished was...man...that was good.
posted by ssmith at 4:27 PM on October 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
This season was just as great and brilliant as the 1st one. The writers have an amazing flair for creating believable characters to root for and against and then for and then maybe against again until finally you find out you should have just kept rooting for them the entire time you dummy. And, wow, some amazing performances. They should win some kind of award for casting because they keep finding these super-talented young actors that 100% deliver. The way these kids just (seemingly effortlessly) switch from heavy drama to high comedy on a DIME in this format just blows me away. And not just from scene to scene but from moment to moment.
I watched both seasons with my 14 year old son - who's just started as a freshman in highschool - and for him, this season double resonated from the intense focus on social media. It was a brilliant way to tackle some similar issues from the first season in a completely fresh way. And, as a designer, I was very impressed with all the motion graphics work that contextualized and brought it all to life on screen.
There's so much to love, so many details they get juuuuust right. Incorporating the iPhone texting bug, where of course OF COURSE the confessed Turd Burglar Kevin is an Android fanatical partisan and it turns into a key plot point. I live in the Seattle area and they got the contrast between Bellevue and Rainier Beach down to a T. The middle school kid that's dragged into the Horsehead collective. The school administration that doesn't give a damn about the truth, they just want the whole thing to go away.
Much like this article on decider.com I also couldn't get enough of DeMarcus. I really hope we get to see more from Melvin Gregg because he's not only hysterical, but that scene in the car where he talks about getting catfished was...man...that was good.
posted by ssmith at 4:27 PM on October 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
My theory was that the whole turd burglar thing was a coverup by the school administration for their ill advised replacement of the sugar in the lemonade with a laxative sweetener. #turdtruther
posted by misfish at 4:54 PM on October 2, 2018
posted by misfish at 4:54 PM on October 2, 2018
This was quite good, and only really suffers in comparison with the first season, which seemed to have done a lot of things that could have been done over two or more seasons; in particular, Peter and Sam were in S1 a lot more--above and beyond the fact that they were investigating a case in their own school, which added more resonance--whereas in this season they're barely in the show, particularly Sam. The adults also seem to have less to do here; the main teacher character is notable mostly for having a crush on DeMarcus, and most of the rest are straight-up villains or collaborators. (Of the people who are part of the catfishing plot, the teacher is the only one who doesn't give their perspective on why and how he fell for it.) These deficits create some odd moments in the series: Peter and Sam set up in someone's living room, and Chloe is the only member of the family that we see IIRC. (Speaking of Chloe, Taylor Dearden is Bryan Cranston's daughter; she's been on Breaking Bad.) I also raised an eyebrow at Kevin's interrogation scene; between Kevin being told that he couldn't leave without being Mirandized and the cops obviously coaching his answers, that whole session should have been thrown out.
But it was still pretty great, because it makes the case that social media's net effect is to make people lonelier. The plot's revelation--that a bunch of people all believed that the private photos and videos originally intended for yet another person were really made for them--underscores how much all of these people wanted some genuine affection in their lives; they all wanted to be Pickle. Especially, the scene of Kevin waiting at the motel just broke me. I too liked Melvin Gregg in this quite a lot, but Travis Tope did an incredible job as Kevin, just perfectly getting the affected mannerisms of an outsider who decided that if he was going to be pegged as a weirdo, he'd be his kind of weirdo. (Known 'im? Been 'im!)
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:28 AM on October 8, 2018 [3 favorites]
But it was still pretty great, because it makes the case that social media's net effect is to make people lonelier. The plot's revelation--that a bunch of people all believed that the private photos and videos originally intended for yet another person were really made for them--underscores how much all of these people wanted some genuine affection in their lives; they all wanted to be Pickle. Especially, the scene of Kevin waiting at the motel just broke me. I too liked Melvin Gregg in this quite a lot, but Travis Tope did an incredible job as Kevin, just perfectly getting the affected mannerisms of an outsider who decided that if he was going to be pegged as a weirdo, he'd be his kind of weirdo. (Known 'im? Been 'im!)
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:28 AM on October 8, 2018 [3 favorites]
I liked this season as much as the first, but in a different way. One thing I noticed, but that wasn't played up by the show, was how irresponsible the documentarians were with the big reveal. If they'd gone directly to the police instead of taunting The Turd Burglar, then the document dump wouldn't have happened - correct? There's the possibility that the Burglar might have been wise to being caught, but the taunt absolutely gave him the time and the motive to leak everyone's material. If he'd been apprehended without being warned, then that harm could've been prevented.
posted by codacorolla at 3:29 PM on October 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by codacorolla at 3:29 PM on October 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Just finished watching this. It's a real shame there isn't another season of this, because the writing is so great. Their ability to create fully realised characters who are allowed to be human is really impressive. I think we've all known a Kevin, and while their insights (that of course he's lonely, and of course it's a facade) maybe aren't super surprising, they're really well done.
I agree that I don't know how I feel about the lack of emphasis on Sam and Peter. In particular it felt like they were building to something with Peter's determination to avoid the police, but they kind of skimmed over it: in particular the dump was pretty much entirely Peter's fault; had he chosen to not text the burglar and gone straight to the police, it could have been avoided, and potentially avoided a lot of pain. But they just skip over that, something they deliberately didn't do in season one, pointing out the impacts of Peter making the documentary. Of course in season one the things they obsess over are essentially quite petty, while in season two the crimes are serious enough to warrant jail time.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 3:30 AM on November 30, 2018
I agree that I don't know how I feel about the lack of emphasis on Sam and Peter. In particular it felt like they were building to something with Peter's determination to avoid the police, but they kind of skimmed over it: in particular the dump was pretty much entirely Peter's fault; had he chosen to not text the burglar and gone straight to the police, it could have been avoided, and potentially avoided a lot of pain. But they just skip over that, something they deliberately didn't do in season one, pointing out the impacts of Peter making the documentary. Of course in season one the things they obsess over are essentially quite petty, while in season two the crimes are serious enough to warrant jail time.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 3:30 AM on November 30, 2018
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posted by Pendragon at 11:58 AM on October 1, 2018 [2 favorites]