One Day at a Time: (2018) (Season 2)

January 26, 2018 10:42 AM - Season 2 (Full Season)

This is it, straight ahead and rest assured, you can't be sure at all!

This remake of the original Norman Lear sitcom One Day at a Time from 1975 keeps the apartment set but moves the action from Indianapolis to Los Angeles, focusing on a separated single Army veteran nurse, her two teenage children, and her traditional Cuban mother.

Season two continues where the first season left off and is possibly even better than the first.

posted by elsietheeel (14 comments total)

I'm only halfway through episode six but I am enjoying it so much so far that I had to make a post so I could spill the thoughts I've already had:

That Pitbull joke in the first episode! I sort of love Pitbull in an odd way so I died laughing even though it was in the midst of a serious conversation. (Two Pitbull jokes in one week, what riches!)

I dig when they fit one of Rita Moreno's famous lines into conversations. Like last season's "Hey you guys!" and this season's "I like to be in America." It's gimmicky, but they do it pretty well.

Stephen Tobolowsky is a goddamn national treasure.

So far this show is quadrilingual - English, Spanish, Yiddish, and Canadian.

Speaking of languages, watching this show en Español is really helpful (at least for me) to improve one's Spanish. Amusing factoid: Most of the actors do their own Spanish dubbing, including Elena (who, in the first season, couldn't speak Spanish); the one exception is the kid who plays Alex (at least that was the case last season, I haven't watched the second season in Spanish yet).

I have so many other thoughts (I'm still watching!), but I just love this show so much. I wish I could convince more people to watch it. It's so smart and funny and clever and aware and relevant. Some people get stuck on the idea of the original and don't want to try the remake, other people can't get past the laugh track, and it makes me so sad.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:48 AM on January 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

Oh my god I wish I had waited until the end of episode 6 to post my comment because seeing Elena dressed as OG Schneider was amaaaaaaaaazing.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:55 AM on January 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

Also I really liked (?) the way the expanded on Schneider's addiction and recovery. It meant a lot.
posted by elsietheeel at 3:22 PM on January 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

My household got up early to start watching this!! I'm going to cook Cuban vegetarian and claim it's Abuela's recipe. My kids love love this show and one episode in we are already pausing to talk about racism here and skin shades. LOVE.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:34 PM on January 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

I like Elena's moustache hairs sticking it to the patriarchy!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:54 PM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

My son was born in 05 and so the whole traditional sitcom is a foreign thing to him; he grew up with DVDs and Netflix and Youtube. But he loves this show, and I love to watch it with him, though I might not get so much into it if it was just me. Because I have a lifetime of sitcom memories already, glad as I am to see them tackle stuff like racism and homophobia and PTSD.

I think maybe it feels like a window into a safe, loving family like his but very different, and I can't fault him for enjoying that. And also he's nearly the same age as Alex so he relates.
posted by emjaybee at 1:25 PM on January 27, 2018

Sometimes I am stuck in permanent cringe watching Elena (I mean this in a good way!) because her crusading is a little too real and a little too reminiscent of my own high school years.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:59 PM on January 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

This is such a fucking amazing show and I pretty much loved everything about this season. It's "realer" than a lot of stuff on tv right now that's not a multi-cam sitcom with a live audience, and written with so much love and care and genuine humor and like a sense of the viewer being taken care of. I cried all through Hello Penelope and Not Yet and loved that Elena has a not just a gf now but a dorky homeschooled nonbinary gf and Alex is such a wonderful kid and Lydia completely crushed it this season. Even Schneider and Leslie, feel like their inner lives are taken seriously even when the show makes them the butt of the joke.

Penelope Alvarez is my favorite character and I can't think about her in a broad scope without crying a little too. To have someone who is objectively so funny, tough, weird, and great, and also disabled/mentally ill and allowed to struggle and fail and yet never be positioned as anything less than someone we should admire and cheer for, is the best. Also she wore a lot of cute rompers this season. I hope she is always rewarded with kind giant men to climb like a tree.
posted by colorblock sock at 11:11 AM on January 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

I love this show. I love all the characters, I love the relationships between the characters. I love that the humor is good-natured and not mean. I love that it shows that life is tough but you can get through it. I love the way it handles sexuality, non-binary gender, PTSD, mental illness, and race.
posted by daybeforetheday at 1:15 AM on February 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I adore this show. And nearly wept laughing at the line, "I woke up three days later in an alley. Then the bowling ball hit me."

I tweeted something about the amazing theme song and Gloria Estefan replied with heart emojis, so that like made my life.
posted by dayintoday at 5:26 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

We're getting a season 3!
posted by rewil at 11:12 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

Oh thank goodness. Although they'd be foolish not to!
posted by elsietheeel at 1:11 PM on March 26, 2018

I only finished watching S2 a few days ago and therefore went through the entire rollercoaster of emotions re: the renewal question in quite a short span of time. Good to hear that the correct decision was made.
posted by inconstant at 5:33 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm a few episodes shy of finishing season 2. I LOVE this show! I have been rewatching some eps as I go to slow down the experience. It continually surprises me by landing right on issues.

When we find out Alex has been holding his dad accountable for how he treated Elena - OMG all the tears.

Elena's crusading, her weird loudness, how awkward she is - all so relatable. I've never seen a person on TV I felt more like.

Plus Penelope looks so much like my high school best friend, besides how appealing she is generally I feel extra attached to her.

Nothing to say about Rita Moreno because I can't do her justice.

Finally, the laugh track: after hearing a podcast about the history of the laugh track (maybe on 99% invisible?) I respect it.
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:28 AM on August 15, 2018 [1 favorite]