Love Life: Season 2 with William Jackson Harper

December 7, 2021 1:08 PM - Season 2 (Full Season)

From Rotten Tomatoes: William Jackson Harper's Love Life is easy to get caught up in thanks to the star's charm and this season's thoughtful exploration of a real romantic conundrum." TOMATOMETER: 94% Audience Score: 78%

From the Wikipedia entry for Ep1: "Marcus Watkins is a book editor married to Emily, a restaurant worker. At Darby's wedding to Magnus, Marcus meets Mia Hines. They quickly bond and Marcus sends a book to Mia he thinks she will like."

Because this was dropped all at once a lot of articles ruin the season, as do episode descriptions.
If you watched the previous season, you know that Marcus will spend all 10 episodes looking for love. Just maybe not the love we normally associate with a romance story.

posted by fiercekitten (3 comments total)

William Jackson Harper is remarkable and definitely carries this through a lot of uneven writing. Some of the emotional beats hit; some do not. (Note to writers: You probably don't need that unplanned pregnancy plotline.)

Jessica Williams also shines and I wish she was in this more.

I don't know if I'm going to really remember anything that happened in this. I watched the first season and I have no memory of it.

I think that's mostly what this show does -- it's distracting and good enough when it's in front of me but fades quickly.

But yeah, put Harper in everything.
posted by edencosmic at 3:03 PM on December 7, 2021

I only just caught up on the first season of this show and have just finished the second. Second season was a lot more knotty and complicated than the first. I think Marcus was harder to like than Darby. I think his relationships were less on the "romantic comedy" side than Darby's relationships. And I think I understood Darby's motivations more. Marcus was a lot harder to read and up until the last episode, I wasn't sure if Mia and he were right for each other. (Of course, Darby's "the one" was barely in the show, but the voiceover tells us they are together forever?)

But I liked both seasons for being serious and funny and writing characters and relationships like real people and relationships. Even/especially long-term friendships, which always evolve - and this show shows that in interesting ways.

And I liked this shared universe approach and the subtle occasional appearances of Darby in season two.

Anyway, give me more of this intelligent adult drama that also has a sense of humour and uses the passage of time really well.
posted by crossoverman at 2:21 PM on December 9, 2021

I found Marcus a lot more likable than Darby, or more interesting and real, anyhow -- Darby felt a lot more generic as a character, and honestly I never fully forgave her for the funeral episode. And I appreciated that there was more about how they worked as a couple than ending on a meet cute. (A little sad that they ended on the end of the pandemic, but there we go.)

I thought that the season was overall better than the first.
posted by jeather at 5:30 PM on January 8, 2022