Lodge 49 Season 2 is still nice and human, which makes it refreshing in the TV world of snark, fictionalized crime, and general luridity. The core characters centered around the Order of the Lynx are workaday types but they increasingly find themselves interacting with surreal characters and oddballs. The link among them all is that they are unmoored and lost. The timeless angle is the often conflicting searches they are on for both meaning and security weave into their connections with each other. They inevitably let each other down, and just as inevitably pick up the pieces and start over.
In season 1, the focus was on the brother and sister pair (Dud and Liz) and the unrecoverable loss of both meaning and security that came with their father's death. The canvas has broadened in season 2 but so has the sprawl. We've been able to dig deeper into some of the other characters, but new ones (also interesting) have been tossed into the mix and given a short shrift. As a result we feel less of the depth of the characters and the frequent ventures into weirdness begin to feel a bit self-conscious. The stand-out is Ernie (Brent Jennings) who sought to face his future, by which we mean the onset of old age and irrelevance, by finding meaning in his past, and failed most painfully. Jennings did a tremendous job with this.
Still entertaining and interesting (you will see a lot of Coen Bros. influence, although much more lighthearted). Still has a great, pounding, human heart. But its full potential remains unrealized. Perhaps that's good. Something to look forward to.
