After two years of waiting, fans of the Netflix dark comedy “The End of the F***king World” rejoiced in the premiere of season two (Nov. 5).
In the first season, James (Alex Lawther), a 17-year-old high-school “loser” and self-proclaimed psychopath is thinking about killing his first human when Alyssa (Jessica Barden), the new, hotheaded girl in school, asks him to be her boyfriend and, subsequently, to go with her on a trip to find her long-lost father. Thinking of the ample opportunities for murder this spontaneous road trip would offer, James promptly agrees. Over the course of the series, the couple goes from runaway teens to murder suspects: upon breaking into an empty, swanky house and spending the night there, Alyssa is caught unaware when the owner, who is revealed to be a sexual predator, returns and attempts to rape her. James stabbed him, saving Alyssa and realizing he isn’t a psychopath after all.
The season is both quiet and explosive, sweetly sad and bitterly funny, centering on people’s need to belong, to have someone who looks out for them. James isn’t really a psychopath, but a kid still dealing with the grief and guilt from his mother’s suicide. Alyssa isn’t being rude for the sake of it, but acting out in order to get the attention of her uninterested mother. The show ends with a SWAT team closing in on the pair. James, having grown fond of Alyssa, insists on taking the blame for the murder and runs, claiming in narration how he finally understands “what people mean to each other.” The moment the screen faded black, there is a gunshot. Viewers waited two years to find out if James has been gunned down.
Well, he hasn’t. And he is not too happy about it. “It was a fitting end. A doomed love story. A perfect tragedy. And then I didn’t die.” Season two picks up at two years later: James has lost his dad to a heart attack, Alyssa has moved away with her mother, and a new character — Bonnie (Naomi Ackie) the naïve girlfriend of Alyssa’s rapist from season one — has just gotten out of prison and is plotting to kill them both. Sensing uncertain danger coming, James sets off to find Alyssa.
Stylistically, season two looks and sounds the same as the previous. “The End of the F***king World” retains its rude, biting humor that cuts through buzzing silences and deadpan narration that nevertheless builds up emotional intensity. If you’ve already fallen in love with the character in season one, season two will suck you in, especially now that the plot is no longer a chase without clear ends but a tangled net of emotional and mortal tensions that promises to snap, you just don’t know when.
Thematically, the show has evolved. Two years after murder and mayhem, Alyssa is determined to plow on with her life. Not move on — plow on, in a strange, recklessly quiet way. Meet a nice, uncomplicated guy. Get a waitressing job. Get married at 19, because “getting married young is one of the most renegade things you can do these days.” James, on the other hand, could not move on. He’s in love with Alyssa in her absence. He refuses to go back into the house after his dad’s funeral. He carried the ashes around like a baby’s safety blanket – an adolescent’s safety urn. The dark and chuckle-inducing metaphors go on, but unlike season one, it’s no longer about a person finding a place and a person to belong to, but about how to move on when that comfort is over.
As with many shows in the recent couple of years, the theme of sexual abuse and surviving it makes an appearance, most prominently in Bonnie, who was manipulated by and is still infatuated with the murdered man, a college professor that preyed on his students. It also shows in Alyssa dealing with PTSD that resulted from the bloody night, but here, the theme feels more like a trend, a slap-on hashtag-Me-Too rather than a genuine effort to explore the matter. Which is ironic, truly, considering how the character of Alyssa is strictly anti-trend (bordering on antisocial), claiming from the very first episode, “I don’t trust people who fit in.” PTSD-ish imageries and flashbacks, executed uncreatively and crammed greedily towards the climatic end, lack the steady persuasion and emotional connection the show is otherwise so good for. If only it had leaned into the idea more right from the beginning! But I guess even the greatest shows fall into the trap of overambition.
“The End of the F***king World” is dark – not the kind that makes you think and rationalize, but the kind that makes you shut up and sympathize. Alyssa is one of the most refreshing female characters to come to TV, not because she is autonomous and unapologetic in a politically correct way, but because she is self-conflicting and ever-evolving, like humans actually are. And while season one is more about James, season two belongs to Alyssa as she more brazenly refuses to fit into any character archetypes, rudely, rashly, and often regretfully. I hope I get to see more of her, and that when I do, “The End of the F***king World” would treat her development the way she would: without chasing trends.
