Having watched season 1 of this series it was of no real surprise to me to find season 2 more or less starting off with the same approach as in season 1. So again we join Hannah/Belle as she guides us through the world of the high-class escort while also trying to have a personal life outside of the job. I settled in for more of the same and started to wonder if it was even worth me bothering if it was content to deliver more of the same, but several things gave me pause and made me decide to watch the whole season to see where it goes.
One thing that was quite refreshing was that, although still filled with nudity and very soft-core images, the film doesn't seem to be revelling in it as it did in the first part of season 1. It felt like perhaps we were moving away from aiming at tabloids and that the writers were going to do a decent narrative arch and character development for those views who stuck with the show as opposed to those who were there to see Piper performing "acts". This impression is also helped by early moves to put Hannah at the front of the plots, with Belle's parts more of a background to add colour and continue a certain amount of the light, superficial air of the first season. In short I figured that it might be worth a shot.
And, in fairness, it does make efforts to be more interesting that season 1 and this does make it a shame that it doesn't pull it off. The most obvious problem is that the episodes are very short (20 minutes if you take out adverts) and that there are only 8 episodes in each season - neither of these things really give you a lot of time to do much. This shows in the development of Alex and Hannah's relationship, which is rushed from nothing to everything very quickly and accordingly never feels real or convincing. It is not quite that the series flicks a switch to make thing happen but in no area do we have much in the way of development. Once or twice there were things that struck me as being interesting things that could have been developed, but the script doesn't make the most of them anyway, moving quickly past them to something else which, although related, is not a build on what had gone before in a meaningful way.
This isn't helped by the ongoing superficial and breezy air - which continues to not be fun enough to be pulled off. Instead it just gives the show this "naughty" feel that it doesn't really deserve and turns parts of each episode into a silly peak-a-boo game with soft-focus, barely-titillating material taking up time instead of anything of interest. The only value a lot of this material has this time round is comedic, as I was often chuckling at how badly they film scenes where Piper's body-double provides the nudity - literally whole scenes are made up of poorly done frames where Belle is either shown in "tight head & shoulders short" or "everything below the neck". It is unintentional but it is hilariously badly done.
The thread with Alex and Ben offers much, much more than it delivers and, while it is quite interesting, it is so basic as to detract from itself and, while it produces some good scenes, it rarely goes beyond this. Piper continues with her character as before (lots of winking and to-camera chat) but is only ever good when she has some emotional meat on her character - which is not often enough at all. Likewise Blue overcomes a weak development of his material with Hannah to deliver good stuff in short bursts but has no material to spread it out. Goldberg continues to be good-looking but when he has more demanding material it only serves to highlight how average he is; highlight of the season though, is his terrible "drunk" acting in one of the later episodes - honest to God, Worst. Screen. Drunk. Ever. The addition of Madekwe to the cast creates some fresh "working girl" threads but not much else.
Season 2 does try to inject a bit of narrative drama into the series and credit to it for that. Sadly it mostly comes in drips and drabs and the consistent air of superficiality and the short running time of the season and each episode prevent it ever building on good moments, meaning that, while some bits work, too much of it is pointless gloss and titillation. Shame.
One thing that was quite refreshing was that, although still filled with nudity and very soft-core images, the film doesn't seem to be revelling in it as it did in the first part of season 1. It felt like perhaps we were moving away from aiming at tabloids and that the writers were going to do a decent narrative arch and character development for those views who stuck with the show as opposed to those who were there to see Piper performing "acts". This impression is also helped by early moves to put Hannah at the front of the plots, with Belle's parts more of a background to add colour and continue a certain amount of the light, superficial air of the first season. In short I figured that it might be worth a shot.
And, in fairness, it does make efforts to be more interesting that season 1 and this does make it a shame that it doesn't pull it off. The most obvious problem is that the episodes are very short (20 minutes if you take out adverts) and that there are only 8 episodes in each season - neither of these things really give you a lot of time to do much. This shows in the development of Alex and Hannah's relationship, which is rushed from nothing to everything very quickly and accordingly never feels real or convincing. It is not quite that the series flicks a switch to make thing happen but in no area do we have much in the way of development. Once or twice there were things that struck me as being interesting things that could have been developed, but the script doesn't make the most of them anyway, moving quickly past them to something else which, although related, is not a build on what had gone before in a meaningful way.
This isn't helped by the ongoing superficial and breezy air - which continues to not be fun enough to be pulled off. Instead it just gives the show this "naughty" feel that it doesn't really deserve and turns parts of each episode into a silly peak-a-boo game with soft-focus, barely-titillating material taking up time instead of anything of interest. The only value a lot of this material has this time round is comedic, as I was often chuckling at how badly they film scenes where Piper's body-double provides the nudity - literally whole scenes are made up of poorly done frames where Belle is either shown in "tight head & shoulders short" or "everything below the neck". It is unintentional but it is hilariously badly done.
The thread with Alex and Ben offers much, much more than it delivers and, while it is quite interesting, it is so basic as to detract from itself and, while it produces some good scenes, it rarely goes beyond this. Piper continues with her character as before (lots of winking and to-camera chat) but is only ever good when she has some emotional meat on her character - which is not often enough at all. Likewise Blue overcomes a weak development of his material with Hannah to deliver good stuff in short bursts but has no material to spread it out. Goldberg continues to be good-looking but when he has more demanding material it only serves to highlight how average he is; highlight of the season though, is his terrible "drunk" acting in one of the later episodes - honest to God, Worst. Screen. Drunk. Ever. The addition of Madekwe to the cast creates some fresh "working girl" threads but not much else.
Season 2 does try to inject a bit of narrative drama into the series and credit to it for that. Sadly it mostly comes in drips and drabs and the consistent air of superficiality and the short running time of the season and each episode prevent it ever building on good moments, meaning that, while some bits work, too much of it is pointless gloss and titillation. Shame.
