I was surprised by the first season of this show, as it really didn't have the quality that the reviews had suggested it would have. It wasn't weak by any means, but it moved so quickly and seemed to be written so much on the surface, that I found it hard to engage with. I decided to come back to the second season, mainly because I wondered if the show just took that first season to settle in and become something better than it was in the first place.
In many ways, the second season is an improvement on the first, and the season is a much more robust beast which has better pacing and writing. Unlike the first season, you feel like things perhaps have a relevance of more than thirty minutes, and that maybe themes and plot points will extend longer than they did before. This is true to a point, but perhaps not to the extent I was hoping. It is good that the personal narratives are a bit more engaging and seem to have some consistency to their delivery; and likewise the political relationships and developments due tend to have more flow and linkages, but it is only like this to a point. For me personally I still felt like a lot of it was on the surface, and that even if it was written to suggest depth, it really didn't have it in there.
So, although we are allowed more time with characters, or on particular narrative threads, I still did not find them to be really engaging or have a depth of character that made me really care for the people or situations. The political stuff is for sure smarter and less liberal preachy than the previous season, but the continued use of quotes on the opening titles actually serve to remind you that this is not as smart as it is packaged to be. The performances are fine, and generally do good work even if the material limits their ability to really consistently find their characters. As a production though, it is all well made and has a professional look throughout.
The season ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, which will lead into the third season. I do wonder if I will bother, as I ended the season having enjoyed enough about it to hope that it could step up its game for the next season; but at the same time I wondered if it would be able to – since even this improved season still lacked a real feeling of depth and satisfying delivery.