Master of None season 2 dropped on Netflix a little over a week ago to mixed reviews, and we can understand why.
If you haven’t yet watched the season, warning, a few light spoilers ahead.
Master of None returns with Dev in Italy following his breakup. He’s learned Italian and how to make pasta, but not how to get over his ex Rachel. He eventually returns to New York and tries to move on in his acting career and dating life.
What Aziz Ansari does so well is depicting the reality of living in NYC in 2017 as a young(ish) person. Exceptional parts include the episode on religion, in which Ansari shows modern day life as a Muslim American across generations, as well as a sequence of scenes between a deaf couple who fight over their sex life.
And part of the reason that Aziz is so good at this is because so much of the series draws from his personal life. Ansari broke up with his girlfriend of two years and then moved to Italy, and then so did Dev.
But as heartwarming as Master of None is, is precisely how gut wrenching it is. Watching someone recover from a breakup is not easy, especially when it’s someone as likable as Dev. And even when it looks like he’s ready to move on, he just winds up pining for someone he can’t have.
Not to mention that the series goes to great lengths to pull on your heart strings. A six-minute-long scene of just a sad Aziz Ansari in the back of a cab is just the tip of the iceberg.
And although Ansari interweaves humor throughout the episodes, it’s not enough. 10 episodes of sadness are just too much.
