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Based On A True Story Season 2 Doubles Down For Another Lap Of Watchable Madness

The flaws of <em>Based on a True Story</em>'s second season only embolden the unexpected, rich texture of the first. It has the sound design of a waggish daily soap and the acting levers of a stage skit.

Manik+Sharma

Nov 25, 2024

Promo poster for Based on a True Story season 2.

“YOU CANNOT MARRY A MURDERER” an older sister tells her younger sibling in the rip-roaring, often silly, second season of Peacock’s Based on a True Story. This is after a place where serial killers are befriended like neighbours, indulged like toddlers, kindness is demonised and blood, gore and murder dispensed like they were yesterday’s laundry. The premise – derivative yet promisingly wild – yielded unexpected highs in its debut season. Though the series has had to operate in the shadow of the comparatively more popular Only Murders in the Building, it has found its sweet spot in the form of deranged, whacky characters, curiously unaware of their selves. In a scene from this second season, our handsome serial killer, who has retired to a yogic retreat in Mexico, by the way, claims to “have healed” repeatedly. It’s the kind of show that wouldn’t survive if it returned from that frivolous edge. To which effect this second season though not as sharp as the first one, doubles down into another lap of watchable madness.

We rejoin Nathan (Chris Messina) and Ava (Kaley Cuoco) three months after the birth of their son. Parental duties have weighed down on their adventures as a directionless couple looking to hatch some sort of salvation. While Nathan is still struggling to make progress in his career as a tennis coach for the upper one percent, Ava has discovered fresh hell in the form of baby care and mothering what was always a rickety ship. In her awkward attempts to befriend fellow moms of the neighbourhood, she realises she might actually share better chemistry with the twisted freaks she has followed as part of her true crime podcast. It’s not unseemly for a show that swings for the fences, but Based on a True Story has always backed itself to ride the wave of awe and fury. Nothing is off-limits.

Which is why Matt, the exquisite and seductive serial killer played by a pitch-perfect Tom Bateman, becomes a scene-stealing presence. In between underachieving cycles of chaos and modest meddling by mid-aged strugglers, his seems like the voice and clarity. So much so, that the murderer looks like the only man who knows how to conduct himself in instances of shock, stress and seduction. It’s as if a one-toned view of life, punctuated by my blood and violence exacts the kind of power that is carried by grounding principles. In this second season, Matt comes closer to the Bartletts. For sheer shock value, he is set to marry Ava’s younger sister. The absurdity of that prospect aside, it’s actually his growing chemistry with Nathan that spells intrigue. A man with literal killer instinct meets a man with naïve, crippling fears. Is having a friend with no scruples an asset? the show asks. Interestingly, it’s not as plain an answer as you’d think.

To push the narrative, the second season reintroduces a copycat killer trying to ape Matt’s old methods. Because our struggling true crime podcasters are finding it difficult to make ends meet, Ava decides it’s time to return to the murder board and the world of amateur sleuthing that made her feel like herself the last time around. Bodies begin to fall, suspects and characters are rounded up and a new case brews, as coffee from the old pot of domestic woes and twisted fixations, blows hot and cold. What has always worked for the show is the tardy yet relatable chemistry between Nathan and Ava; two people with deep-seated problems about self-worth. To the point, that they’d take any bone that’s thrown at them. Even a diabolical entanglement with a serial murderer. It’s a dire human instinct, but it feels affably within reach and reason.

The flaws of this second season only embolden the unexpected, rich texture of the first. Unlike Only Murders in the Building this show has perpetually operated like a rom-com. Free from the burden of prestige, it functions like a zany critique of self-seriousness. It has the sound design of a waggish daily soap, the acting levers of a stage skit and the gut to regularly adopt the preposterous. In its attempt to really break the spine of conservation, though, the show oversells itself. There are odd attempts at animations, lighting and camera tricks that belong in the 90s, jokes that hit the ceiling and splash back hurriedly like moistened dirt.

The second season isn’t better than the first but it’s still pretty damn watchable. For starters, it’s yet to accrue the kind of preciousness that the series it’s always compared to, seems to have taken over. There is no garb of high art, or prideful quirkiness. Just this wholly unhinged dive into the wackiest things that can happen if you begin to humanise murderers. Could they be the friends you never had? Could they become the ruthless shoulders you wish you could stand over? In an ideal world, these questions wouldn’t be allowed to enter the chat. In this wildest of wild shows, however, the bizarre, the naughty, the awkward are all fair game. Because what is life if not this clueless, imprecise search for the elusive, all-rewarding ‘killer instinct’?

Based on a True Story season 2 is currently streaming on Peacock.