Our favourite depressed leading lady is all set to make a comeback in 2021 with the 2nd season of ‘This Way Up’. What do we know so far?
British comedy has a way about it, which makes it different from American comedy. And, somehow, British comedies are making quite some waves in the American market these days, thanks to Hulu. ‘This Way Up’ is a crackling comedy-drama about a depressed, single, religious woman named Aine. Exactly the kind of characters people relate to more and more these days. So what else is so great about ‘This Way Up’ that makes it one of the most adored series’ on Hulu.
Highlights —
- ‘This Way Up’ stole hearts right away
- Season 2 is all set to air in 2021
- What can we expect from the 2nd season of ‘This Way Up’
For one, the performance by the leading lady, Aisling Bea, is quite phenomenal. She dons the persona of a woman reeling from a nervous breakdown, an intense one. In the premiere episode, she has just returned from a rehabilitation centre, where she encountered drug users, and even there, she felt alone. However, she also meets the love of her life Tom there, who rejected her sexual advancements. Talk about the worst day possible! She works as an English teacher taking classes for adults who have just moved to Britain and want to learn the English language.
What the series instantly gets right is how a normal person deals with mental health issues. Aine deals with her nervous wreck through humour and humour is used not just as a trope, she is genuinely funny. There are some really witty lines that make you fall in love with the character right away. The way Aine clowns her way through a nervous wreck is portrayed so realistically and beautifully. The show makes us sad whenever it wants and in the very next instant, it makes us laugh. It is one genuine quality about the show that instantly grabs your attention.
Why ‘This Way Up’ succeeds so well?
What else is there to say but that the writers understand the stigmas related to depression and without stigmatizing it, they externalise Aine’s inner struggles, making us connect to every beat of the story. The last time we had a mental illness portrayal so realistically, it was in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s ‘Fleabag’. And ‘This Way Up’ getting compared to a classic like ‘Fleabag’ is such as major achievement as we have only seen the first season yet.
Aisling Bea, along with portraying the lead role, also handles the writing duties and crafts something so dark and original that it might just emerge as one of the best comedy dramas of the decade. However, six episodes of barely 25 minutes don’t quite do justice to the narrative and it is expected that the 2nd season of ‘This Way Up’ will be a little longer, to allow us to enter the psyche of our leading lady and stay there for a while.
Everything we know about the second season
Talking about the 2nd season of ‘This Way Up’, the makers, enthused with the instant success of the first season, announced the 2nd season almost immediately in mid-2020. Let’s see what things we do know about the 2nd season and what can we expect.
Channel 4 has confirmed that six more episodes of the series were ordered for the second season. But we do expect for some last-minute miracle to compel the makers to change their decision and make the 2nd season a little bit longer. Some wishful thinking doesn’t hurt.
Channel 4 also cleared that Bea will reprise her role as the depression struck millennial while Sharon Horgan will also make a comeback as the ‘rational’ sister Shona. The makers also gave us a little bit of peeking into what we can expect from the 2nd season. They have cleared that the show will keep in mind the audience’s desires and will play more of the sisters’ drama with more bittersweet moments shared between the two. In addition, Shona’s romantic life will also be quite the crowd-puller as she finds herself stuck between her fiancé Vish and her business partner Charlotte. But one thing is for sure, no matter how lonely any of the sisters get, they will always find each other by their side.
The 2nd season of ‘This Way Up’ is ready to be broadcasted in 2021 and from how Bea is enthused about it, we can safely expect to have an amazing second season. Do tell us in comments what your reviews are for the first season of ‘This Way Up’!
