Feel Good: Season Two

Canadian-born Mae Martin is the co-creator and star of Feel Good, a series inspired by the comedian’s own life experiences. The first season sees protagonist Mae, who lives in London, doing stand-up performances at a friend’s bar. A girl named George (Charlotte Ritchie) attends one of these shows and the two embark on a relationship that becomes rocky when George discovers that Mae is a recovering addict. Things become more strained as George is reluctant to come out as bisexual and introduce the protagonist as her partner. The season ends with the two travelling to Canada to meet Mae’s parents (played by Lisa Kudrow and Adrian Lukis) but their problems eventually lead to a break-up and to Mae relapsing into addiction. 

The second season begins with George back in the UK and Mae still in Canada, ready to check into rehab. They are both struggling to move forward, but they know that they need to heal and work on themselves. When Mae returns to London and they start dating other people, they try to maintain a friendship and even attempt a reconciliatory double date, but their issues keep resurfacing and they begin to wonder whether they are toxic for each other.

The first season looked into dependency and the way the protagonist merely replaced one addiction with another when trying to be cured of the problem, the second season continues to chart Mae’s progress and the difficulty of handling life’s challenges without resorting to the familiar route of taking substances. However, the focus shifts to the complicated nature of relationships and the exploration of sex. 

Feel Good combines comedy and intimacy and it accurately depicts the struggles of a generation paralysed by anxiety. However, it favours humour over authenticity and, while entertaining, it doesn’t present anything striking enough to make it memorable. There is not much to justify the making of the second season, but anyone who liked the characters and the themes of the first will enjoy seeing more of the same scenarios.

Mersa Auda

Feel Good: Season Two is released on Netflix on 4^th June 2021.

Watch the trailer for Feel Good: Season Two here: