For Your Consideration: Joe Pera Talks With You Season 2 (So Far)

"I've never been bored, not once in my life."

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Even though I've only expounded upon my love of Joe Pera Talks With You on one other occasion that nobody read, my adoration of the show is a rather open secret. There are few shows that I've walked into not knowing what to expect only to be completely floored (which seems to be something Adult Swim has done an increasingly great job at), but Talks With You accomplished that with complete ease.

While I do consider myself a critic, there's something intrinsically hard to assess about Talks With You because it's so original and true to itself. It doesn't trudge in the footsteps of obvious predecessors; it's a one-of-a-kind product that walks to the beat of its own drum and never doubts itself. That's what made Season 1 so amazing to me: the dreamy quality it possesses in waxing on the simplest things in life with earnest. Some people find the show boring for that very reason because there's no dramatic conflict, and arguably very little happens, but that's what makes everything work.

The universe of Talks With You, Pera's peaceful but riveting version of Marquette, Michigan, is a world divorced from reality while speaking so much to the core of our existence. There are no truly antagonistic forces out for Joe, and there's little toxicity that ever escapes; we might get a taste of something somewhat unflattering, like Joe's gross, sex-obsessed co-worker John (Nathan Min) or aggression between his neighbors, the Melskys (Connor O'Malley and Jo Scott), but they rest more at the outskirts of what's happening. Joe's life is defined by simple pleasures, of which he has a hypnotically sincere appreciation, and conflicts that arise come from his occasional fears and concerns in a deeply human way.

This is somewhat new to this current iteration of the show. Talks With You's first season had more of an episodic approach, with narrative elements slowly sneaking their way to the forefront before culminating in its season finale, but the show can't just do more of the same for an eternity. Whereas the first season was tasked with demonstrating what makes its universe so worthwhile, the goal of any show's second season is to demonstrate that it's sustainable. More than introducing the cast of the show, we get to see them develop.

As such, this season has its eyes more set on unfolding the narrative, perhaps strikingly so: the season premiere, "Joe Pera Talks to You About Beans," opens on the conceit of Joe preparing a bean arch, which will become a literal arc throughout the rest of the season. The spirit of the show is perfectly retained, but there's something different at play to how it structures itself: sharpened direction. Even if Talks With You has always been a show about using minutiae to express universal concepts, there's far greater focus in what Season 2 wants to tackle.

Episodes like "Joe Pera Takes You on a Hike" have Joe's signature moments of introspection—this time centered around him running around an empty baseball diamond at times of stress—but it uses that introspection to tackle something more explicitly meaningful—his insecurities about being in a public relationship with Sarah (Jo Firestone). We also get a lot more glimpses at Joe's childhood this season, with "Joe Pera Waits With You" especially shedding a light on the sort of things that shaped him into the person he currently is, even if we're only given faint hints at what his upbringing was like.

The best episode of the season so far, though, is "Joe Pera Guides You Through the Dark." While it immediately brings to mind Season 1's more simple-minded episodes (fall rides, night-time thunderstorms), it quickly becomes one of the series' most conceptually-intriguing episodes to date through its utilization of dream sequences cutting between present time and Joe's interpretation of himself in the 1800s as a soldier/bugle-player returning home from war in search of an apprenticeship under a lighthouse-keeper (depicted as Sarah). It initially seems strangely distinct from the episode's subject matter—during a power outage, Joe decides to take a walk around the neighborhood to check on the Melskys—but it's something of a slow burn. Like soldier Joe, present-day Joe is having fears about his relationship with Sarah and what he can offer her, a doomsday prepper eyeing the possibility of a Carrington event, in a critical moment.

To tell its narrative (as written by the series' director, Marty Schousboe), "Joe Pera Guides You Through the Dark" cuts seamlessly between the opposing realities to delirious effect. Soldier Joe might have to go out of his way to prove the sort of work he can pull off for lighthouse-keeper Sarah, but all Joe needs to do for Sarah in the present is be there for her, and as someone whose personality is by and large defined by overthinking the simplest things, it's a surprisingly poignant revelation for him to make. Talks With You's narrative strides are often small, but they always mean something.

Every episode so far has brought something new to the table, indebted to its talented and diverse writing cast—Nathan Min, who penned "Joe Pera Takes You on a Hike," has an eye for character conflict, and Katie Dolan writes with a nostalgic, sentimental lens, reflecting on her own upbringing and nailing the hypnotic nature of casual conversation in "Joe Pera Waits With You"—and it's the show's life force. Talks With You hinges on its brand of authenticity in an interesting way: whereas a comedian like Nathan Fielder might create an aura of mystique regarding where his true self and his comedic persona start and end, Joe Pera doesn't play with the blurred line, and that's a far harder task to pull off... but it's exactly why the show works. A sense of heart is so deeply ingrained in the show, and it never winks at us in a false way, even when Joe goes off on a tangent about Dragon Ball or reveals his deepest secrets to be about the way he reacts when the ice cream store is closed.

In other words, there might be a lot changing about Joe Pera Talks With You, but it's becoming more attuned to itself in the process. More than repeating what made its first season so great, it's continually evolving in exciting ways, and I'm pumped to see where we're going from here. It's rare to see "pumped" used to describe a program about a choir teacher living a quiet life in a small town, but if any show's earned that word, it's this one.

SEASON GRADE SO FAR: A.

Joe Pera Talks With You returns to the air on January 3rd, 2020.

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