Television

'Master Of None' Officially, Finally Renewed For Season 2

master of none season 2
By Jacob Hall

Netflix has the habit of renewing their shows as fast as possible, announcing new seasons the Monday after a new batch of episodes has dropped. In the case of House of Cards, they renewed their flagship series for a fifth season weeks before season four dropped. Since Netflix is in the business of you watching their original content as fast as possible, they have developed the habit of letting everyone know as soon as possible that yes, there will soon be new episodes for you to binge.

So it's a little weird that it took this long Master of None season 2 to officially get put in the pipeline, which makes you wonder if series star, co-creator, and occasional writer/director Aziz Ansari deliberately pushed pause to recharge his batteries. In any case, Ansari has revealed that a new season will arrive in 2017, which is excellent news for anyone who likes good things.

Ansari announced the news on Twitter, including a brief video recounting every episode title from the show's first season. It's telling that a few of those titles bring back instant and evocative memories of the show itself, which is one of the best, freshest, and most quietly ambitious series Netflix has in its library. "Nashville" forever!

For those who haven't watched it, Master of None follows Dev (Ansari), an actor trying to navigate life in New York City. And while that template could service a standard sitcom, the series is more concerned with the stuff that most comedies side-step or tone down. Master of None is always funny, but it's at its best when it gets specific, taking deep dives into casual racism, seemingly invisible sexism, how even the most promising relationships fall apart for mundane reasons, what it's like to be the child of an immigrant, and how an electronic seal may be the greatest grieving tool of them all.

Like FX's Louie, Master of None eschews the bland cinematography and "shot, then reaction shot" style of most television comedy, delivering something far more cinematic and refined. It may not be as formally ambitious as Louis C.K.'s work, but Ansari and his collaborators have crafted a show that is genuinely nice to look at, often feeling more like a droll New Hollywood film like Manhattan than a television series that was produced in 2015.

Between this and the return of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix is on fire in the "creating comedies that actually matter and feel like must-see-TV" department. It's going to be along wait until 2017.

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