David Makes Man

:

Season 2
  • Network: OWN
  • Series Premiere Date: Aug 14, 2019
Season #: 2, 1
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User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
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  1. qualifiers
    Feb 12, 2022
    4
    The first season of David Makes Man is one of my favorite tv seasons ever. The story felt realistic without being a bummer, heartfelt without being schmaltzy, and deep without being self indulgent. The drop in quality between the first and second season is so steep it seems like there must be mitigating circumstances. When I heard that the second season is set 15 years after the first -The first season of David Makes Man is one of my favorite tv seasons ever. The story felt realistic without being a bummer, heartfelt without being schmaltzy, and deep without being self indulgent. The drop in quality between the first and second season is so steep it seems like there must be mitigating circumstances. When I heard that the second season is set 15 years after the first - David, 14 in the first season, is now 29 - I was excited to see what kind of man he became. Unfortunately, the answer is: a poorly written man. At the beginning of the story, David is working for an urban development company and leading a project to “redevelop” (read: replace with condos) the housing project where he grew up, Homestead Village.
    However, I was never sure why he was doing that. The show indicates that he might want to destroy his childhood home because of the trauma he experienced in season 1, but I don’t know if this is true because David never talks about his feelings re Homestead Village. Mostly he just goes around saying the development will be “good for everyone” (again, why? He knows that’s not true). At one point he says he wants to climb the ladder at his company so he’s eventually in a position to do more good, but this never pays off (and it seems like there are other ways he could accomplish this which don’t involve destroying his childhood home). I think this show wants to make a political statement about how some people who grew up in poverty abandon their roots after they become successful. But the show isn’t clear or focused enough to pull this off. Part of the reason the redevelopment plot is so underdeveloped is that the show is also trying to pull off 800 different subplots. There are at least 3 subplots about David’s brother (the best part of the series), who became a cop. There’s a subplot about the conflict between his mom and a neighbor. There’s a subplot about a minor character in season 1 who’s losing her memory. There’s a subplot about David’s brother’s teenage daughter. It’s exhausting. The show is too scattered for the tension to build or events to come to a head. Things just happen. Worst of all, the show is constantly flashing back to season 1 to show that the events of the past are influencing the events of the present. It’s done so much that it’s distracting, and feels like a crutch (instead of showing how David feels about the past, we’ll just cut back to it all the time!) Theoretically I like the idea of showing how the trauma David experienced in season 1 effects him later in life, but this just felt lazy and forced. Lastly, there are a couple of obvious continuity errors. In season 1, David is 14 and his brother is 9 (maybe 10 at the end of the season). In season 2, his brother has a daughter in eighth grade. HOW? His wife says she got pregnant while he was in the police academy, which doesn’t work unless he was a 12 year old cadet. This is the most glaring error, but I noticed a few others too. Did no one proofread this?

    Such a disappointment. Seriously, what happened here?



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Critic Reviews

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No score yet - based on 3 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Doreen St. Félix
    Jul 8, 2021
    50
    It is disappointing to report that the first three episodes of Season 2, which premièred in June, denature much of what made Season 1 a non-normative surprise. I’m not bothered by the “This Is Us” time jump, to a couple of decades into the future—it’s the general decline in quality. The dialogue, which had been so poetic and fascinatingly oblique, now seems insecure and utilitarian.
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  2. Paste Magazine
    Reviewed by: Alexis Gunderson
    Jun 22, 2021
    81
    Patterson is so astonishingly good at channeling the specific energy, tics, and speech patterns McDowell spent Season 1 developing for David—as are Arlen Escarpeta as Adult JG (originated by Cayden K. Williams) and Erica Luttrell as Adult Marissa (originated by Lindsey Blackwell)—that I’m willing to be convinced. If you were a fan of David Makes Man when it first premiered, I hope you’re willing to be convinced, too.
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  3. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Alan Sepinwall
    Jun 21, 2021
    70
    The early episodes don’t feel quite as immersive and powerful as the respective stage of Season One. But the new actors are terrific.
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