Plot: Season two finds new parents Ava and Nathan Bartlett three months into parenthood. Focused on taking care of her family, Ava is determined to resist her true crime obsession and return to work as a real estate agent while Nathan trains private tennis clients. But a series of new murders pulls her back in – is Matt behind the slayings? Is Tory, now entangled in a relationship with Matt, in danger? For a while, life is good — Ava’s TikTok habit and her new friend Drew provide a welcome distraction, and Nathan’s all in on reigniting his tennis career as well as his friendship with Matt — until danger comes knocking, literally.
Review: When the first season of Based on a True Story dropped last year on Peacock, I was not impressed with the story of a couple who started their own true-crime podcast with input from a real serial killer. The podcast-themed series has been done better, notably in Only Murders In The Building, but there is still some quirky charm in Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina’s performances. With a new showrunner and a slight shift in the story’s focus, the second season of Based On A True Story builds on the comedy elements of this murderous mystery. Further, it develops the characters introduced in the first season. It is light entertainment featuring heavy topics but will surely resonate with fans of these actors.
At the conclusion of the first season, Based On A True Story showed Ava (Kaley Cuoco) and her husband Nathan (Chris Messina) cleaning up the residual evidence of the murder of Ava’s friend, Ruby Gale (Priscilla Quintana) when her husband, Simon (Aaron Staton) walks in on them. With serial killer Matt Pierce (Tom Bateman) off trying to rehab his murderous impulses, the finale left audiences wondering what would befall the married true-crime podcasters. Season two flashes forward three months and explains how the pair got out of their sticky situation. Now, with a newborn struggling with midnight feedings and parental stress, Ava and Nathan have moved on from their podcast, with Ava being a stay-at-home mom while Nathan is back to giving tennis lessons. That is until they learn Ava’s sister, Tory (Liana Liberto), and Matt are together in Mexico.
With Ruby’s murder still being investigated, Ava must try to cope with the loss of her friend as well as her role as an accomplice in the death. This involves listening to breastfeeding podcasts and spending time with a new friend, Drew (Melissa Fumero). Nathan’s friendship with Matt deepens despite knowing his deeper tendencies. As Ava and Tory deal with disagreements over Tory’s romance with Matt, a new killer arrives in town, which not only prompts a new take on their podcast. Awash in social media, with a focus mainly on TikTok influencers, the sophomore run of this series dives even further into the dark humor of murder and getting away with it while still maintaining a slightly off-kilter sensibility that makes it hard to feel like anything happening in this series is remotely realistic or plausible.
While Kaley Cuoco‘s popularity on The Big Bang Theory shifted to a more layered performance in the short-lived series The Flight Attendant, the actress’s approach to playing Ava feels annoying this season rather than endearing. Chris Messina plays Nathan as an exhausted and exasperated partner in crime to his wife and makes for a far more interesting character. Ava’s decision-making is completely strange and becomes more challenging to watch as the season progresses. On the flip side, Liana Liberto gets much more to do this season as Tory’s relationship with Matt gives the pair significant screentime. Tom Bateman, sporting a man bun and full beard, is the most endearing serial killer since You‘s Joe Goldberg. Bateman is great as this character, and where the series takes him by the eighth and final episode improved significantly compared to where the first season concluded. New cast members Melissa Fumero and Sara Paxton are excellent in their roles and help round out this ensemble.
Series creator Craig Rosenberg elected not to return for the second season as showrunner of Based On A True Story after writing all eight first-run episodes, but he sticks around as executive producer. Director Alex Buono returns to bring some consistency behind the camera along with executive producers Jason Bateman and Michael Costigan. New showrunner Annie Weisman takes over the day-to-day and scripted the premiere episode. Weisman is best known for her work on Desperate Housewives, About A Boy, and The Path, and she created the Apple TV+ series Physical with Rose Byrne. The sensibility from Physical‘s balance of the darkly comedic and dramatic does show in this season of Based On A True Story. However, the overly crisp visuals and production style still feel a little mismatched. Rather than a single writer, this season counts seven scribes on eight episodes. There certainly is some better depth to this season, but it still feels a little uneven once you wrap the season finale and reflect on the story as a whole.
Based On A True Story has always had an intriguing concept of pairing ordinary people with a psycho killer. Still, the concept wore thin in the first season before flipping the idea around for a slightly better second batch of episodes. While I like Chris Messina, Liana Liberto, Tom Bateman, and the other ensemble members, I did not like Kaley Cuoco’s turn as Ava this time. I have nothing against the actress, but this season struggled to feel cohesive, and the end of the season seems to indicate another tonal shift will be coming in the potential third season. Fans of the first season will likely enjoy this next chapter in the story of Ava, Nathan, Matt, and Tory, but it did not improve enough for me to change my opinion. Despite better consistency in the writing and a more challenging mystery to solve, Based On A True Story still falls a little flat compared to better series with similar concepts.
Season two of Based on a True Story premieres on November 21st on Peacock.