Into The Night S2 Review: Fast Pace and The Addictive Intrigue Series Returns To Netflix

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

A year ago, in the midst of the pandemic, the first Belgian Netflix Original series had landed as an interesting and adrenaline-pumping new look at post-apocalyptic stories. A year later, as we will see in this review of Into the Night 2, from 8 September on the platform, the return keeps its promises and expectations, raises the bar but occasionally gets lost in its own mysteries and twists.

Into The Night Season 2: Story

As a quick reminder of the plot, Into the Night introduced us to a group of people of different nationalities who did not know each other at all and discovered that the sun’s radiation had become lethal. Their only way to survive was to fly avoiding sunrise until they discovered the only safe place within their reach: an underground bunker fitted out for the crisis.

The story continues shortly after the events that had closed the first season: the group of survivors found refuge in the military bunker commanded by a group of soldiers, not all exactly enthusiastic about the new arrivals, because this involves rationing even more food and find space for everyone. Each of the protagonists must face their own inner demons as well as those of the impending light, which although usually a symbol of salvation, metaphorically and paradoxically, here is not the solution, but represents a problem. The soldiers thus go to represent “the Others” of the ancient memory, creating further conflicts and friction among the survivors, who if before they had to deal with internal struggles while trying to survive and fight what was happening, now they have an “enemy”

If the first season had seen the episodes focus on the male component of the cast (apart from Sylvie who had started everything), but always in a fluid way without forgetting the various characters, in this second cycle the episodes focus instead on the female protagonists , with some new entries, such as Gia, a woman suffering from bipolarity and played by Marie-Josée Croze , recently seen in Mirage . The episodes have a slightly shorter duration (which turns more on 30 than 40 minutes) and this heightens the tension, but the realism is a little less in the hasty resolution of some problems that the group is facing, while other sequences are on the contrary handled in an excessively dilated and melodramatic way.

As with the first season, there are six new episodes focused, each one of them, on a different character whose life before the catastrophe we visited before returning to the present day in which the survivors try to float in front of a sea of adversities. “Zara”, “Laura”, “Ines”, “Gia”, “Thea” and “Asil” are the protagonists.

Into The Night Season 2: The Review

By Into the Night, created by Jason George, who has written all the episodes again, we hope a third season will be because again we find ourselves with a very open ending and implications that could leave a little perplexing, because perhaps they could have found a resolution in this second season for some storylines. The clash between the military and the civil-diplomatic side (there are also two ambassadors) will lead to unexpected new deaths and new revelations about the past, but also about the present, of the characters, who will have to deal with atrocious losses and with the awareness that it could there is no hope to “heal” the sun. The series seems a bit ‘to go around in circles to return almost to the starting point, in a season that seems more “passing” as sometimes happens,

One of the most remarkable aspects of Into the Night is that it does not hesitate to get rid of as many characters as necessary to move the plot forward: you do not have to become fond of any of them because, despite the brief episodes they struggle In understanding them, the important thing is the story and how it unfolds.

If in the first season the action started from the first moment, in this second we go from less to more: the two introductory episodes are slower and are sowing great turning points that will be resumed later, when the snowball is so big that is unstoppable. The crescendo of the rhythm is brutal and the last chapters, very good.

The Involuntary Heir Of Lost

The second season of Into the Night continues with the characteristics that had made the fortune of the inaugural cycle: the high tension and speed in the succession of events, our identification with certain situations and monographic episodes dedicated to the various characters, who remembered what has already been done in Lost and other genre series, through the use of flashbacks to show the before and after where something has changed in the sun and is slowly killing everyone worldwide. And again being a choral series, the polilingualism of the characters, from different ethnic groups and social backgrounds, which contributed to making the story more realistic, even in the difficulties of communication.

Into The Night Season 2: The Final Words

At the end of our review of Into the Night 2, we can be satisfied with how the characteristics that had made the fortune of the inaugural season have also been maintained in the new six episodes, slightly shortening their duration, bringing some new entries and the meeting- clash with the soldiers of the bunker and their “military logic” very different from the civil one but perhaps a little too extreme. The episodes are this time focused on the female characters, without forgetting anyone on the whole but the story turns a bit in vain, returning almost to the starting point in a perhaps excessively open and not very decisive ending.

What Didn’t Worked

• The characteristics that had made the fortune of the first season are maintained
• The encounter-clash between the soldiers and the survivors is interesting, even if perhaps the former are a bit too extreme

What Not Worked

• The slightly shorter duration of the episodes heightens the tension but makes some decisive moments even less realistic
• Maybe the season turns a bit ‘in vain and the ending leaves a little too many questions unanswered