'A gothic treat' – A Series of Unfortunate Events, season 2, Netflix, review
In this age of peak TV, when each new series is aggressively touted as the next Game of Thrones, it’s nice to find a show that undersells itself. In its catchy opening theme song, Netflix's A Series of Unfortunate Events promises viewers “nothing but horror and inconvenience”. It delivers the former in spades – but that’s not all it has going for it.
Based on Daniel Handler’s bestselling children’s books, this gothic treat also offers a wicked line in absurdist humour, and the most gorgeously toybox-like set designs you’ll find anywhere outside a Wes Anderson film.
The second series picks up where the first left off, with the Baudelaire orphans – Violent, Klaus and Sunny – waiting in the lobby of a bleak boarding school, after their various legal guardians have been bumped off by a distant uncle hell-bent on seizing their family fortune, the wicked Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris, leaving no scenery unchewed). Olaf pursues the orphans through a Wild West dustbowl town, a dazzling art deco apartment and a nightmarish hospital, all tastefully colour co-ordinated in muted pastel tones.
While the first series suffered a little from slow pacing – each slim book is stretched out into two hours of TV – this second batch solves that problem by expanding a subplot about “VFD”, a secret organisation that may have been involved in the Baudelaire parents’ deaths. (For eagle-eyed viewers, playing spot-the-acronym becomes a Very Fun Diversion.)
As a result, minor characters from the books are here fleshed out into major roles, all impeccably cast. In particular, Lemony’s dashing brother Jacques Snicket (Nathon Fillon), ghastly socialite Esmé Squalor (Lucy Punch) and twitchy spy Larry (Patrick Breen) consistently steal the limelight from both Olaf and the young protagonists.
Near the outset, there’s a fourth-wall-poking gag about how much time has passed since filming the first series, while the main characters have been stuck on the same school bench. “We’ve been waiting so long Sunny is starting to look less like a baby and more like a toddler,” sighs Klaus (Louis Hynes).
It’s the kind of meta-joke that brings the show close to the tone of the novels. Daringly postmodern for children’s fiction, the books would often abandon narrative entirely for a lesson in etymology, an anecdote from the narrator’s shady past, or a simple plea for the reader to throw the book away. Handler’s plots are as formulaic as PG Wodehouse’s; with both the real pleasure is in the witty, digressive prose.
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It’s not a quality that lends itself to television, despite the author’s best efforts (Handler is credited with the scripts for several episodes). Nonetheless, Patrick Warburton remains note-perfect as the unflappable narrator Lemony Snicket, popping up from under manhole covers to offer his deadpan commentary.
Whenever the Baudelaires find themselves in a tight spot, they usually solve their problems by visiting the nearest library (Sally Rue, another new addition, charms as an intrepid librarian). If this series convinces young viewers to do the same – and, perhaps, to pick up Handler’s remarkable books while they are there – it will be a Very Fortunate Development indeed.