The Big Door Prize season 2 review: A messy, intriguing improvement

Hand to god, when the screen on the all-knowing Morpho machine flashed up the words “Are you ready for the next stage?” at the end of The Big Door Prize season one, our answer at the time was an emphatic “No.” We (brag) texted a successful screenwriter friend asking them to watch it and see if they found it as embarrassingly folksy and cheap as we did. We didn’t read the novel it was based on, but the vibe we got about it from watching the show is “What if John Green tried to write something like The Leftovers,” which is our idea of a bad time.

But we did watch it all, including season two (which premieres April 24 on Apple TV+) as soon as it was available to critics, so who’s the real sucker here? Even at the second season’s worst, The Big Door Prize stumbles into, if not good TV, interesting TV by virtue of its fantastic cast and just the right amount of mystery-box storytelling. Season one loyalists will not be shocked to discover that there’s still little by way of concrete answers on the Morpho machine, which spat out a card revealing the user’s “life potential” as a hot little plot device. This year, the ante’s upped, and once the machine gets going again (in a manner we won’t spoil here), a whole new sensation sweeps the town.

At the center of it all is our main trio, the Hubbard family, and their respective agonies over their assigned “potentials”: Dusty (Chris O’Dowd), who got “Teacher/Whistler” and is kind of down about it since he is a teacher and whistler, but also once had an epiphany while skiing in a town named Whistler? This is bonkers and alarming information which, as of writing, is never meaningfully interrogated. Dusty’s wife, Cass (Gabrielle Dennis) got “Royalty” to the amusement/barely veiled jealousy of the rest of the town. And their teen daughter Trina nabbed “Liar” and is currently dating her dead ex’s twin brother. Said dead ex also seems to have some kind of connection to the Morpho’s appearance in the first place. It’s a whole lot to take in.

The first few episodes of Big Door Prize’s second season satisfied the hater in us: It’s easily one of Apple’s worst-looking shows, the plot moves like a giant clunking airliner circling a runway waiting for clearance, and some scenes feel stitched together from like five separate filming sessions where each actor was in a different room with absolutely no idea who else is in the scene with them, with the lighting in each new shot apparently set to “random” every time. Spare a thought for the innocent, talented cast here which also includes the criminally underrated Ally Maki, Frasier alum Patrick Kerr as the storeowner who becomes the de facto keeper of the Morpho machine, and Crystal R. Fox as Cass’ terminally self-obsessed mother Izzy.

Izzy’s journey from oblivious narcissist into fairly deliberate narcissist was one of the highlights of season one, not just because it helped cut through the “aw shucks” saccharine tone the show mostly defaults to. It’s rare for a series to examine its characters’ flaws so bravely, and Big Door Prize season two gets a lot of points here. Where the potential cards in season one were a bit of a wrinkle in the everyday lives of the town, there was still a sense of status quo, of “who cares what outside forces are telling us, it’s about what we want and value,” which… fine, but we’ve seen that show before. Instead, the new season uses the Morpho’s latest trick to build on those wrinkles and let a lot of those festering doubts and wounds surface, making for an infinitely more interesting human drama this time around that follows through on several very brave, very realistic character choices a lesser show might not have had the guts to pull the trigger on.

Most prominently, Dusty and Cass find themselves adrift from each other and jump into an ever-so-friendly trial separation, barely stopping to consult their confused and bereaved teen daughter. What begins as a premise with some classic sitcom mixups and moments of tenderness between the two quickly shifts into something a lot more uniquely real. Halfway through the season, Cass delivers a powerful monologue on young love, finding the “right” person, and what happens when said person becomes less and less right. Not helping matters here is the new teacher at Dusty’s school played by Succession and Mr. Mercedes breakout Justine Lupe, who takes an understandable interest in the wholesome, sad-eyed Irishman who is technically single.

While season two of The Big Door Prize represents a significant improvement, it’s still short of justifying an Apple TV+ subscription while we wait for new seasons of Severance and For All Mankind. The overarching mystery of the Morpho not only moves slowly but the puzzle pieces we do get underwhelm, such as the plague of seemingly harmless Morpho-blue dots that start appearing on people’s skin and its connection to the theremin Cass gifted Dusty back in season one. That said, the Morpho’s new “stage” is a terrific device that reveals (and withholds) plenty more than just a couple of words on some paper.

Frustratingly, another problem area remains the supporting cast. It hurts to say this, but the brilliant Josh Segarra and Mary Holland are brutally misused here, as if their characters were airlifted in from a broader, sillier show with absolutely no changes. On the flip side, it’s fucking Josh Segarra and Mary Holland doing their thing. It’s impossible for that to be fully bad.

Season two of The Big Door Prize won’t win over many new converts, but despite its well-worn flaws, there’s been care and effort put into trying something different this time. And hey, why not embrace the spirit of the Morpho machine, press the “play” button, and find out for yourself?

The Big Door Prize season 2 premieres April 24 on Apple TV+