Issa Rae's very funny, great-looking HBO sitcom Insecure is back for a second season, and it's even better -- more assured and finely detailed -- than its excellent first season.
Rae and her co-stars shape every scene into a perfectly formed bit of social interaction, built around a core of conflict, but with fascinating bits of business happening in the margins.
Much like season 1, Insecure season 2 is a low-key delight filled with wonderfully realized characters, but the show's true exceptionalism falls directly on creator/star Issa Rae's brilliant-to-watch lead performance.
Issa Rae's Insecure was one of 2016's most vibrant debuts. Her show is even more assured in the second season, presenting a cringey-funny yet always thoughtful take on romantic breakup and desperate rebounding.
It beggars description, offers no easy answers and, while it can be truly funny, it also feels subversive. Just watch it and see -- this often mesmerizing exploration of human fragility, corrosive identity politics and love.
Insecure is what it is: a relatively low-stakes hangout sitcom in which the characters sometimes chat freshly and incisively about race and gender -- but more often dwell on their thirty-and-still-looking love lives.
Through the journeys of its three main characters, the show nails early-thirties millennial ennui, a very specific age few shows even attempt to tackle realistically.
