Season two of the American crime drama series, Sneaky Pete. Marius continues his role of being Pete Murphy and get into more complex troubles when gang follow him as they want the eleven millions dollars Pete's mother, Maggie, stole from their employer.
The double crosses get ever more complex as the new characters troop in, but the devious minds behind Sneaky Pete keep things clear, crisp, fast, often funny, unhurried yet without the sprawling bloat that afflicts so many streaming shows.
Sneaky Pete is built on clockwork-precision pleasures, fine actors and witty dialogue and plotting that turns every minor problem into a life-threatening incident.
Yost and company not only crafted a complex central mystery, but they also littered each episode with a bounty of mini conundrums and cons for the characters to solve.
Sneaky Pete is of a certain style. And one that it does quite well. But without Cranston as the magnetic heavy at the center of the action, the effort it takes to keep up your investment might be more challenging than last season.
As Maggie puts it while considering what it must be like to be Marius, adjusting himself to the temperature of each room and changing his identity and plans accordingly, "Must be exhausting." A lot of this season is exactly that.
Like a good sleight-of-hand trick, Sneaky Pete gets you thinking you know the score, only to blindside you with what you least expected. The degree of difficulty in pulling off such a feat, not once but twice, is commendable.
The second season of Sneaky Pete boasts a lot of similar strengths to the first. The show crafts elaborate, complex stories of mistaken identity, bold con jobs, and potent family drama while mostly avoiding overstuffing episodes.
All three of these arcs - as well as a loosely tied conflict between Otto (Peter Gerety) and a young hitman - run throughout Season 2 and effectively create tension through alternatively cute and unnerving short cons within the longer cons.