The Path - Season 2 - Advance Preview

Note: I was very fortunate to see all thirteen episodes of The Path's second season in advance. This review is written with full knowledge of the season's events.

There's no show anywhere on television that displays such a dedicated interest in exploring the nature of religion and belief quite like Hulu's The Path. The streaming service's flagship drama series, The Path is a very cerebral show, often maddeningly so, as creator Jessica Goldberg and co. strive to confront some very big questions through the prism of Meyerism, the religious movement at the show's center. On Wednesday, it returns for a second season of more of the same, and those that didn't care for it last year will probably not see the Light this time around(see what I did there?). But for those who appreciated what the show tried and often succeeded at doing in its debut season, expect a fitfully frustrating but ultimately rewarding experience.

The ambition of The Path is almost unparalleled among most other dramas in the current age of Peak TV. In a TV landscape full of solid/pretty good drama series spread across countless streaming and cable networks, The Path refuses to settle as "that cult show". Given the huge amount of TV being produced at the moment with seemingly little regard to things like ratings, buzz, and critical acclaim, right now it's very easy for TV writers to merely aim for "fine". Goldberg and the other writers on The Path refuse to settle for that, however, and that's to be commended.

Often times throughout the show's first season, it's dedication to deep thematic exploration left some other aspects of the show lacking, such as plot or character. While I applaud ambition, plot and character are still things that TV shows need to function and thrive. At some points The Path seemed like a good TV show that wasn't quite as good as it could have been: it was well shot, well acted, etc, but in the show's quest for something profound, it came across as a little too cold, especially for a show about the nature of faith.

In the first season, some characters worked, and some did not. And...that stays pretty much the same in this new season. The three lead characters of Eddie, Sarah, and Cal are still beautifully written, and Aaron Paul, Michelle Monaghan, and Hugh Dancy are still giving some of TV's best performances in said roles. The first season was often at its strongest when it used its lead characters to combine thematic material and involving character drama, and the second season sees the show double down on this tactic, as each of the three find themselves increasingly lost in a world they were once so sure of.

Eddie spends much of this season at a remove from the main action of the series, as a result of leaving the movement at the end of last season, and so Paul has slightly more limited screen-time. But while the season does spin its wheels a little bit on that front, it does go in some very interesting directions, as Eddie struggles with shedding his attraction to the movement that took him in at a very vulnerable place in his life.

Due to Eddie's absence from the main narrative for large portions of the season, Monaghan and Dancy move the show's center, as Sarah and Cal simultaneously clash and grow closer as they attempt to forge a new path for the movement, thereby bringing in one of the season's central themes: that being the conflict between tradition and modernity. By placing these two characters in leadership roles, the show gets the chance to look at Meyerism as a business, as we follow both Sarah and Cal as they contend with compromising their morals in order to help the movement.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of last season was Hawk, Eddie and Sarah's teenage son. A rare example of adolescence portrayed well on TV, Hawk's doomed romance with Amy Forsyth's Ashley was perhaps that season's greatest tragedy. While Hawk's storyline this season is perhaps less potent or consistent (partly by design, as he finds himself caught between the love of his family and loyalty to the movement), we are fortunate enough to see young Kyle Allen only grow as an actor, easily keeping up with vets such as Paul, Monaghan, and Dancy.

One character that actually improved in this season was Rockmond Dunbar's Abe, an FBI agent undercover within the movement. In the first season, Abe was a character who was a little hard to pin down emotionally, working better as a plot device and a piece of world-building. But in the latter half of this season the show seems to figure out who Abe is a character, thankfully giving an actor of Dunbar's caliber something better to work with.

But still, some characters work far better on a conceptual or thematic level than a dramatic one. Of course, I'm talking about Mary, and to a lesser extent, her husband Shawn, a character you kind of tend to forget about once he's not on screen. At first seeming like she was intended to be an audience surrogate character, Mary's quiet, almost unsettling nature worked against that. Season 2 sees the show continue to struggle with how to use her, and even with who she is as a person, leaving Emma Greenwell un-moored in a poorly defined character, as she's asked to play emotionally fraught in one scene and then cold and distant in the next, with very little development in between. The idea for the character of Mary is sound, but The Path has yet to find a way to weave her into its tapestry in an effective way.

This new season is thirteen episodes, three more than last season. At times, that extra length is felt, the show's fondness for slow patches feeling a little too self-indulgent. But some dry patches and sketchy character work aside, the second season of The Path produces some pretty stellar moments and episodes, and also subtly continues to explore themes of faith through a question it brought up towards the end of the first season: what if Meyerism is actually real? This is not the type of show comfortable with providing easy answers, and throughout this new season it delights in teasing viewers with the possibility of supernatural elements. But while as the season goes on it may become easier to assume as viewers that Meyerism is at least partly real, it's important to remember that nothing on The Path is straightforward, as a plot development midway through the season devastatingly reminds us. This season offers up possible revelations that are extremely significant to certain characters, but would be even more rich and unsettling if Meyerism turns out to be real.

Because really, what this new season is about is the movement itself, and at several points boils down to a fight for the soul and the direction of the movement. This season, we see all the good it does for those in need, as well as some of its bad, more cult-like practices. But not only does this season examine the myriad positive and negative impacts of the movement itself, it also does so with the people leading it. As the show has more and more fun teasing the potential truth of Meyerism, it's portrayal of the movement and its mythology only grows more complicated, giving the series an even greater weight of tragedy.

Grade: B+