REVIEW: Wolf Like Me – Season Two [2023]

Rating: TV-MA | Episodes: 7 | Runtime: 30 minutes
Release Date: October 19th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Peacock
Creator(s): Abe Forsythe

I’m going to protect my pack.

I appreciate a slow burn TV show—one that acknowledges the fact that it must advance the plot, but not at the sacrifice of the characters. Abe Forsythe understands this fact when it comes to “Wolf Like Me”. With just six episodes in Season One, he was able to introduce the flawed humanity of both Mary (Isla Fisher) and Gary (Josh Gad) en route to letting the pair wrap their heads around the fact that she’s a werewolf. It used fate and destiny to speed things along, focusing on the relationship (and its impact on Gary’s daughter Emma, played by Ariel Donoghue) rather than the consequences.

You would therefore assume those consequences would become the focal point of Season Two. But while they are to a certain point (Mary is pregnant and the question of whether the baby will also be a werewolf looms large), Forsythe continues to let them play out in the background. That’s no easy feat—especially when you also introduce a new conflict via Mary’s old professor (Edgar Ramírez’s Anton) showing up out of the blue. It seems on paper like a lot of stuff is happening (the inevitable birth, the mounting secrets, the fallout of the murders in the Season One finale), but it’s all secondary to the main thrust: Mary and Gary’s love.

Where the first season was about the two embracing fate in their hearts despite their minds screaming to run, these seven episodes present the characters an opportunity to reject destiny and live for themselves. What’s interesting, however, is that the choice isn’t a rejection of what was won. It’s a rejection of new coincidences that ask them to reverse course instead. Anton’s return. Gary meeting a potential love interest. The danger of their circumstances escalating to the point where staying together guarantees they’ll all get hurt. Do you let temptation force you onto an easier, but less fulfilling road? Or do you stay the course?

As such, the stakes can’t help but get raised too. Sarah (Emma Lung) and Ray (Anthony Taufa) can only watch Emma so many times on the full moon with so many different red flags before questioning if they need to intervene. The police are circling. Mary’s due date is right around a full moon. And technology proves to only be as good as the user when Gary tries to upgrade a system that Mary had already perfected. Despite the severity of their evolution as a “pack,” those stakes also lead to added comedy. And that’s where these new episodes shine.

Forsythe leans into the absurdity this season with dialogue treading in double meanings and impossible scenarios escalating from zero to sixty in an instant. (Why must the ultrasound tech quickly and silently leave the room? What did she see? Better chloroform her and run.) Some of the cliffhangers go for broke in this way too—forcing characters to see something that shocks them to their core enough to even make the audience gasp. Yet through it all, no matter the insanity, love still prevails. And both Gad and Fisher double-down performance-wise to prove it.

As the final shot of the season asks, though, can that love be enough?