Review: 'Special,' Season 2 is Packed with Sweet Surprises

The Netflix original series "Special" debuted its first season of eight 15-minute episodes last year, and instantly stood out in the streamer's abundant landscape of content. Creator Ryan O'Connell stars as Ryan Hayes, a man in his twenties who has always lived with his mother, Karen (Jessica Hecht), because he lives with cerebral palsy - a condition that stems from a lack of oxygen to the brain during birth, and can be comparatively mild or, in more severe cases, leave those with the condition unable to walk or to use much of their bodies.

Though Ryan's case is on the mild side, there are many everyday activities he cannot manage, such as peeling oranges or using a knife. His mother has sheltered and tended to him, resulting in a relationship that is both enviably sweet and deeply codependent. Season One was all about Ryan moving out, making friends, and getting a life; and the journey, while littered with romantic intrigue and bracing one-liners, tended to be bumpy - so much so, that by the end of episode eight mother and son were no longer speaking.

Season Two picks up a few months later, as Ryan - formerly an intern, now a paid write at a blog called "Eggwoke," and still looking for love - clings to his best friend Kim (Punam Patel) in ways that are not so different from how he once enjoyed an insular existence with Karen. (Tellingly, the two have been binging "Dawson's Creek.") Shocked into breaking out of this shell by a typically callous - but dead accurate - wisecrack by their boss, "Eggwoke" publisher Oliva (a deliciously deadpan Marla Mindelle), the two venture into the dating scene, where they both promptly find prospective new boyfriends.

Kim hooks up with Harrison (Charlie Barnet, a Netflix fixture who has also starred in "Russian Doll" and "Tales of the City"), while Ryan begins an affair with Tanner (Max Jenkins), a dancer who's so kind, fun, and sexy that there must be a catch... as indeed there is; like Season One's Carey (Augustus Prew), Tanner has a boyfriend. Unlike Carey, though, Tanner is ready, willing, and available for sexual fun; his boyfriend Richard, who travels a lot for work, is willing to let Tanner off the leash whenever he's away.

Complications ensue, of course, and legions of secondary characters enter the fray as the season continues - everyone from Kim's slightly disapproving family and her childhood best friend Ravi (Utkarsh Ambudkar, "The Mindy Project") to Henry (Buck Andrews), a new friend for Ryan and a potential rival to Tanner. The wonderful Lauren Weedman ("Looking") also appears for a stretch of episodes as Tonya, a meddling and self-absorbed family friend from years ago who, having nowhere else to go, moves in with Karen. (Leslie Jordan pops up, too, for a single episode - and, as could be expected, he's a scene stealer.)

O'Connell wrote all of Season One, but this time around he has some help, with several other writers taking up teleplay duties. Though O'Connell's touch is a constant, these eight episodes - expanded to half an hour each - feel deeper in ways that different perspectives can bring. A major standout is the fourth episode, "Death by A Thousand Cold Cuts," in which Karen finally gets fed up looking after everyone else and lets loose with a memorable outburst; writer Leila Cohan gives Jessica Hecht so much to work with, and Hecht shines so brightly, that the episode feels like the showcase the character, and the actor, needed from the start.

The storylines lead to constantly surprising places, and individual characters arcs aren't artificially lengthened, such that in only eight episodes it feels like a season with many more installments has transpired. Some characters depart - alas, sooner than we might have wanted in a few cases - but others step in, and the fun never falters.

The crux of the series remains Ryan and Karen (one character refers to their relationship as " 'Grey Gardens' cosplay," a typically witty and unsparing jibe), but as each of the characters grows, their relationship does not remain static.

Season Two is the last hurrah for "Special," and that seems a shame, because some of the episodes this time around feel like a modern "Sex and the City" and fulfill the promise that "Looking" made but never delivered on. But look at "Special" as a miniseries that happens to take place over two seasons, and its self-contained - and in many ways true to life - evolution of story and character feels earned and satisfying.

"Special," Season Two, premieres on Netflix May 20.