Feel Good Season 2 review: Mae Martin's show empathetically pulls every character closer to viewers

There are few shows, or perhaps none, that would have the courage to reap comedy from addiction, paranoia and mental health issues. Somehow, Canadian comedian Mae Martin’s show Feel Good managed to pull all of that and more with a breakthrough first season that ended in the comedian’s life in tatters. Feel Good, as the name suggests, has always chosen to look at hope beyond the misery. It isn’t always funny, in fact, each punchline of the show is on one level a grim reminder of human vulnerability. But the show, written by Martin and co-writer Joe Hampson is delightfully balanced between poignancy and the sheer lunacy of balance. In its second season, Feel Good gives Mae a thing or two to cheer about, but also a whole lot of other baggage to deal with. You could argue this is a show about broken people, but it is so hilariously written and performed with deadpan candidness, it could also be seen as an exercise in fixing. [caption id=“attachment_9688861” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Mae Martin and Charlotte Ritchie. Luke Varley/Netflix[/caption] Season 1 ended with Martin in a downward spiral, having broken up with the confused yet tender George (Charlotte Richie), before a one-off drug trip lands her back in rehab. Usually, a series would cue in some pity here, but in Feel Good, Mae ends up alongside some old friends, including one who pees in everyone’s rice. It’s often this awkward balance between mournful realities and hilarious excesses that the series stands out as a two-nerved impulse of both life-affirming misery and the unreality of just how funny all of it could be. “Why do some people need so much help to just exist” Mae asks at one point. You’d think it’s a question passed through the shivering lips of a withdrawn human being, but in Feel Good, everything is like a casual punch to the bicep, offered empathetically, instead of the teething ways that other writers might have broached the subject. Martin’s stand up bit about ‘her real life’ that went viral last season has now brought her fame and with it the vultures of popular culture, like the terrifically narcissistic agent Donna. “You’ve come from outer space," Donna tells Martin in their first meeting, referring to how easily her brittleness can be marketed and sold in today’s day and age. Trauma too, can be a bit of a show, as Martin comically learns. After Martin leaves for Canada, George begins to re-arrange the puzzling pieces of her life. She meets a gentle, caring man in Elliott, whose wokeness, though attractive at first begins to irk her. In one scene after she suggests a sexual escapade Elliott hands George a book of ‘feminist essays on sexuality’ to help her learn the ‘emotional literacy’ that he seems to inherently possess. [caption id=“attachment_9688871” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Mae Martin, Lisa Kudrow and Adrian Lukis. Netflix[/caption] What Feel Good does incredibly well is how empathetically it pulls each of its characters closer to the viewers. Because the show itself deals with the fluctuations of sexuality – Martin and George still don’t know what to identify as – there is ample room for everyone to be anything. In fact, it’s the straight people of the show, who come across as creeps at times and it is a reflection of the sensitivity with which the show’s sexual complexities are approached, that none feel threatened or spoken down to. Each absurdity, each quirk is treated with love and empathy, which is probably the reason why the series can be so grim yet so funny at the same time. George’s roommate, the lonesome and odd Phil, for example, gets more depth this season and a whole arc that transforms him from the touchy creep to a loveable wreck. [caption id=“attachment_9688881” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Mae Martin and Charlotte Ritchie. Netflix[/caption] Herein lies the impossible task that Feel Good continues to accomplish through its second season. Each of its characters can come across as nightmarish to deal with socially, broken masses being ushered around by fickle and frustrating minds. And yet, you can’t help but watch them again and again, or to even befriend them for their incredible sense of humour and grit through it all. This is a show about processing and dealing with trauma, and yet it manages to humour even the most cynical of minds. In the second season, we learn more about Martin’s past and can see George’s baffling lack of cohesion in the things she wants and the things she ends up doing. Somehow it still adds up to be one of the most likeable love stories on TV, between the two. It would be imprecise to say Feel Good can feel like therapy. Its candidness can at times seem too hard-nosed, even brutal to someone who has had gone through trauma related to drug use, relationships or in plainly dealing with life. Cumulatively though the series pulls off the impossible, humanising its vulnerable subjects so we can laugh at them as well as root for the things they believe in. Because it’s written across a spectrum of sexuality and desire, Feel Good doesn’t bother categorising what these things might look like. Instead, it revels in the chaos of trying to paint that which can’t be defined, drawn or defeated. Feel Good Season 2 is streaming on Netflix.