The End of the F***ing World returns with fresh faces and new twists

Anger and dis­ap­point­ment rever­ber­at­ed through­out the first series of The End of the F***ing World as a sim­ple teen rebel­lion turned into a sprawl­ing police man­hunt. Vio­lent acts gave way to a sweet romance before it all went to hell dur­ing a gun-blaz­ing showdown.

As one of jew­els in Chan­nel 4 and Netflix’s binge-watch­ing crown, the show’s sec­ond sea­son arrives with a lot to live up to. Thank­ful­ly, it doesn’t hold back on its depic­tion of how par­ents can screw up their chil­dren and the desire to find a mean­ing­ful con­nec­tion out­side of the fam­i­ly home. ​“I learned about pun­ish­ment from a young age. I learned it hap­pened because of love,” explains a major new char­ac­ter who is set to cause waves.

Dark humour and even dark­er thoughts are woven into the fab­ric of James (Alex Lawther) and Alyssa’s (Jes­si­ca Bar­den) rela­tion­ship. After all, James ini­tial­ly ran away with Alyssa so he could kill her in a seclud­ed loca­tion. A self-diag­nosed psy­chopath, James final­ly found the emo­tion­al con­nec­tion he thought he was immune to in anoth­er dis­af­fect­ed youth.

A love sto­ry that is part Wes Ander­son whim­sy with a dol­lop of David Lynch sur­re­al­ism, The End of the F***ing World, based on the Charles Fors­man graph­ic nov­el of the same name, falls some­where between Riverdale and Eupho­ria for pop cul­ture ref­er­ences, teen ennui, and com­mit­ting major crimes. A sound­track pep­pered by croon­ing and aching­ly sad hits of the ​’50s and ​’60s adds to the time­less aes­thet­ic, mak­ing it hard to pin­point exact­ly when the action is set. Nan­cy Wil­son sings ​‘How Glad I Am (You Don’t Know)’ dur­ing the open­ing scene and Gra­ham Cox­on is back on score duty.

Set two years after social out­casts James and Alyssa ran away from their ​“shit­hole” town, the first episode back is ini­tial­ly dis­ori­en­tat­ing in what it doesn’t show. Ques­tions regard­ing the after­math of beach show­down with armed police, includ­ing the omi­nous fade to black gun­shot sound, will have to wait. It’s a bold move to intro­duce a new char­ac­ter before resolv­ing a huge cliffhang­er, yet the brisk pac­ing that made the first series refresh­ing in a world of sag­gy nar­ra­tives ensures this detour works.

This first episode is bol­stered by a strong cen­tral per­for­mance, hit­ting the dark­ly comedic tone that makes the show’s exam­i­na­tion of human con­nec­tions so com­pelling. Bonnie’s (Nao­mi Ack­ie) intro­duc­tion is told in a famil­iar voiceover for­mat, match­ing James and Alyssa for a child­hood tale of parental aban­don­ment and a twist­ed con­cept of love.

In the open­ing scene, she tells an old class­mate she has recent­ly been released from prison. When he awk­ward­ly asks what she did, she dead­pans, ​“I killed some­one. On pur­pose.” Her penknife pur­chase and fol­low-up remark that she is going to kill some­one else, sug­gest this is far from a jok­ing mat­ter. The gun and a pho­to torn from a news­pa­per of Alyssa’s on-the-run dyed blonde hair reveal the teen is unknow­ing­ly in dan­ger once again. Even if you are still won­der­ing what hap­pened to Alex and Alyssa, direc­tor Lucy Forbes dis­tracts with this entic­ing new mys­tery and reveal­ing clues.

Car explo­sions, sex­u­al preda­tors and parental dis­ap­point­ment are obsta­cles the run­aways faced two years pre­vi­ous. There is an out­landish ele­ment to the sce­nar­ios that befall these teens and now Bon­nie too. But the trau­ma is ground­ed in real­i­ty, which is some­thing Ack­ie taps into. Focus­ing on a new character’s back­sto­ry in the first episode with­out address­ing the big cliffhang­er asks the audi­ence to trust there is a con­nec­tion between Bon­nie and Alyssa. Writer Char­lie Cov­ell deliv­ers on this front and imme­di­ate­ly answers press­ing ques­tions about the beach cliffhang­er in the fol­low­ing episode.

The dark under­tones and sure­ly nature of these char­ac­ters might be ini­tial­ly off-putting, but if you are a fan of the first series then there is no doubt that you will be hit­ting play on the next instal­ment – judg­ing by the first few episodes, there’s a lot more to come from this sur­pris­ing­ly sweet exam­i­na­tion of love, loss and find­ing some­one who makes you feel less alone.

The End of the F***ing World Sea­son 2 airs on Chan­nel 4 on 4 Novem­ber and Net­flix on 5 November.