Jun 02, 2026 5:03pm IST
‘Four Seasons’ Season 2 Review: Still a Warm and Funny Advocate for Friendship and Community for Every Season
As the long-running sitcom “Friends” has proven, Netflix’s “Four Seasons,” a series that chronicles the friendship of six friends (three couples) over four seasons of a year, could go on for several years. But with the cliffhanger at the end of Season 1 bidding farewell to Steve Carell’s character, would the post-Nick lives of Kate and Jack, Danny and Claude and Anne and Ginny still be as funny, engaging and heartwarming? Four Seasons Season 2 affirms yes.
The show, based on Alan Alda’s 1981 film of the same name, continues the series' format — jumping smack into the lives of the friends during one of their seasonal trips. It’s spring, and Kate, Jack, Claude and Anne are at Nick’s favorite (debatable) mountain in some off-key remote one-hotel town, trekking uphill to spread Nick’s ashes. But their group still has a sixth member, a heavily pregnant Ginny who wants a water birth at home and to name her baby Cove.
The season heavily centers on the assimilation of Ginny into this tight group of friends, particularly her unlikely friendship with her deceased boyfriend’s ex-wife, Anne. Once the show embedded Ginny into the group, it was never a surprise that she and Anne would eventually get along. But creators Tina Fey, Lang Fisher and Tracy Wigfield ensure that the speed bumps along the way are hilarious, making the other friends feel awkward enough to question it.
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“Four Seasons” continues to take the most obvious tropes and make them work by subverting their execution, setting them in beautiful locations (like Italy) and making them warm and funny. The series’ color palettes and Vivaldi’s concertos underline this. Despite not knowing what goes on with these friends outside of these gatherings, the development in their characters is evident in subtle ways.
Take, for example, the tensions between Claude and Danny’s relationship, especially with the arrival of Nick’s child, which brings up their own regrets about having a baby. With them being the only couple without children, the baby fever was going to hit them hard. But the season weaves in their individual characteristics beautifully into their journey and ultimate decision about whether they should become parents or not.
The same is true for Kate and Jack’s relationship, which goes through the motions that any couple goes through. Nick’s death hits Jack hard, and his late midlife crisis, of course, involves training for a marathon. It’s a cliché often used to mock people, but “Four Seasons” makes it endearing in the way “growing old” or “boomer” jokes become a favorite topic of discussion for long-time friends. And nothing more poignantly represents this than the friendship between Kate and Danny. They’re clearly platonic soulmates in the way they understand and tease out each other’s foibles, eventually leading to breakthroughs in their other relationships.
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Anne’s story this season is easily the most delightful. Her arc from the first season goes from a woman who had accepted that her husband was cheating on her to someone who admitted she was unable to “carpe diem” the way she expected in her second innings as a single woman. But the way she turns it around feels like a personal win for anyone who’s tried to start afresh. It is evident when the season offers a flashback episode (with a special appearance) that puts her journey into stark perspective. The cliffhanger in the Season 2 finale promises an exciting arc for Anne; just what the Doctor (Who) ordered.
“Four Seasons” season 2 isn’t offering anything different (except maybe a tinge better writing and plot) than the first season. But for anyone seeking the warmth of friendship, community and holidays with your favorite people in exotic places, “Four Seasons” is as often a mirror as it is an aspiration. If you want a relationship for all seasons, you must put in effort year-round.
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