Josh Reviews How To with John Wilson Season Two
How To with John Wilson was one of my very favorite new shows of 2020 (click here for my review of season one), and I am so happy that it recently returned for a second season. How I love this joyously bizarre, beautiful documentary series!
I wasn’t sure quite how filmmaker John Wilson could follow up his near-perfect first season, but I shouldn’t have doubted. He and his team have created six new short masterpieces.
For those of you who haven’t yet seen this show: each episode purports to explore a different “how to” topic, but inevitably the joy of each episode is in the unexpected (and often deep and moving) digressions from that initial topic. The series is a love-letter to New York City, and also to our wonderfully weird fellow human beings. Each episode is funny and melancholy and weird and beautiful.
Once again, this season consists of six half-hour episodes. Each new episode is a new slice of weirdness, exploring the lives of our gloriously strange fellow inhabitants of planet Earth (and, specifically, New York City). I love the new premises of these season two episodes, which include exploring how to start getting into wine, how to find a good parking spot in New York City, and how to dispose of all of the old batteries lying around your house/apartment. Through John Wilson’s journeys around New York, we once again get to meet a fascinating array of people. Some engage in lengthy interactions with Mr. Wilson, while others might be just glimpsed for a second by his camera.
I was pleased that Mr. Wilson’s landlady, who received a surprisingly endearing spotlight in season one, popped up again here in season two. And I enjoyed the ways in which Mr. Wilson himself seemed to have allowed himself to subtly become more central to the stories being told. I loved, for instance, learning about his very amateurish short film Jingle Berry, and the crazy story of how his early involvement in a cappella led to his crossing paths with (SPOILER REDACTED — watch the episode!) was incredible.
Mr. Wilson has apparently expanded his production team for this second season (in order for us all to not have to wait years before getting a second season), but the show impressively still feels as small-scale and personal as it did in season one. Between these first two seasons we now have twelve little gems of an episode to enjoy… and I can’t wait for more.
Click here to pre-order my graphic novel José and the Pirate Captain Toledano!
Click here to purchase my “Maclunkey” Star Wars/Highlander mash-up t-shirt!
Please support MotionPicturesComics.com by clicking through one of our Amazon links the next time you need to shop! As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. That means I’ll receive a small percentage from any product you purchase from Amazon within 24 hours after clicking through. Thank you!