TV Review: ‘Los Espookys’ Season 2

You can’t spell Los Espookys without “spooky,” and what would spooky season be without new episodes of the HBO comedy? For the last three years, of course, fans of the series have had to find out. Like many shows, filming on the second season got curtailed by the pandemic and, since Los Espookys films in Chile, there was the added challenge of figuring out travel restrictions.

Like Season One, Season Two is six episodes long (all of them written by series stars, Julio Torres and Ana Fabrega). This makes it all the better that HBO is sticking to a weekly schedule. Good things should be savored, not binged, and right now HBO isn’t giving viewers a choice.

For those wondering whether they should take the time to rewatch Season One first, the answer is a resounding yes. Especially if it’s been three years, Season Two makes a lot of callbacks to the first and includes a number of returning clients that are easier to recognize (and just plain appreciate) with a clearer memory.

Some dangling storylines from Season One wrap up quick, like Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti) being scouted to become the next Gregoria Santos (originally played by Paloma Moreno) as host of the news program, Mira Esto. Others play out throughout the season.

Tati (Fabrega) is still married to Andrés’ ex, Juan Carlos (José Pablo Minor), but being around his rich friends hasn’t necessarily been a good influence. At the same time, being around wealth hasn’t changed Tati’s penchant for taking odd jobs, so fans of Tati’s prior stints as a human fan and the hands of a clock will see more unorthodox career choices in Season Two.

After calling off his wedding and accepting his parents’ call to cut him off as a result,  the new season sees Andrés (Torres) take some steps backwards, as the reality of no longer being heir to a chocolate empire has him hopping from friend’s couch to friend’s couch (or friend’s bed to friend’s bed, since Andrés is a terrible guest).

No longer as needed to keep Los Espookys from falling apart (the group is much more stable this season), Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco) gets to spend the season trying to figure out why he’s been seeing the ghost of a dead beauty pageant winner (Martine Gutierrez), while Uncle Tico (Fred Armisen) worries for the state of his profession when self-parking cars threaten his job as a valet.

The show still does a really good job of mixing episodic storylines with ongoing ones. Each episode, for example, still revolves around Los Espookys taking on a new gig, where they come up with a horror-based solution to their clients’ various problems. Sometimes that means prosthetics, sometimes special effects. Every job is different. Some of their solutions this season don’t feel as ambitious as last season, in that (with the right, gullible audience) they feel possible, unlike some of the jobs last season where you had someone sinking into their bed and then falling down from the ceiling, seemingly defying physics.

Sure enough, the best scenes in Season Two are when the show steps into magical realism territory with Andrés’ connection to the supernatural. On the one hand, it’s because the series shows restraint with these elements that they continue to come as a surprise, but Water’s Shadow (Spike Einbinder) and Moon (Yalitza Aparicio) steal every scene that they’re in and the backstory for Andrés’ earring is fantastic.

New episodes of Los Espookys air Fridays on HBO. I’ve seen all six episodes of season 2.