Television moves fast. Shows disappear from the collective memory before the next season even drops, replaced by whatever the algorithm pushes onto the "Trending Now" row on Tuesday night. But Master of None Season 2 stays with you. It’s been years since Dev Shah wandered through the streets of Modena, Italy, and yet, that specific blend of longing, pasta, and black-and-white cinematography remains untouched. Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang didn’t just make a sequel; they made a love letter to cinema that somehow felt more personal than the first batch of episodes.
Honestly, it’s a miracle it worked.
The first season was a sharp, funny look at being a millennial in New York. It was relatable. It was about dating apps and immigrant parents and trying to find a decent taco. But when the second season premiered in 2017, it took a massive left turn. It traded the standard sitcom rhythm for something slower, artier, and deeply European. It felt like Ansari was daring the audience to keep up.
The Italian Pivot and the Art of the Slow Burn
You’ve probably seen the opening. It’s a direct homage to Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves. Shot in grainy black and white, it follows Dev as he apprentices at a pasta shop in a small Italian town. There’s almost no plot. He makes tortellini. He learns the language. He waits for a birthday dinner that goes sideways. It’s bold. Most showrunners would be terrified to start a comedy series by removing the "comedy" for twenty minutes of subtitles and atmosphere.
But that’s the magic of Master of None Season 2. It treats the audience like they’ve actually seen a movie before.
The season isn't just a continuation of Dev's life; it's a collection of vignettes. Think about "New York, I Love You." It’s an episode that abandons the main cast entirely to follow a deaf woman, a doorman, and a group of friends heading to a movie. It has nothing to do with Dev’s romantic arc, but it has everything to do with the show’s soul. It’s about the city. It’s about the people we walk past every day without a second thought. That kind of narrative bravery is rare, especially in the era of binge-watching where every episode is supposed to end on a cliffhanger to keep you clicking "Next."
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The Francesca Dilemma
Then there’s the central romance. Dev meets Francesca, played by Alessandra Mastronardi, and the chemistry is almost painful to watch because it’s so clearly doomed. She’s engaged. He’s... well, he’s Dev.
Their relationship isn't a "will-they-won't-they" in the traditional sense. It's an exploration of that weird, gray area where you know you're making a mistake but you can't stop. The scene in the car—where they sit in silence for several minutes as the camera just lingers on their faces—is one of the most honest depictions of romantic tension ever filmed. No dialogue. Just a Radiohead song and the sound of the engine. It’s agonizing. It’s perfect.
Critics like Matt Zoller Seitz have pointed out how the show uses space and silence to tell the story. You aren't being told how to feel by a laugh track or a swelling orchestral score. You're just sitting there in the car with them, feeling the awkwardness.
Pushing the Boundaries of the Half-Hour Format
What people forget about Master of None Season 2 is how much it experimented with the actual structure of television. It wasn't just "The Italy Season." It was the season that tackled religion, sexuality, and the grind of the entertainment industry with equal weight.
Take "Religion." Dev tries to pretend he’s a devout Muslim to please his parents, specifically during a family dinner involving a lot of pork. It’s funny, sure, but it hits on a very specific tension for first-generation immigrants. How much of your culture do you keep? How much do you perform just to keep the peace? Ansari and Yang nail the nuance here. They don't make the parents the butt of the joke. The joke is on Dev for his own internal conflict.
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The "Thanksgiving" Episode
We have to talk about "Thanksgiving." If this season has a crown jewel, this is it. Co-written by Lena Waithe and Aziz Ansari, the episode won an Emmy for a reason. It tracks Denise’s (Waithe) coming out process over several decades of Thanksgiving dinners.
It’s a masterclass in economy. We see the hairstyles change, the guest list fluctuate, and the slow, thawing relationship between Denise and her mother (played brilliantly by Angela Bassett). It manages to be heartbreaking and hilarious within thirty minutes. It doesn't feel like a "Very Special Episode" meant to teach the audience a lesson. It feels lived-in. It feels like a real family’s history condensed into snapshots.
- Vibe: Cinematic, melancholic, food-obsessed.
- Standout Episodes: "Thanksgiving," "New York, I Love You," "Le Nozze."
- Key Influence: Italian Neorealism and 1970s American cinema.
Why It Still Matters Today
The landscape of TV has shifted toward "content" rather than "art." There’s a lot of stuff to watch, but very little of it feels like it was made by a person with a specific point of view. Master of None Season 2 feels like it was hand-crafted. From the Morricone-inspired soundtrack to the specific way the light hits a plate of carbonara, every frame has a thumbprint on it.
It also captures a version of New York that feels aspirational yet grounded. It’s the New York of jazz clubs and rooftop parties, but also the New York of lonely subway rides and disappointing dates. It doesn't shy away from the fact that even if you're a relatively successful guy with great friends, you can still feel like you're failing at life.
There’s a lot of debate about the show’s legacy given the hiatuses and the shift in tone for Season 3 (which focused on Denise). But looking back at the second season specifically, it stands as a peak for the "dramedy" genre. It proved that a sitcom could be beautiful. It proved that you could spend five minutes on a shot of someone walking through a grocery store and make it interesting.
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Technical Brilliance and Directing
Aziz Ansari directed several of the key episodes, and his growth from Season 1 is staggering. He moved away from the standard "two-shot" dialogue scenes. Instead, he used long takes. He used wide shots that made the characters look small against the architecture of Italy or the skyscrapers of Manhattan. He let scenes breathe.
The cinematography by Mark Schwartzbard is a huge part of this. The color palette in Italy is warm and dusty; the New York scenes are cooler, sharper. It creates a visual shorthand for Dev’s emotional state. When he’s in Italy, life feels like a movie. When he’s back in New York, the reality of his career (hosting a weird food competition show called The Best Food Friends) starts to bite.
Practical Takeaways for Your Next Rewatch
If you’re going back to watch it again, or if you’re diving in for the first time, don't rush it. This isn't a show to play in the background while you're folding laundry.
- Watch the influences first. Spend an evening with L'Eclisse or Bicycle Thieves. You’ll see the visual DNA of the season everywhere.
- Pay attention to the sound design. The show uses music better than almost anything else on Netflix. From obscure Italian pop to 90s hip-hop, the needle drops are intentional.
- Look at the food. Seriously. The show sparked a massive interest in the real-life locations in Modena. If you ever find yourself in Italy, Osteria Francescana (featured in the show) is the holy grail, but even the small pasta shops Dev visits are based on real, traditional spots.
- Contextualize the ending. The final shot of the season is famously ambiguous. It’s not meant to give you a "happily ever after." It’s meant to leave you with the same uncertainty the characters feel.
Master of None Season 2 isn't just a show about a guy who likes pasta. It’s a sophisticated look at the choices we make in our 30s—the moments where we decide who we are and who we’re willing to leave behind. It’s a rare instance of a creator having a blank check and using it to make something truly weird and wonderful.
The next time you’re scrolling through a sea of identical-looking thrillers and procedurals, go back to the black-and-white streets of Modena. It’s a reminder that television can be more than just "content." It can be art. It can be a vibe. It can be a really, really good bowl of pasta.
To get the most out of the experience, watch the episodes "The Thief" and "Amarsi Un Po" back-to-back. These two serve as the emotional bookends for the Italian arc and perfectly demonstrate the shift from cinematic fantasy to the messy reality of unrequited love. Pay close attention to the use of subtitles and silence; they often communicate more than the actual dialogue. Afterward, look up the soundtrack on Spotify—it's a curated journey through 1960s Italian pop and disco that stands alone as a great listening experience.