There's never been a better time for 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'
It's been almost 20 years since the first book in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events; 14 years since the meandering movie adaptation, 12 since the books ended, and just over a year since the series premiered on Netflix.
And in that least year especially, things have changed drastically. Time seems to both drag and splinter in the Trump era (there's a reason this winter feels as long as one out of Game of Thrones). The internet seeks solace in gallows humor and routine evisceration of those who got us in this mess – and oddly, it's the perfect environment for A Series of Unfortunate Events Season 2.
When Season 1 of the Netflix original premiered in 2016, a friend of mine told me he couldn't get through it. "It's too depressing," he said, while we scrolled through the dumpster fire that would eventually become our daily news cycle. Yet A Series of Unfortunate Events is a story that exists independent of time and place, a "fantastical story" that Harris is proud to imagine far outliving the era when it was created.
"In the bingey, Netflix world, if people find the Series of Unfortunate Events logo on their Netflix three years from now, it will be entirely new to them. They wouldn’t know any different," Neil Patrick Harris told Mashable at a Netflix roundtable in February. "If people who haven’t seen Black Mirror see Black Mirror Season 1 episode 1, it’ll explode their world right?"
It's telling that Harris mentioned Black Mirror, another show independent of time or often of specific locations. Unfortunate's relevance is more about the show's sensibility, both visually and tonally. The Baudelaires are back in Season 2, which adapts Snicket a.k.a. Daniel Handler's The Austere Academy, The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, The Hostile Hospital, and The Carnivorous Carnival (Season 2 is two episodes longer than Season 1).
With a clear endpoint (the series will end with the books, none of this Handmaid's Tale or Big Little Lies nonsense), Harris is adjusting his performance just enough toward the series' destination.
"It involves unhinging both emotionally and kind of physically," said Harris, who constantly tests his capacity as a performer with Olaf. "Season 2 is sort of the beginning of that; I think if I waited 'til the last couple books to start really going off the rails, it might not be warranted. So I’m trying to pepper in a little mania without teasing the ending too much."
Harris has exceptional on-screen fun with Lucy Punch as the Baudelaires' guardian Esmé Squalor, as well as his old Dr. Horrible costar Nathan Fillion. Punch in particular matched Harris as "equally unhinged," and he can't wait for audiences to see her work.
The Baudelaires look the same, having picked up right where we left them (except for the baby, who's now more of a toddler) but Season 2 finds them searching for – and finding – their own agency. That fighting spirit, in the face of such adversity, is relatable enough for most Americans at this point.
Harris describes the Baudelaires in Season 1 as "shell-shocked children who find out that their happy life has been totally altered. And that they’re all alone would cause anyone to just sort of stand still, wide-eyed, mouth agape, wondering ‘Now what am I supposed to do?'"
"[Now] the kids are realizing that they have to take action themselves, that they can’t count on these random adults to save them," he added. "which I think allows for more combustion in the engine, and in turn Olaf, who is normally able to play chess with these children, is now having to catch them like they’re mice in a labyrinth."
As a father of two (though they're still a bit young for Unfortunate), Harris appreciates that the series appeals across age groups. It may hide beneath the whimsicality of a children's story, but the protagonists are teenagers and their circumstances decidedly adult for the level of trauma and peril. Harris is one of many to tout Netflix for fostering creative freedom, but uses an intriguing choice of verb: Disrupt.
"They decided initially that this was the show they were willing to be behind, and then they gave the money to make it happen and they sit back and let us make it with all the freedoms that we want," he said. "It’s very freeing and creatively unlike anything I’ve ever done."
A Series of Unfortunate Events Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
Topics Netflix
Proma Khosla is a Senior Entertainment Reporter writing about all things TV, from ranking Bridgerton crushes to composer interviews and leading Mashable's stateside coverage of Bollywood and South Asian representation. You might also catch her hosting video explainers or on Mashable's TikTok and Reels, or tweeting silly thoughts from @promawhatup.
