The Sex Lives of College Girls
Season 2
Year: 2023
Created by: Mindy Kaling
Starring: Pauline Chalamet, Alyah Chanelle Scott, Amrit Kaur & Renee Rapp
Episodes: 10
BBFC: 15
Published: 12/05/23
Created by: Mindy Kaling
Starring: Pauline Chalamet, Alyah Chanelle Scott, Amrit Kaur & Renee Rapp
Episodes: 10
BBFC: 15
Published: 12/05/23
I was pleasantly surprised by the first season of The Sex Lives of College Girls, and with it ending on such a great cliff-hanger I was eager to jump in to a second season. After months of waiting in anticipation, the season dropped with little fanfare to the point that it even passed me by until several weeks after the whole season had aired. Not a good sign at the best of times if HBO had no plans to effectively market the show; putting my apprehensions aside, I gladly stepped back into the world of frat parties and casual hook-ups only to find that perhaps I have finally outgrown that era of my life.
Having had her scholarship revoked by the university board, Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) finds herself in the difficult position of needing to find enough money to cover her tuition fees. With the soccer season over, Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) needs to find new challenges to effectively take up her free time. Having come out as a lesbian to Kimberly, Leighton (Renee Rapp) must now confront the reality of having to do so to the rest of her peer group; and after exposing misogynistic culture at The Catullan, Bela (Amrit Kaur) faces the prospect of forming a female comedy magazine.
All while the girls struggle to be accepted into their usual social circles following their whistleblowing of Theta House’s misdeeds to the university board.
Having had her scholarship revoked by the university board, Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) finds herself in the difficult position of needing to find enough money to cover her tuition fees. With the soccer season over, Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) needs to find new challenges to effectively take up her free time. Having come out as a lesbian to Kimberly, Leighton (Renee Rapp) must now confront the reality of having to do so to the rest of her peer group; and after exposing misogynistic culture at The Catullan, Bela (Amrit Kaur) faces the prospect of forming a female comedy magazine.
All while the girls struggle to be accepted into their usual social circles following their whistleblowing of Theta House’s misdeeds to the university board.
The Sex Lives of College Girls Season Two does, for the most part, feel like a good continuation of the show. However, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that the writing and the comedy wasn’t as snappy and clever this time around, instead relying on the more outrageous elements of college life to get the same old gross-out gags present in basically any teen sex comedy.
Kimberly isn’t as interesting as she was in the first season. The small fish in a big pond cliché she had going for her is gone and instead she just kind of hangs around, almost as though writer Mindy Kaling wasn’t really sure what to do with her. Bela is straight up unlikable this season. In the first season she always had bold and often unreasonable viewpoints, but in this season, it feels as though Kaling went out of her way to make the character actively nasty which makes her difficult to find funny.
The majority of the good side characters from the first season are also gone (or barely present) such as Nico, Willow, and pretty much the entirety of the women’s institute Leighton volunteered for. In their place we pretty much only get Jackson (Mitchell Slaggert), Andrew (Charlie Hall) and who are simply love interests for Kimberly and Whitney respectively. They aren’t as interesting or funny, and they both serve the same purpose narratively.
I do feel like Leighton & Whitney were taken in interesting new directions this season though. I liked seeing Leighton coming to terms with being publicly homosexual, and becoming comfortable with dating her college peers as opposed to seeking out older women living in the areas near to the college. This also then allows us to see what kind of people she’s actually into and that leads to the introduction of Tatum (Gracie Dzienny), who could for all intents and purposes be Leighton’s doppelgänger.
Whitney meanwhile is allowed to grow out of her sports centric persona and explore new interests, finding a passion for biochemistry where she begins a relationship with her lab partner Andrew. Whilst I don’t find Andrew all that interesting, I do think Whitney is given so much growth over the season in part because of his inclusion to the story which I really enjoyed.
All in all, The Sex Lives of College Girls Season Two is still fun, but where every component of the first season just meshed so well to create something funny, refreshing, and oddly wholesome (considering the subject matter), this second season instead feels like it excels with particular elements whilst completely dropping the ball with others. I had a good time with it, but it just didn’t feel like it had the same energy and passion behind it. Perhaps I’m getting old, but to me this season was at its strongest when it wasn’t being a teen sex comedy.
Kimberly isn’t as interesting as she was in the first season. The small fish in a big pond cliché she had going for her is gone and instead she just kind of hangs around, almost as though writer Mindy Kaling wasn’t really sure what to do with her. Bela is straight up unlikable this season. In the first season she always had bold and often unreasonable viewpoints, but in this season, it feels as though Kaling went out of her way to make the character actively nasty which makes her difficult to find funny.
The majority of the good side characters from the first season are also gone (or barely present) such as Nico, Willow, and pretty much the entirety of the women’s institute Leighton volunteered for. In their place we pretty much only get Jackson (Mitchell Slaggert), Andrew (Charlie Hall) and who are simply love interests for Kimberly and Whitney respectively. They aren’t as interesting or funny, and they both serve the same purpose narratively.
I do feel like Leighton & Whitney were taken in interesting new directions this season though. I liked seeing Leighton coming to terms with being publicly homosexual, and becoming comfortable with dating her college peers as opposed to seeking out older women living in the areas near to the college. This also then allows us to see what kind of people she’s actually into and that leads to the introduction of Tatum (Gracie Dzienny), who could for all intents and purposes be Leighton’s doppelgänger.
Whitney meanwhile is allowed to grow out of her sports centric persona and explore new interests, finding a passion for biochemistry where she begins a relationship with her lab partner Andrew. Whilst I don’t find Andrew all that interesting, I do think Whitney is given so much growth over the season in part because of his inclusion to the story which I really enjoyed.
All in all, The Sex Lives of College Girls Season Two is still fun, but where every component of the first season just meshed so well to create something funny, refreshing, and oddly wholesome (considering the subject matter), this second season instead feels like it excels with particular elements whilst completely dropping the ball with others. I had a good time with it, but it just didn’t feel like it had the same energy and passion behind it. Perhaps I’m getting old, but to me this season was at its strongest when it wasn’t being a teen sex comedy.