Sequels are the bane of a writer’s existence. I for one, know of only two films that have managed to be better than their predecessors. ‘The Two Towers’, and ‘The Dark Knight’. So it’s only fair that season two of ‘Trippling’ fails to match up to the bar set by season 1.
The reasons sequels are a bane are simple and known. The first part of any story has the advantage and burden of setting everything up. The audience doesn’t know your characters yet, so they can be whoever you want them to be. Of course this also means you need to create interesting characters from scratch (that is the aforementioned burden). The same applies to theme and pace. One is free to create them as one wishes in the first part. Though these are more malleable and can be changed over the course of the story. It’s just not as advisable as it makes the larger picture seem inconsistent.
Sequels then suffer because all the expectations are set. The audiences know the characters, or think they do. They also have an idea of what kind of humor, drama, and pace the writer managed to set the last time. And they expect all of it to return a second time around while somehow beingrefreshing. How one can possibly write something refreshing but still new is beyond me and beyond most writers. You want to try to retain the best, but everyone’s opinion on what the best is different, and you want to innovate, but not innovate too much in case you change what people really liked. Talk about a hard place and a rock.
Moreover, lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice and no author wants to write the same story again and again. So it’s understandable that writers try to innovate and push their boundaries in part 2.
Trippling faces the same issues. It has the same characters as season 1 but they have changed and grown, as they should, but due to this, they feel a little unfamiliar. This in itself would be alright except the unfamiliarity is exacerbated by poor plotting. For example, the first season had the characters go on a road trip but the destination kept changing as their journey evolved. This season, they get a destination fairly soon and then the story devolves into a series of checkpoints. These checkpoints introduce us to loud and odd characters and while they are interesting, they only highlight the lack of depth our primary characters have. Furthermore, the story has an element of self-awareness in that one of the leads is recording the events that happen for a future novel. This is quirky at first but then only serves to draw attention to the plot jumps the story pulls. The writers use it to say, ‘yes we know its weird but because we know, its okay’.
All in all, despite some new and interesting characters, the story fails to capture the charm the first season had and feels more like it’s going through the paces without any risks. But as mentioned before, this is the bane of the second season. Innovation vs conformity. There is no pleasing everyone. Hopefully, if there is a season 3, it braves some risks and tells us a new story.