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Is the Second Season of 'Your Honor' Worth Watching on Netflix?

By Dustin Rowles | TV | June 6, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | June 6, 2024 |


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Bryan Cranston’s Showtime series Your Honor recently began streaming over on Netflix, where the first season is finally getting the audience it deserves because it mostly streamed in obscurity over on Showtime, despite the likes of Cranston, Hope Davis, Michael Stuhlbarg, and character actress Margo Martindale. It’s no wonder, too: The first season is the kind of series that is best binged.

The premise is compelling as hell: Cranston plays Judge Michael Desiato, an upstanding, ethical, and fair judge respected in the community. However, a tragic event puts his convictions to the test. His son, Adam (Hunter Doohan), is involved in a hit-and-run accident that results in a death. Adam flees the scene and seeks his father’s advice on how to deal with the situation. Desiato insists that his son do the right thing and turn himself in because that’s the kind of judge he is. However, before walking inside the police station, they spot Stuhlbarg’s Jimmy Baxter, the head of a powerful crime family. It’s his kid that Adam accidentally killed.

At this point, Desiato realizes that his son turning himself in is as good as killing him. Adam wouldn’t make it a week inside before Jimmy Baxter had someone shank him to death. This puts Desiato in a hell of a bind: If he does the right thing, his son is killed. If he does the wrong thing, well, that’s the story of the first season. He tries to cover up the accident, and his life unravels from there.

I once heard someone say that the Netflix binge model is built on anxiety. It puts its characters in dangerous situations, and viewers feel compelled to binge through a series to make sure they are OK. Think Ozark or even Baby Reindeer. Your Honor is practically engineered for that model: A morally upright judge does everything he can to save his son’s life, but it compromises everything he once believed in.

It’s a tense first season, although not necessarily “great” television, and however one feels about the finale, at least it’s not boring or predictable. I won’t spoil it except to say that it is an appropriate ending to what was meant to be a limited series (it’s based on a one-season Israeli series). Unfortunately, as Showtime often does, they convinced Bryan Cranston and Peter Moffat to come back for a second season.

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It was a mistake. It’s messy, all over the place, and creator Peter Moffat throws the whole kitchen sink at the screen. It’s hard to watch so much talent going to waste. Like Big Little Lies, it should have ended after the first season.

Netflix viewers, however, have a choice about whether to continue watching a second season that is mediocre, at best, or leave well enough alone. Trust me: It’s better to do the latter. Cranston’s second-season beard is enough reason to bail, but even beyond that, it does almost everything wrong. By this point, the tension in the original premise — good guy breaks bad to save his son — is gone, and it turns into a brilliantly acted but bland airport thriller. Cranston and Stuhlbarg deserve better. Viewers would be wise to let go of their curiosity and move on to something else after the first season finale.