‘Sneaky Pete’ Season 2 Is Your Perfect Weekend Binge

This weekend promises to be a busy time for TV fans. Netflix just dropped all thirteen episodes of Jessica Jones, the final season of Love premieres tomorrow, and American Idol returns on Sunday. Sorry, books. Maybe next week! Despite the array of new options, don’t you dare discount the stealthy pleasures of Amazon’s Sneaky Pete, which returns tomorrow with its ten-episode second season.

Season 1 of the sleek Prime Video series followed the never-ending machinations of Marius Josipovic (Giovanni Ribisi), a recently incarcerated con man who assumes the identity of his prison cellmate, Pete (Ethan Embry), and “reunites” with Pete’s estranged family (The Bernhardts). Amidst an avalanche of lies, the emotionally reticent Marius breaks the first rule of the con game: don’t get attached. Season 2 follows up on last year’s cliffhanger as a vicious cabal of criminals mistake Marius for Pete and threaten to kill the entire Bernhardt clan if he doesn’t locate the $11 million dollars Real Pete’s mom swindled from them years earlier.

Season 1 was an addicting mix of glossy con man swindles and exceptionally acted family drama. The secrets, lies, and plot twists escalated at a fever pitch until the series reached its gratifying crescendo. All the pieces of the puzzle, for Marius as well as the entire Bernhardt family, fell into place. And now the second season is here to shatter that carefully constructed puzzle into a million pieces.

“One of the themes of the season was unintended consequences,” showrunner Graham Yost told Decider during a recent conversation about Season 2. “Everything they thought they wrapped up last year — whether it was Audrey having shot Winslow in the head; Taylor helping cover that up; Otto with the hitman — we wanted to show that… not so fast; it’s not that easy. You thought you put it to bed. No. It’s going to come back and bite you in the ass.”

I can’t say Season 2 of Sneaky Pete is as A to Z captivating as Season 1, but it sure as hell is a fun ride. The show already boasts an embarrassment of riches when it comes to theatrical excellence — Margo Martindale, Marin Ireland, Peter Gerety, Shane McRae, and Libe Barer are a delight as the secretive Bernhardt family — but the series added Jane Adams, John Ales as the Big Bad, and Joseph Lyle Taylor and Desmond Harrington as nefarious henchmen.

Sneaky Pete doubled down on characters and cons in Season 2, and in doing so, slightly upset the delicate equilibrium between family drama and swindler subterfuge from Season 1. Every member of the Bernhardt family has their own separate storyline that often takes them away from one another. That tonal change could have been a disaster, but Yost and the writers make each character arc compelling while imbuing every new deception and mystery with charismatic allure.

Sure, Bryan Cranston’s on-screen presence is missed — he’s Bryan Freaking Cranston — but what the new Big Bad, criminal kingpin Luka, lacks in innate showmanship he makes up for in abject terror. Cross him and everyone you care about will be burned alive moments before you have a container of acid thrown in your face. Luka’s unhinged instability is the perfect foil for Marius, a role Giovanni Ribisi is tailor-made to play. Watching Marius continuously juggle his symphony of deception is a blast. He exudes so much emotion with a simple look and injects the cerebral con man with relatable, emotional vulnerability.

The plethora of cons from Episode 1 to 10 should’ve been written in a cipher on the back of an ancient treasure map. Yost and company not only crafted a complex central mystery, but they also littered each episode with a bounty of mini conundrums and cons for the characters to solve. Season 2 may not quite captivate like Season 1, but it’s so much fun to watch a slew of sensational actors have the opportunity to sink their teeth into the inherently unpredictable con man genre.

“It’s important when you’re doing a con show to never lose sight of the fact that what you’re doing is fun,” Yost told Decider. “That you’re living vicariously through this world of trickery and seeing this world of trickery, and that there should be an element of enjoyment to it.”

Season 2’s solid ten-episode season would have made for an exceptional seven-episode season. The influx of new characters, while talented, took us away from the heart of the series: Marius and the Bernhardt family. That said, I still enjoyed the absorbing con man chicanery of Season 2. At its core, the series is just a ton of fun to watch.

There’s a ton of solid content being released over the next three days, but Sneaky Pete makes for the perfect weekend binge.

Stream Sneaky Pete on Prime Video