Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Welcome To Eden’ Season 2 on Netflix, Where A Bunch Of Influencers Might Get Shot Into Space

The Netflix original series Welcome To Eden is a Spanish riff on the survival drama like Lost. As Season 2 begins, some answers as to why our cast of characters are on a beautiful, secluded island are answered, but nearly everyone who has been brought there is still fighting for survival or trying to escape. And those who have accepted their fate have become foot soldiers in the army that’s fighting the brutal, deadly game being played by the couple running the island.

WELCOME TO EDEN (SEASON 2): STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A young woman treads water in a cove, staring at a nearby boat. She watches the boat’s passengers closely and despairs when she sees a teenage girl disembark.

The Gist: The young woman in the water is Zoa (Amaia Aberasturi), who is treading water because she has previously planned an elaborate escape from the island where this new group of cool young people has now arrived. And the young woman getting off the boat, the one that Zoa is upset to see, is her own sister, Gabi (Berta Castañé), who had spent the first season trying to find her missing sister.

Unlike Gabi, Zoa now knows that the ploy to get young influencer types to this island is a sham; the people running the island, Astrid (Amaia Salamanca) and Erick (Guillermo Pfening) have secretive plans to indoctrinate those who join them into their cult. Gabi aborts her escape plans and swims to shore where she’s met by Nico, another of the island’s inhabitants. He sedates her and brings her back to the main camp, leaving her in the care of Bel (Begoña Vargas), Zoa’s girlfriend, who had tried to help Zoa flee. Zoa quickly locates Gabi and takes her to a secluded cove to chastise her for coming here. This is an island of murderers, she tells her sister. Gabi has at least had the good sense to not let on that she’s Zoa’s sister, and she has arrived under a fake name, Molly. Zoa tells Gabi that the real nature of their relationship must be kept secret for everyone’s safety. Zoa tells Gabi everything will be fine though, because her friend Charly (Tomy Aguilera) did manage to escape, and he’s going to return to break them all out of this hell.

Cut to… Okay, so Charly technically did get off the island, but as he floats in the middle of the ocean, he’s picked up by a boat and explains to the sailors that he just escaped from Eden. Unfortunately for Charly, the boat that picked him up was filled with soldiers hired by Eden to shake down everyone on the island in order to find out which of them killed one of the Eden Foundation’s members, Ulises.

And over in a high-security prison cell, we have África (played by Spanish singer Belinda), who is being held against her will by Astrid after África entered the secret transmitter room in the compound last season. Astrid’s husband Erick returns after recovering from wounds he sustained when he was attacked, and he reveals to África that the transmitter room is how they communicate with New Eden. See, the place everyone has been living in is just plain old Eden, but New Eden is like, a utopia in outer space, and they’re all preparing to go there. “The New Eden is waiting for us far from here…beyond the stars,” he says. “There’s no way you’re serious,” África responds. Alas, Erick and Astrid have been waiting for a signal from New Eden before they can transport everyone else there. As the episode ends, the plexiglass cube where África is being held opens from the ceiling and a hooded man is pushed in. She takes off his hood, and it’s Charly, who is mostly unconscious, whose failed escape means he and África are Eden’s public enemy #1 and #2.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? As it unfolds, Welcome to Eden feels more and more like a combination of The Wilds and Lost. What originally seemed like a random trip to an island is actually a fully orchestrated way to control these new arrivals in creepy, often deadly ways.

Our Take: Welcome To Eden Season 2 picks up immediately where Season 1 left off, with little in the way of exposition or recapping what has previously happened on the island. For that reason, if you plan to watch Season 2, you had best be familiar with Season 1, otherwise you’ll have no clue what’s happening. While Season 1 left off with Zoa successfully escaping the island, it makes sense that the only logical reason she would turn back is because her own sister has found her way to this evil place, and she feels the need to protect her.

The second season has upped the stakes by bring Gabi (a.k.a. Molly) into the fold, and even making her something of a pet for Astrid, who declares that Molly and her roommate Suni (Nona Sobo) will be the final arrivals to the island. And now that we know that Satrid and Erick are not just running a secret cult, but assembling what will be the new inhabitants of their space colony, it only presents more questions than answers. Why do they keep killing people who want to leave? Why not try to assemble a group of people who actually want to be part of your utopian space town? The idea that space is the final frontier for these people is an interesting one, but Astrid’s “kill or be killed” mentality still needs to be reckoned with.

Sex and Skin: In the final moments of a show, we see a montage of everyone at the compound: some people are getting brutally beaten and tortured. Some are embracing, scared of what’s to come. Others are experiencing the world’s most mind-blowing sex of their lives.

Parting Shot: As Zoa looks out the window of her pod, she sees Gabi settling down for bed and blows her a kiss.

Most Pilot-y Line: “No one can know we’re sisters,” Zoa tells Gabi when she finds her on the island. Something tells me that ruse is going to drive a decent amount of this season’s plot.

Our Call: I was describing Welcome To Eden to my husband, saying, “A group of beautiful influencers are invited to a private island for a Fyre Festival type of event, but in reality, they were brought to the island under false pretenses by the island’s masterminds, who will kill anyone who tries to escape. Because everyone there is an influencer, they’re very beautiful and exclusively wear midriff-baring shirts. And in season two, we find out that the reason they’re all brought to the island is because the two masterminds are planning to colonize outer space with all these hot young people.”

Though my husband’s response was, “Everything you’re describing sounds amazing.” Unfortunately, I feel like the execution is muddied a bit, and the story of Welcome to Eden feels too drawn out and over-complicated. If you don’t mind the pace it may be worth sticking it out to see where the story goes, but I wasn’t hooked enough to wholeheartedly recommend this. SKIP IT.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.