Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Killing It’ Season 2 On Peacock, Where Craig And Jillian Do Whatever They Can To Stay In The Saw Palmetto Business

Season 1 of Killing It worked not only because Craig Robinson proved he could carry a series with his grumpy teddy bear persona, but that he and co-star Claudia O’Doherty complemented each other so well. Oh, and because they killed a lot of snakes. There aren’t as many snakes in Season 2 (maybe none at all), just a lot of saw palmetto berries. But there’s still a lot of obstacles that Craig needs to get around in order to succeed.

KILLING IT SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Craig (Craig Robinson) posting for a photo shoot with a huge yellow snake around his neck.

The Gist: After his success killing snakes, Craig wants to tell the photographer how the next step to building his empire was to get into the saw palmetto business, which is what he wanted to do before he started killing snakes for money. The photographer doesn’t think the saw palmetto story will be that interesting, but Craig promises it’s full of danger and intrigue.

Flash back to 2017, still in Florida. With the rewards they achieved killing snakes, Craig and Jillian (Claudia O’Doherty) are partnering on the saw palmetto farm Craig was originally seeking a loan for before stumbling onto snake killing. And, given the explosion in the use of saw palmetto supplements, selling their first harvest will be no problem; a supplement company buys their entire harvest while their office trailer is accidentally being dropped on its side.

Eight months later, the farm is going great; the first harvest is going well, Jillian has a luxurious new Kia that she brags about, and he’s excited that his ex Camille (Stephanie Nogueras) and their daughter Nessa (Jet Miller) are visiting from California. The only hiccup is that one of their employees, Shayla (Melanie Field), keeps bugging him to empty the porta-potties.

He gets a “business proposal” from the Boones, who own a nearby strip club: They used to be able to sell saw palmetto berries they picked in the wild, but a new Florida law requires they come from farms, so they want Craig to sell their berries. Jackie Boone (Dot-Marie Jones) and her “dumbfuck” kids Ray-Nathan (Joe Massingill) and Natalie-Ray (Katie Kershaw) try to demonstrate what might happen if Craig doesn’t agree, but the croc that they want to feed an adversary to just stands there and farts. Seems Natalie-Ray fed him too many treats.

Confident that he doesn’t need to launder the Boone’s berries, he refuses, but then an inspector (Beck Bennett) comes by and shuts them down in order to corral invasive giant snails. The inspector, who goes through a series of traumas, takes weeks to get to their crop, and they still can’t export their berries until every farm is inspected. When they’re caught bringing them out in a (sanitized) tanker truck usually used to carry porta-potty waste, Craig reluctantly decides to go into business with the Boones in order to hold onto the farm.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Just like we said before Season 1, Killing It reminds us of the continuing storyline vibe of Michael Schur’s Rutherford Falls. Given that the show was created by Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s Luke Del Tredici and Dan Goor, another Schur series, it makes sense.

Our Take: What was endearing about the first season of Killing It was how Craig and Jillian managed to band together to kill enough snakes to fund Craig’s saw palmetto dreams. And now that their stories have been established, Del Tredici and Goor can go forward with the two of them doing something as mundane as being berry farmers and hang a story on that mundanity that’s just as crazy as the one we got in Season 1.

The theme of the series has always been about the lengths people will go to in order to achieve the increasingly-elusive American Dream. Robinson plays his signature combination of grumpy and profane but hopeful, with O’Doherty complementing that with her ever-positive Jillian. Of course, Jillian’s supportive nature gets them in trouble at times, and she seems to be a bit too attached to her Kia. But you have to remember she also used to sleep inside a billboard she towed for extra money.

There are still times during Episode 1 where the story gets derailed by the jokes, especially the extended segment where Bennett’s inspector gets increasingly distraught after first his work partner dies, then the snail-sniffing dog that replaced the partner. Sure, Bennett is funny as we see him get increasingly more depressed, but it feels like that joke took up a lot of time in an episode that’s only a half hour.

We liked the addition of the Boones, who are just the kind of “small business” people that you might run into in Florida. Dot-Marie Jones is intimidating as hell as Jackie, but she’s buffeted by having to deal with her less-than-intimidating kids, and it’s going to be interesting to see how they mesh with Craig and Jillian, and how the pair overcome the inevitable threats that the Boones are going to make. We also hope to see more of Nessa and Camille, who is carrying someone else’s baby due to a surrogacy agreement. Will the two of them stick around Florida while Craig figures out this berry business?

Sex and Skin: None, except that the strip club is called “Carpets”.

Parting Shot: As Jackie butchers the crocodile, blood spurting everywhere, she says “Welcome to the family” to Craig and Jackie.

Sleeper Star: Rell Battle, who plays Craig’s brother Isaiah, isn’t in the first episode, but he’ll be back this season, likely making Craig’s life more complicated via his life of stealing and other shortcuts.

Most Pilot-y Line: Craig’s old boss Mr. Franks (Tim Bagley) is working at the branch where he has the loan for his farm. He was transferred there because he was “too friendly” to women. “Did you know that the average person needs 8 hugs a day to be happy? And it doesn’t need to be from 8 different people; it can be from the same man…” Wow. Didn’t realize Mr. Franks was that creepy.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While the pacing is still inconsistent, the second season of Killing It continues to mine the chemistry between Robinson and O’Doherty as well as how tough it is these days to come from nothing and achieve success.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.