Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Eva Lasting’ Season 2 On Netflix, Where Eva And Camilo Rethink Their Relationship In The Face Of A Pregnancy

It sometimes feels that shows that take place in the 1970s lean too hard on pop culture references and the loud clothes and decor instead of telling actual stories. Colombian dramedy Eva Lasting certainly felt that way when it debuted last year. But it’s gotten an opportunity in its second season to even out the kitsch and actually tell some interesting stories.

EVA LASTING SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “The year 1976 wasn’t over yet,” says the narrator, an adult version of Camilo Granados (Emmanuel Restrepo), as we see some scenes of events that happened in Colombia and elsewhere that year.

The Gist: Camilo is contemplating his impending too-soon fatherhood, after having accidentally knocked up Luisa Salcedo (Sara Pinzón), sister of his friend Martin (Sergio Palau). It happened after his girlfriend, the very progressive Eva Samper (Francisca Estévez Navas), moved with her drug dealer father to the United States. Of course, his vision of fatherhood feels nightmarish, interrupting his ambitions to become a writer. It also makes him think more about Eva.

So he’s overjoyed, but really concerned, when Eva shows up at his parents’ house. She’s back in Colombia after her father was extradited back and put under house arrest. He knows that he’s going to have to tell her about Luisa sooner rather than later, though the biggest concern is that Luisa hasn’t returned to the Salcedos’ residence since finding out she was pregnant and left her boarding school.

When Camilo finally does spill the beans, Eva’s first priority is finding Luisa and making sure she’s being taken care of, though she does say that she and Camilo are over as a couple.

This, of course, sinks Camilo into an even deeper funk than he was in before. But when Luisa shows up at Eva’s house and asks if she can stay with her, Eva tries to give Luisa all the options she has available. This includes abortion, which isn’t legal in Colombia in 1976. Both Luisa and Camilo thinks it’s a mortal sin, but Eva cites protests by prominent French women that got abortion legalized there earlier that year and thinks Luisa should be able to determine what happens to her body.

Camilo supports whatever Luisa chooses, and he goes with Rodrigo (Mateo Garcia Mazo) to visit a clinic run by the father of a classmate. Meanwhile, Martin, still in the dark about his sister, gets suspicious.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Eva Lasting still feels like a ’70s feminism-focused dramedy like Minx combined with a coming-of-age series along the lines of Never Have I Ever.

Our Take: We weren’t fans of parts of the first season of Eva Lasting mainly because writer Dago García was a little too liberal with the pop culture references, making things like Saturday Night Fever into plot points even though the film wouldn’t come out for over a year after the show’s 1976 setting. But in the second season, García stops trying to be cute and just gives his now-established characters good stories to exist within.

The show still centers around the chemistry between Navas and Restrepo, but both Eva and Camilo have matured a bit. Eva is applying her independence and liberalism where she feels it’s most useful, like her effort to convince Luisa that she has a choice when it comes to her pregnancy. And Camilo isn’t as weaselly as he once was, stepping up to help Luisa in whatever decision she makes.

Both Camilo and the show also display some maturity when Camilo tells Eva about getting Luisa pregnant. Other shows have artificially delayed a talk like that for episodes on end, stretching out what is an inevitable change in the central relationship. García smartly does it in the first episode, which will make the second season about Camilo trying to get back into Eva’s circle of trust while dealing with everything else that he’s facing, including possible fatherhood.

While there are still some side stories around, like Camilo’s parents Jose (Jaime Zevallos) and Ana (Verónica Orozco) deciding to have another child, most of what is going on is hooked into Camilo and Eva, and it feels much more organic than what we saw in Season One.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode, though the boys do want to go see Deep Throat, which was just released in Colombia.

Parting Shot: Martin claims to “know everything” and confronts Camilo.

Sleeper Star: Mateo Garcia Mazo plays Rodrigo, who seems to be the calm, collected, thoughtful member of Camilo’s friend group.

Most Pilot-y Line: Jose gives Camilo advice on women a couple of times in the first episode, calling himself “The Predator,” yet he tries to keep all of that talk as far away from Ana as possible.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Season 2 of Eva Lasting tones down the kitschiness of the first season now that Eva’s presence with Camilo’s friend group isn’t novel anymore, and gives the cast a much more mature story to tell.

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.