The amnesia drama shifts from San Francisco to London with a new cast including Freida Pinto and Phil Dunster.
Plot: This new chapter of Surface follows Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Sophie to London to unravel the secrets of her past. Having suffered an injury that robbed her of her memories, Sophie follows the few clues she has, using her vast stolen resources to embed herself in elite British society, and discovering a possible connection to a beautiful heiress. But everything changes when a journalist contacts her out of the blue, and Sophie realizes they were working together to expose a shocking scandal about the dangerous people she’s now become close to…
Review: While the first season of Surface boasted a fantastic lead turn from Gugu Mbatha-Raw, the Apple TV+ series was an underwhelming attempt to tell a story about memory, identity, and relationships. The series ended with a cliffhanger, leading to a vastly different second season. With two years between the finale of the first season and the debut of season two, showrunner Veronica West has given Surface a soft reboot that continues the story from where it left off while shifting the narrative from Sophie’s life in San Francisco to exploring the root of how she became who she is by exploring her youth and the trauma she experienced in London. This shift allowed for the elimination of some characters while introducing others and delivering a story worth investing in, and putting the unique amnesia plot device used to start the story to excellent use. Surface‘s second season is better than the first in every way.
Season two of Surface opens sometime after Sophie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) leaves San Francisco and her husband, James (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). In the first season, Sophie was suffering from amnesia after a failed suicide attempt. As she pieced together her memory, she realized that James may not be trustworthy. Now, using the name Tess Caldwell, she reunites with her childhood friend Eliza Huntley (Millie Brady). Continuing to piece together her past, she ingratiates herself again with the Huntley family, an aristocratic clan headed by Henry (Robert Graves) and Olivia (Joely Richardson). Eliza’s brother, Quinn (Phil Dunster), is engaged to Grace (Freida Pinto), and they all welcome Tess back, but hesitantly after not seeing her for years. All the while, Tess communicates with Callum Walsh (Gavin Drea), a reporter investigating accusations against the Huntleys.
As the season unfolds, we realize that the trauma Sophie/Tess has been dealing with going back to season one is far deeper than her relationship with James. With her childhood spent with the Huntleys, something terrible happened that involved Sophie and her mother. While Eliza is quicker to accept her close friend, Quinn is more reluctant and may be hiding his own things. As the secrets from her life come to the forefront, Sophie must also contend with James, who has found her and is now in England trying to locate her to bring closure to where they left things in San Francisco. The eight-episode second season keeps the mystery churning with many secrets and lies floating to the surface. There is also a lot to focus on as Sophie/Tess must face her past, present, and future all at once before the season finale.
The first season of Surface struggled with a creative concept and the tropes of amnesia storylines. The mystery took a back seat and barely maintained a cohesiveness rescued by Guga Mbatha-Raw’s exceptional performance anchoring the series. For this season, the disconnect from what happened in the first helps the series as the new focus on Sophie’s past is much more interesting than we saw before. Most of the season one cast is gone except for Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who gets to play James as less of a stereotypical villain from a chick-lit novel and more of a nuanced character. Millie Brady is as great as Eliza and balances Mbatha-Raw’s performance. Both Freida Pinto and Phil Dunster dig into the complex relationship between Quinn and Grace, while Gavin Drea makes a case to land many more substantial roles after his great turn as Callum Walsh.
Taking advantage of the soft reboot, virtually the entire creative team is different outside of showrunner Veronica West. This season features directors Ed Lilly, Jon East, Lynsey Miller, and Alrick Riley, while the writing staff boasts West alongside Lillian Yu, Peter Calloway, Dan Lee West, and Cortney Norris. Everyone involved has taken the cue from Veronica West’s overall vision but imbued this season with a better mystery, better twists, and more interesting characters. The London setting automatically gives Surface a distinct look and feel from season one while not ignoring the set-up and structure that season provided for Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Oliver Jackson-Cohen’s characters. Nevertheless, I appreciate that this season works as a standalone for new viewers, even if they did not see the first season. That may benefit them, as this run makes so much more sense.
Surface debuted and underwhelmed despite a capable cast and a unique premise. While few series are lucky enough to garner a second chance to do things right, Surface‘s second season is a substantial improvement over the first and manages to deliver satisfying closure to part of the story while leaving the door open for what comes next if a third season comes to fruition. Regardless of how you feel about this series, Gugu Mbatha-Raw has more than capably proven her talents as a lead actress, and whatever shortcomings this series has ever had, they do not come from her. Watching her perform is enough reason to check out the new season of Surface, but I feel everyone will feel much more positive about this story after checking out this new chapter.
Surface season two premieres on February 21 on Apple TV+.
