Times are hard in higher ed. Well, times are tough all over, if we’re honest. But higher ed is in the midst of a decades-long struggle. People who happily attended colleges and universities and accepted their degrees before turning around to decry that same institution have beset the field for years. “It’s woke.” “It teaches stuff that doesn’t matter.” “It gets mad when I behave badly towards women.” And so on. In particular, small liberal arts colleges have, until recently, taken the most brutal blows. A wide-ranging, well-rounded curriculum was pushed out of favor while “career skills” were elevated. That’s why it makes sense that A Man on the Inside Season 2 takes place at a small liberal arts college—the fictional Wheeler College—after looking out for the forgotten senior citizens. It is a show about not missing out on the good in the rush for the new.

Wheeler President Jack Beringer (Max Greenfield) is very much a “new” kind of guy. However, his big plan to keep Wheeler afloat with a massive grant from insufferable billionaire Brad Vinick (Gary Cole) teeters on the edge of collapse. The problem? Someone stole Beringer’s laptop. He insists there’s nothing bad on it. Still, he also feels certain that the messiness of its disappearance might scare Vinick away. That’s why he and the College’s Provost, Holly Bodgemark (Jill Talley), turn to Julie’s (Lilah Richcreek Estrada) detective agency. They’re hoping that by sending Charles (Ted Danson) undercover as a visiting lecturer, he can find out who stole the laptop and get it back before disaster strikes.

If you saw Season 1, you know things don’t go anywhere near as straightforward as Julie and Charles plan. For one thing, Vinick, well, sucks. A billionaire chauvinist with a wife younger than his daughter—and, by appearance, the margin isn’t small—he’s precisely the type to “love” his alma mater so much he wants to change everything about it. He’s more of a villain than anyone from Season 1 for sure. But Cole plays him as a figure so confident in himself, he can’t imagine anything wrong with his choices. That makes him a good fit for the ensemble, tweaking his insufferability just enough to be comedic.

The rest of the new characters in A Man on the Inside Season 2 similarly fit the show’s established tone. Charles’ first crush of his widowed years, Music Professor and former one-or-so-hit-wonder of the 70s, Mona Margadoff (Mary Steenburgen), has a kind of mildly reckless energy that contrasts well with the still fairly restrained protagonist. The rest of the teachers, including Econ Professor Andrea Yi (Michaela Conlin), Journalism Professor Max Griffin (Sam Huntington), and Arts Professor Betsy Muki (Linda Park), all do well in small but key roles. In fact, David Strathairn as Dr. Benjamin Cole, an English Professor who takes an immediate dislike to Charles, is such a natural for the series that he feels like a holdover from Season 1.

Speaking of Season 1, it can be a challenge in this kind of show to justify bringing back characters from the “last job”. Yet the temptation to do so is frequently too much to resist. A Man on the Inside Season 2 gives in to the temptation, but largely finds satisfying ways to bring back favorites. Some are easy like Charles’ daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), her husband Joel (Eugene Cordero), and their kids. They’re his family. Of course they’re back.

However, when it comes to Charles’ former retirement home-mates, the show is surprisingly deft. Cal (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is Charles’ new best friend, so it fits in clean. Virginia (Sally Struthers) and Elliott (John Getz, still wonderfully irritated) are a stepfather away, and they get parts in the story that reflect that. Grant (Clyde Kusatsu) would seem an easy one to miss, but creator Michael Schur and his room find the perfect bit for him. Only Didi (Stephanie Beatriz) feels like a lift, but who doesn’t want more Beatriz? Plus, while it takes a bit, the show does eventually find a place for her that feels more than just “hey, you liked her last season.”

If you are sensing a “pretty much as good as Season 1” vibe here, you are an astute reader. While the show’s inaugural season feels a bit cleaner and on rails, A Man on the Inside Season 2 is more willing to wander here and there. The result is more space for the kind of character development Season 1 gave viewers in episode 6, when Charles and Emily begin sorting through his late wife’s/her late mother’s things. Things are a little messier here, a little less easily resolved. The show is great, though, at capturing the kinds of situations where no one is exactly wrong, but there are still issues in need of resolution. The show’s world is still fundamentally kind and sweet, but it makes a bit more room for situations less easily resolved.

With all the new and returning characters, it could be easy to lose the leads. Still A Man on the Inside Season 2 doesn’t let itself get distracted from its core. Danson nicely delineates between Season 1 and Season 2 Charles, capturing a man who’s glad to be back in the world and wants to grow but isn’t always sure how.

With his emotional beats a bit more subtle, Estrada gets more time and space to give Julie more dimensions. The story gives us more details about her—her family life, her sexuality, her motives—but it is more about how the actor gives that information emotional resonance. She’s still not the most interesting or versatile member of the cast, but she’s grown in the part. It doesn’t hurt that her estranged mom is well-played by Constance Marie. Or that mom comes with boyfriend Apollo (Jason Mantzoukas, bringing his reliably bizarre energy).

A final verdict of “different but just as good” doesn’t make for thrilling copy. But you have to follow the clues to the truth, not just what you want to be. All the clues point to A Man on the Inside Season 2 being its predecessor’s equal.

A Man on the Inside Season 2 is now on the case on Netflix.

A Man on the Inside Season 2 Trailer: