Your Friends & Neighbors’ theme, “The Joneses” by Hamilton Leithauser & Dominic Lewis, has always warned us, “You can’t keep up with the Joneses”. In practice, though, Season 1 struggled to land that message. Even as Jon Hamm’s fired financier turned thief, Andrew “Coop” Cooper, narrated his exploits with ironic distance, there was an undeniable whiff of desire in the air—a desperation the show seemed to share. Early in Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2, the show asserts a much clearer perspective on the rich and their baubles.

To state it bluntly, they’re children. Their coveted possessions? As necessary as a toy chest filled with forgotten plastic doodads. Pricey, perhaps, but shoved aside, nearly forgotten, within days. At a party hosted by the new neighbor Owen Ashe (James Marsden, keeping his hot streak alive)—himself something of an enfant terrible—someone drunkenly falls into his pool. Another jumps in. Soon, the entire party is leaping in, still in their tailored suits and designer dresses. It’s like something out of a teen movie, except no one is younger than forty and they all have multiple children.

Sure, it looks like a lot of fun. But it also looks deeply embarrassing. And not in the way being entirely unself-conscious can be vicariously embarrassing to others. Deeply embarrassing, like the dad who dons his high school jersey, insisting it still fits, to pretend those glory days never ended. It’s the opposite of just enjoying themselves. They’re ACTING like responsibility-free teens and hoping the pantomime will become reality.

Coop’s rundowns of what he’s stealing are rarer and more poisonous as well. His time with less—relatively speaking—seems to have finally freed him of the appeal of keeping up just to keep up. He’s still getting plenty, don’t get it twisted, but there’s a stronger sense of him understanding how ridiculous it all is. During an especially insightful and heartbreaking scene, he reflects on a pair of cufflinks he bought for his father. I won’t go deeper to avoid spoilers, but Hamm nails the shame of it all with voiceover and just the smallest of looks. For the first time, it seems, he admits the wildly expensive gift had everything to do with his own insecurities and nothing to do with honoring the man he gave it to.

A bit clearer on its feeling towards wealth (gross) and the wealthy (flawed individuals who, together, make each other worse in so many ways), Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 can devote more time to what it really wants to talk about. That is, growing older, trying to stay young, and the inescapable touch of the Grim Reaper. Dropping this universal experience—with the exception of myself, everybody’s going to die someday—has the paradoxical effect of humanizing the show’s rich idiots and highlighting just how desperate they are to delude themselves about the march of time. Whether it be extramarital affairs, raucous parties, or vaginal “rejuvenation” surgery, Coop’s friends and neighbors are fighting tooth and nail against time. And yet time keeps asserting itself.

Some of it is silly. Mel (Amanda Peet), Coop’s ex-wife, continues her unraveling trajectory from last season. She’s screaming at dogs, bringing her neighbors bags of feces, and desperately looking for something, anything, to make her horny again. Where it takes her is pretty damn serious, but the show treats most of what is basically a nervous breakdown like a joke. Poor Peet is game, smuggling pathos into the slapstick. Still, the whole thing is rough. The show can’t seem to get a handle on her, and it is a shame. Peet is good enough to give Mel complexity. The idea of someone who can’t stop disrupting their peace is compelling. So why does Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 feel so dedicated to making her a figure of fun?

Overall, though, Season 2 is sharper, darker, and more incisive. Marsden is a welcome addition, a true wolf among the sheep. He’s richer than everyone in town and, increasingly, seems far more unhinged. His mix of superficial charm, nasty entitlement, and rock stupid spontaneity is a frighteningly accurate take on sociopathy. His arrival pushes the show into full tilt, especially for former NBA star Nick (Mark Tallman), who gets far more interesting material this season.

There is a pacing issue around episode 7. It feels like the season has resolved itself despite about 3 hours to go. That feeling quickly goes away, though. Instead, it closes on about 75 minutes (over two episodes) of its best work. Over the top dark comedy, twists, and a threatening cloud that feels like the kind of thing some people never get out from under. It is the rare cliffhanger ending that puts a bow on the season and leaves viewers on edge about what awaits the characters in Season 3.

Before closing this review, it would be a mistake not to mention Ron (Michael O’Keefe), Cooper’s father. A near non-entity in Season 1, he’s quietly the season’s MVP. It’s a wonderfully modulated performance full of sweet, honest humanity, a wonderful antidote to the avarice, criminality, and self-delusion that saturates the rest of the show. Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 makes it tempting to cynically write off people. But it also gives the audience Ron to remind them that there exists real goodness in this world. And that goodness isn’t perfection, and that’s ok.

Which is good because Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 isn’t perfect. But maybe it isn’t worth racing after the Joneses of premium TV. After all, it is, in total, very good. So maybe that’s enough.

Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 begins petitioning AppleTV’s HOA on April 3.

Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 Trailer: