Season 2 of Netflix’s star-studded comedy drama The Four Seasons dropped on the streaming platform on May 28, and it was chock full of shocking plot twists, major updates and even some character returns that nobody saw coming.
Season 1 of The Four Seasons introduced a group of six close friends, comprising three couples: Nick (Steve Carell) and Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), Kate (Tina Fey) and Jack (Will Forte) and Danny (Colman Domingo) and Claude (Marco Calvani). At first, the couples all seem happily married, but by the end of the first episode, Nick had revealed his intentions to divorce Anne—on their wedding anniversary, no less.
By Season 1, Episode 2, Nick had begun dating a much younger woman, Ginny (Erika Henningsen), which left Anne distraught and the formerly close-knit group of friends feeling disjointed and uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Kate and Jack and Danny and Claude are facing their own respective marital issues, as well as some quarrels between friends. This rocky season concludes with two shocking revelations.
First, in a completely disarming twist, Kate receives a call from Ginny that Nick has died suddenly in a car accident, just after viewers saw him happily purchasing groceries at a store. The Season 1 finale ends with Nick’s funeral and yet another twist: Ginny is pregnant with Nick’s child. Season 2 picks up several months later, with a very pregnant Ginny and the friend group still navigating their grief and ongoing relationship issues.
Ginny’s Baby and Her Role Within the Friend Group
In Season 1, Ginny is (understandably) very much on the outs amongst the friends. Anne, of course, despises her because she is the woman for whom Nick left her—and, as her daughter points out, she is really just Anne in a younger body. When Season 2 kicks off, this hasn’t really improved. Anne tolerates Ginny’s presence to spread Nick’s ashes, but she wants her gone after that.
However, following that event, Anne and Ginny have a heart to heart, and their newfound understanding of one another actually leads to Ginny moving in with Anne after giving birth to her son, Eugene. This not only means that Nick’s friends take on roles as aunts/uncles to the baby but also that Anne is effectively raising her ex husband’s baby with his (sort of) widow.
By the end of Season 2, however, Ginny has moved into her own home, and she doesn’t take part in the last trip of the season, suggesting that, while she will no doubt continue to have a role in the friends’ lives to some extent, she may not be as close to them as she was throughout the earlier episodes of Season 2.
Season 2’s Multiple Moves to Italy
About midway through the season, Danny and Claude announce that they are moving to Italy, which absolutely devastates Kate, who is still mourning the loss of Nick and is now facing a massive separation from her best friend, Danny. The final arc of the season sees all the core friends traveling to Italy to visit Danny and Claude. However, Danny tells Kate in confidence that he isn’t actually happy there.
After Kate and Danny are robbed in Italy, it becomes clear that Danny is ready to leave the country and return home to the States. What seals the deal, though, is the news that Danny’s mother is in the hospital. Danny and Claude rush to her bedside, which leads to a conversation in which Danny tells Claude that they should bring his mother with them to Italy. However, in a moment that confirms how deeply Claude and Danny really love each other, Claude instead tells Danny they should move back to the United States to care for her.
That isn’t the end of Season 2’s moves to Italy, though. In yet another twist that nobody saw coming, Anne announces in the very last moments of the season that she is actually staying in Italy. Hilariously, just a few scenes before this declaration, Anne had lied and said she met someone named Gianpiero and was now seeing him. Although that was indeed a lie, just before the credits role, she meets an actual Gianpiero, and it’s clear that sparks are flying.
How Nick Returns In Season 2
Viewers weren’t expecting to see Steve Carell’s Nick in Season 2 because of his abrupt Season 1 death. In fact, Nick dies off screen, and then he doesn’t appear for the rest of the season, suggesting his sudden departure was both intentionally jarring and permanent. However, Carell does appear in Season 2 (and, no, it’s not as a ghost).
At the end of Season 2, Episode 5, “Big Thanksgiving,” The Four Seasons plays a trick on audiences by having Nick come running out of a room calling for Anne and making it seem as though this is happening in the present day. For a second, it almost seems as though Nick is actually back, perhaps having faked his death. Instead, this kicks off the follow-up episode, “Little Thanksgiving,” which is a flashback to a Thanksgiving several years earlier.
This episode, in addition to being exciting because it brings Carell back, is an important one, as it shows that Nick was never really faithful, even before Ginny.
Is The Four Seasons Season 3 Happening?
As of right now, Netflix has not announced The Four Seasons Season 3. However, that certainly doesn’t mean a third season isn’t coming. In fact, Season 2 absolutely left the door open for a follow-up season. For one, with Anne’s sudden move to Italy, there is plenty to explore in her story. This would be a particularly delightful plot line for a potential Season 3, as it means a truly new chapter for Anne—one in which she is finally focusing on herself.
Danny and Claude’s return to the United States is also notable and could be explored in the next season. Yes, it was sweet for Claude to offer to move back to the States for Danny’s mom, but that doesn’t mean that is going to be a smooth transition that won’t cause tensions between them. In both seasons, viewers have already seen how complicated and, at times, difficult their relationship is, so it would make sense for this to become an issue in the future.
While Ginny is outside of the main friend group, she had some great character development in Season 2, so it would also be interesting to have at least a small check-in on her and Eugene in a third season and see how the new single mom is handling raising the baby more or less on her own.
Finally, it feels most likely for a possible Season 3 to focus on Kate and Jack. Throughout both seasons, the couple has obviously played an important role. Yet, they’ve not really been front and center at any point. Instead, their marital issues have always been a smaller part of the overall show. Given how much back and forth they’ve had with these issues, Season 3 primarily highlighting their marriage and what their future looks like would make a lot of sense.
For the time being, though, it remains unclear whether The Four Seasons will be back for a third season.