When “Starstruck” premiered on HBO Max last June, I likened it to “Notting Hill” for millennials, about a quippy Londoner named Jessie working two dead-end jobs and staring down her 30s (the thrillingly funny Rose Matafeo, also the show’s creator) who forges an unlikely romance with a famous movie star named Tom (Nikesh Patel, somehow both dashing and down-to-earth). A small show with a big, effusive performance at its center from Matafeo, it was as fizzy and binge-able as they come, with Jessie making a dramatic, last-minute decision, canceling her plans to move back to her native New Zealand and staying in London to see if she and Tom can make a go of it.
Season 2 picks up moments later, with both Jessie and Tom briefly stunned into silence by her grand gesture, before she proceeds to freak out, rehashing the same insecurities that sapped so much of her joie de vivre in Season 1: “You’re embarrassed of me,” she says to him at one point and — sigh — they already had this same conversation last year.
It’s such a confounding decision and a misfire to keep the show stuck in place, spinning its wheels, rather than pushing the story forward. I had hoped that Matafeo and writing partner Alice Snedden would finally tackle the nuances of what it’s like for a non-celebrity, scraping by financially and with no real professional ambitions to speak of, who finds herself in a serious relationship with someone mega-famous and wealthy. How does that work — or not work? My issue with the new season is the way it stymies this kind of question in favor of repeating (and exacerbating) many of the previous season’s weaknesses. Jessie and Tom get together, only to break up, only to get back together again. Haven’t we already been here? Are there not new dilemmas from which to mine comedy?
Jessie started out as such a brazenly confident and daffy character and then slowly became unsure of herself and that’s where we find her still. After all this time together, she and Tom are awkward around one another and lack intimacy; there’s no ease between them. I’m not even sure if we’re meant to root for them; she’s far more relaxed when she’s around her ex, who she supposedly hates. As a couple, Jessie and Tom don’t talk so much as lob jokes at one another and, as much as I like banter, it feels like an avoidance tactic. There’s no comedy in whatever is happening between them, but no substance either.
Tom remains underwritten, despite the addition of an obnoxious brother and several scenes where he’s on his own shooting an indie movie with a nightmare of a director, but I’m more interested in what’s happening with Jessie. She’s off her game entirely and barely resembles the devil-may-care character we met early in Season 1. Is it her relationship with Tom that has her doubting herself? A quarter-life crisis? Immaturity? A combination of all three? Whatever is going on inside her head remains a mystery, and the culminating scene where she pours her heart out to this man — a key staple of the genre! — just doesn’t work.
Happily, “Starstruck’s” biting sense of humor is intact. There’s a funny back-and-forth at a party when an actor brags about recently filming with George Clooney and the person sitting next to him wonders if Clooney’s infamous reputation for pranks on set is the equivalent of bullying: “A man married to a human rights lawyer should know better.” For Christmas, Tom gives Jessie a box that looks like it might contain a necklace but contains ... a Joni Mitchell CD instead, a winking reference to 2003′s “Love Actually” that makes her laugh: “He Alan Rickman’d me.”
But there’s little else here to recommend, so if nothing else, let this review be a prompt to check out the show’s first season if you haven’t already.
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'STARSTRUCK'
1.5 stars (out of 4)
Rating: TV-MA
Where to watch: Season 2 premiered Thursday on HBO Max
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