Are you ready to head back to the ’80s? Amazon’s half-hour comedy Red Oaks from executive producer Steven Soderbergh, Joe Gangemi,and Greg Jacobs is set to premiere its second season this fall, and while the series initially started out as a coming-of-age show about a college student in the ’80s enjoying a last hurrah before summer comes to an end and the future begins, season two is going to be about so much more than that.
Red Oaks follows assistant tennis pro David Meyers (Craig Roberts) as he navigates life after his parents’ divorce, dropping out of NYU and forced to abandon his dreams of becoming a filmmaker and relationship troubles with his girlfriend Skye (Alexandra Socha). But season two won’t be confined to just the Red Oaks Country Club.
“It is everybody’s coming of age,” star Paul Reiser told the room of reporters at the 2016 Summer TCA press tour.
Last season featured a critically-loved episode where two characters swapped bodies, paying homage to the classic ’80s movie tradition. Season two will have yet another high-concept homage episode, but with, perhaps, fewer sci-fi elements.
“We found you could still get the heart and emotion even though it was a zany set piece,” executive producer Greg Jacobs said of the body swap episode. “We had a blast doing it. We don’t have an exact same thing this season but we have an epic ’80s road trip episode which I thought was fun.”
Executive producer Joe Gangemi elaborated, “It’s a bachelor party road trip.”
When one reporter pointed out to the producers and cast that the ’80s was actually a “sucky” decade, they all laughed.
“When I lived in the ’80s, I had no idea it was sucky,” star Richard Kind said. “I found out later it was sucky.”
Star Jennifer Grey added, “I thought the suckiness was the best of times.”
Gangemi explained that they don’t focus so much on the darker parts of the decade in which the show is set. “We’re not a show striving to make any big comments other than life that is true of any decade,” he said. “We tend to have an optimistic view of people coming together and making their tribes and finding their families of their own creation.”
“There’s a universality of coming-of-age stories,” Jacobs added. “There’s a fun in telling those kinds of stories [no matter the decade]. The music was better than I remembered. The shorts were worse, though.”
As for what people can expect from season two, Kind promised that all the season one cliffhangers will be resolved, and evolved as the series moves forward.
“Season one felt like the perfect ’80s movie,” Socha said. “Season two feels like what happens after that. What happens after you meet with the red car and you kiss. What happens in real life after the perfect ’80s summer movie. How does it all evolve from there?”
Did you watch Red Oaks? Are you going to check out season two? Let us know in the comments below.
Image: Amazon
Red Oaks season two premieres Nov. 11 on Amazon Prime Video.
