Review by C.J. Bunce
The TV twist on the box office hit spy movie and comedy True Lies, FUBAR has returned to Netflix for its second season, this time leaning hard into the zany comedy over the Mission: Impossible-esque spy drama of the first season. The result is eight hours of escapist fun that showcases the biggest mega-star of all time. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as Luke Brunner, a retiring CIA operative who learned his daughter, played by Monica Barbaro (I’m Charlie Walker, Stumptown) was also a CIA operative in the first season. The chemistry is even better this year, a believable father-daughter team that finds themselves and their family and spy team stuck in a safe house together after they become the targets. The scripts showcase all 14 actors–a strange bunch for sure–as they must live and work together and sleuth out bad guys, double-crossing and double agent antics, and revisit old allies all to discover the identity of a mastermind known as Dante Cress before he kills the U.S. power grid or worse.
Even if True Lies co-star Jamie Lee Curtis doesn’t make an appearance, Tom Arnold is back, and it might make you wish the two Arnolds could reprise their movie roles and play out a parallel show as a buddy cop series. This isn’t the kind of spy-fi that you play along with like a mystery. The spy work is really there to support the comedy. But each scene plays for laughs because the actors belt out concise and quick strategies thanks to tightly written dialogue. The story wastes no time. And Arnold plays it straight, providing some of his best performance work of his career, complete with some long and complex dialogue full of spy world technobabble. Along the way fans will get their fix full of Arnold references to his catalog of films, including Total Recall and Terminator, but the best finds Arnold re-create a key sequence inspired by the beginning of Conan the Barbarian.
Subplots are everywhere. Aldon Reese, the good-looking hunk spy played by Travis Van Winkle, is still looking for the affections of Emma, but his best bit finds him caring for a pig he rescues along the way, and a Glamour Shots photo montage of them together will stand as the best scene of the season. Fresh off his lead role in Blackberry, Jay Baruchel (RoboCop, Fanboys) returns as Emma’s ex-fiance Carter, stuck in the awkward situation of living with her in this quasi-witness protection scenario (remember Arnold in Eraser?). Summer School’s Fabiana Udenio returns as Luke’s wife Tally, which means her ex, Donnie, played by Andy Buckley, is a kindred spirit with Carter–wanting and watching what they cannot have. Donnie plays up the awkward, walking around with his clothes off and doing everything he can to make everyone uncomfortable.
Fortune Feimster (The Mindy Project) takes charge more this season as always foul-mouthed Roo, angling for a promotion to regional CIA director. All her dialogue is sexual innuendo and one-liners, but she’s also written as a savvy spy. And it doesn’t stop there–Dolemite is My Name’s Milan Carter is back as tech whiz and science-savvy Uncle Barry, who learns his true love, Boo, Bitch’s Aparna Brielle, is actually part of the Russian Black Widow program. A setup for a third season suggests she could have a greater role if the series is renewed.
Torment between Luke and Tally arrives with the appearance of Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix, Star Wars: Acolyte) as an old flame and the best spy in the business according to Luke. When the team captures her lieutenant, Counterpart’s British spy Guy Burnet, that means three characters are now vying for the affections of Emma. It’s a story element that would be more cringy in another context, but the script sees to it that Barbaro, who plays Emma as the ultimate driven agent, handles it well.
So many characters! The key negative of the season is recalling exactly who all the characters are from last season. Donnie in particular wasn’t memorable and his appearances tend to slow down the momentum of the frequently dire, fast-paced story. But he gets better once teamed up with Baruchel. But the best character besides Luke and Emma (and Tom Arnold’s quick appearances) is pretty much every scene with Scott Thompson as Dr. Pfeiffer. The Kids in the Hall alumnus brings an added level of humor and drama as an engaging psychologist assigned to the team who is more than your typical therapy guy–instead he’s actively engaged in the spy work and he tries to help keep their secrets by arriving in disguises. But that’s not all–Mark Robert Edwards (The Day My Butt Went Psycho, Rocket Monkeys) has a significant role as lower level office agent Farkas. Adam Pally (The Mindy Project) gets a few funny scenes as a source of intel. And any other time Veronica Mars and Galaxy Quest’s Enrico Colantoni was in a role we’d be shouting from the rooftops. But as the straightforward, by-the-book, acting director of the CIA he really doesn’t get the opportunity to show his stuff. You may also wish at times these characters were in a more serious spy story. It has better production values than Night Agent, but doesn’t have the excitement and twisty spy fare of Black Doves–but it could.
It’s more Get Smart than James Bond, and that’s just fine. We’ll never get enough of Arnold Schwarzenegger in roles like this, and his age isn’t slowing him down. He’s as great as ever. It’s a good pick for the adults to binge on a Fourth of July weekend. Catch both seasons of FUBAR, now streaming on Netflix.
