Stream It Or Skip It?

Whenever you get a show with a big Season 1 mystery that has a lot of twists and turns but seems to come to a pretty definitive conclusion, we always wonder where the show’s creators can go in a second season. That was the case with The Gone, whose season-long arc about an Irish couple’s disappearance in a small town in New Zealand led to a surprising implication by the finale.. So what do you do for a second season? Make someone else disappear, to keep the show’s title relevant.

THE GONE SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: As an SUV drives through a wooded area, we see a cell phone in the grass, with dirt and maybe blood on it, ringing.

The Gist: As Mt. Affinity police sergeant Bruce Harris (Scott Wills) tell reporters that the case of the murder of Ronan Garvey (Simon Mead) and kidnapping and assault of Sinead Martin (Rachel Morgan) has “come to a conclusion.” He doesn’t tell the press who is accused, but we see the mayor, Ken Armstrong (Matt Whelan) and his sister Valerie (Ella Gilbert) about to appear in court; Ella is doing so remotely because she’s still recovering from her injuries from when the two of them were arrested.

Theo Richter (Richard Flood) is about to board a plane back to Ireland when he notices that Aileen Ryan (Carolyn Bracken), the reporter that followed him down to New Zealand, didn’t make the plane they were going to take together. So he goes back to Mar. Affinity and enlists the help of New Zealand police DS Diana Huia (Acushla-Tara Kupe) to find her.

It seems that Aileen was still investigating the Goatman murders that threatened Mt. Affinity decades prior, with people in the town thinking the attack on Garvey and Martin were at least a copycat attack. Their investigation leads to a cabin in the middle of the woods that is riddled with bullet holes; Richter finds Aileen’s car abandoned not far from a number of rifle shells. A couple of days before she disappeared, she met with a prisoner named Frank Pastors (Owen Black), but he didn’t know that she went up to that cabin, which belonged to his uncle.

In the meantime, Sinead is still dealing with the trauma of the attack and Ronan’s murder, and is being helped by her mother, Hannah (Michelle Fairley). Diana manages to get Theo a temporary commission for the New Zealand police force so he can investigate Aileen’s disappearance further; he goes with Diana’s uncle Buster (Wayne Hapi) and her cousins to the woods where Aileen was last seen.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Gone is starting to diverge a little bit from Top Of The Lake, the show we compared it to last season, but there are still similarities.

Our Take: At the very least, the disappearance at the center of the second season of the he Gone might be related to events of the first season. Aileen is a character who was well-established in Season 1, so it’s not just a random person needing to be found by Theo and Diana. She has a personal connection to Theo, and she’s investigating the Goatman killings, so there’s a link between the seasons there. But in a lot of ways, it’s a new case.

The rest of the storylines seem to be dealing with the aftermath of last season’s traumas, with Ginge (Poroaki Merritt-McDonald) and Sinead teaming up to help each other out with their respective losses, and Valerie being on house arrest while awaiting trial, and dealing with her mother Michaela (Alison Bruce) blaming her for Ken being in the predicament he’s in.

It certainly isn’t as cohesive as the first season was, and it feels that the part of the story where Diana deals with the specter of her dead mother, as well as her Māori roots have been backburnered a bit. But, given what the end of the episode shows, that will be explored again at some point in the season, as it seems that the old Goatman case may have a Māori connection.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: We see a picture of a young Diana and her mother; her mother is wearing the same necklace as a mysterious man has tied to a bone-laden ceremonial post.

Sleeper Star: Vanessa Rare’s character Wiki, tries to talk some sense into her husband Buster when Ginge punches him and steals one of his dirt bikes; she seems to be the practical side of that marriage.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Theo reads a swear-in statement to become a temporary New Zealand police officer, he scoffs at having to read the passage that says he serves “His Majesty.” “Yeah, suck it up, it wasn’t my favorite day at the office, either,” Diana jokingly replies.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The second season of The Gone feels like it’s trying to maintain stories from the first season while plunging its characters into a new mystery. It makes for a more scattered season, but still one that has enough dramatic potential to hook viewers.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.