'See' Season 2: Jason Momoa's AppleTV+ Series Still Feels Like A 'Games Of Thrones' Knockoff [Review]

Eventually, whether you like it or not, pop culture is due to be yoked by the colossal presence of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” via an army of cynically motivated spinoffs set to air starting in 2022. (The preferred nomenclature, thanks to the magic of rebranding, is “successor series.”) Two years, the series’ finale pissed off the majority of its fanbase for varied reasons, though the common ground they share appears to be that they’re bad at watching TV. By now, they’ve either moved on (unlikely) or chosen a replacement series to fill the Westeros-shaped void in their lives from among the inevitable and numerous knockoffs inspired by “Game of Thrones” success: “The Last Kingdom,” “The White Queen,” “Vikings.”

The list has almost no end, but Apple TV+’s “See,” the show where “Game of Thrones” blends with The CW’s “The 100,” is one of the more interesting productions of the lot, and certainly the most creative. It’s the future, the end of the world has come and gone, and in its wake are left a scant two million human survivors robbed of sight; centuries after the fact, humanity has devolved into a feudal society where the blind lead the blind both literally and figuratively. Season one concerned the survival of two youths, Kofun (Archie Madekwe) and Haniwa (Nesta Cooper), sighted individuals hunted their whole lives by Queen Kane (Sylvia Hoeks) and protected by their foster father, Baba Voss (Jason Momoa). In season two, their survival is still, to precisely the surprise of no one, up in the air. It’s a “Game of Thrones” riff. There’s no such thing as a day off here.

But where season two parts ways with one lie in how much gamier and thronier it is. There’s a heightened fantasy element to the first season, couched in the very genre-forward idea of sightless warriors hunting and fighting with the aid of their four remaining senses. What isn’t cool about “Zatoichi” or “Daredevil”? How does casting a guy like Jason Momoa in that niche not make all the sense in the world? “See” permits Momoa to stay in tune with his feral qualities as an actor, his towering frame crouching low, his head swiveling around like a prison searchlight. He’s all grunts and hissed threats of particular bodily harm, except when he’s shedding tears as only a dad fearing for his kid’s lives can.

In that respect, “See” season two expands on the details that give season one character, including acts of pure violence; it wouldn’t be “See” if people weren’t getting dead left and right. But season two opens with a proclamatory fight scene where men are skinned, skulls are cleft, and legs are lopped off and left on the frozen ground as Baba Voss, Kofun, and Paris (Alfre Woodard) trek deep into Trivantian territory to rescue Haniwa from the dastardly clutches of Baba’s brother, Edo Voss (Dave Bautista). The odds are good that if you tune into “See” each week, a little casual flaying won’t give you a rumbly tummy. On the other hand, the escalation of gore feels stilted, as if somebody on the other side of the camera has something to prove.

Alongside heightened violence comes heightened political intrigue. Queen Kane wasn’t enough of a Cersei Lannister stand-in for your tastes? She still masturbates while praying to God, but now she tells straight-up cuckoo lies to her subjects in Pennsa, a great city in the Payan kingdom that she names its new capital, and declares war against the Trivantians to cover her own scheming arse. Balancing her out, insomuch as Queen Kane may be balanced: Her sister, Maghra (Hera Hilmar), ought to be queen but got the short end of the stick. Throwing the balance off: Lord Harlan (Tom Mison), the show’s Littlefinger proxy, with superior charm and sexual magnetism.

Maybe it can’t be helped that a “Game of Thrones” imitator made and released during the last days of its reign would balloon into the thing it’s cribbing from. Steven Knight, the series’ creator, labored throughout the first season to keep “See” distinct from HBO’s award-winning giant: Lower fantasy elements, pieces of the world we know seeping into the world the show imagines, and the meticulous thought process required to realize an entire civilization incapable of seeing. The larger the scope becomes, though, the harder it is for audiences to savor those details, and the harder a time Knight and his team have fully incorporating them, which is a shame. When those little touches shine through, we savor them. (There’s something bitterly funny, for instance, about using a school bus as a city gate to hold enemies at bay.)

“See” primarily focuses on bad blood between Baba and Edo in season two, with Maghra’s ascension and Kane’s madness taking second place, and wannabe messiah-cum-egotist Jerlamarel’s (Joshua Henry) attempts at adjusting to blindness after his unpleasant encounter with Baba at the end of season one coming in third. There’s not much reason for Jerlameral to enjoy any of the spotlights, at least none that Knight cares to give away for the time being; far more riveting is the depth of Edo’s hatred for Baba, Hoeks’ at once supremely bored, devilish, and flirtatious performance, and Haniwa’s cautious budding friendship with Edo’s right-hand woman, Wren (Eden Epstein). (Kofun doesn’t have much to do in the first trio of episodes, but that probably isn’t permanent.)

Watching these characters grow into who they’re going to become is a real pleasure. For Knight to encourage that growth, the curtain must be pulled back on the America they’re living in, though by the greatest mercy “See” refuses to make fussy comparisons between the country as we know it and as the show knows it; this isn’t a show about America, it’s a show that takes place in an America made nigh-unrecognizable by calamity. (There’s a reading in there about COVID-era America as an innately unrecognizable place, but let’s leave that to critics willing to put on airs.)

But for all the value there is in expressing how much larger this ruined nation is than “See” allowed in season one, there’s something lost, too. Last season’s restricted scope gave the series intimacy and wonder even in its most plodding moments. That scope having been expanded, the intimacy is gone, and wonder is harder to find. Still, “See” makes for good viewing, especially for one “Game of Thrones” knockoff among many. Maybe that’s a low bar. If so, that doesn’t lessen the series’ many merits, and in fact, might be merit unto itself: No one’s going to petition Apple TV+ for a full-season rewrite here. [C+]