So this season picks up as the "Jew-minican" duo of Ben Epstein (Bryan Greenberg) and Cam Calderon (Victor Rasuk) return home from their business trip to Japan. Crisp is getting off to a slow but sure start as the two young businessmen start to learn the ins and outs of the New York City fashion scene. As their filthy-rich buddy Kappo (Eddie Kaye Thomas) said last season, "the secret is not to get rich quick -- it's to get rich slow and appreciate it." The show seems to be illustrating that. The first season was all about Ben and Cam coming up with new ideas only to find out that their strengths were in unexpected places. Their future doesn't seem to be in jeans, but in shirts and hoodies. But as with the first season, The Complete Second Season is all about baby steps. Crisp needs a sales rep and all the connections it can get. Additionally, it needs an edge to boost itself over the competition.
Running parallel to their rise through the industry are their relationships with friends and lovers. Ben is still seeing Julie, the nice young lady who quite literally gave Crisp a lifeline towards the end of last season. However, Ben's ex-girlfriend Rachel Chapman (Lake Bell) constantly finds her way into his life in some way, shape, or form. Their relationship was interesting last season; they appear to be amicably broken-up, and the feelings they obviously have for one another are complicated, but understandable. This season, Ben completely blows it, dishonestly telling Rachel that their romantic past gives him bad feelings. This drives Rachel to seek comfort in the most unexpected of places: Ben and Cam's drug dealer friend Domingo. And Cam just can't seem to catch a break yet; a running joke from last season involves a c**kblocker who, by all rights, should be gayer than Liberace. But hey, his path leads him to the redheaded daughter of a famous artist.
This kind of stuff would have worked if the characters were well-developed, but they simply aren't. As a result, it's impossible to become invested in the conflicts that pop up. Don't get "well-developed" confused with "likeable." Mad Men is full of people I would despise in real life, but it's one of my favorite shows on television. And I like Entourage because its characters are supposed to be unlikeable. And let's not forget Breaking Bad, which is all about an average guy who willfully becoming an amoral villain. Here, we're supposed to root for Ben and Cam because, well, they are our main characters! Why should we root for Rene as he attempts to seal the deal with his girlfriend despite the fact that he's a complete a-hole? And why should we care about the girlfriend's daughter problems if she's nothing but the walking, talking embodiment of T&A? Don't answer that. How to Make It In America is full of this kind of stuff, and it gets tiring quickly. The final half of the season attempts to make up for the poor characterization, but it's too little, too late.
On the other side of things is Cam's cousin Rene (Luis Guzmán), an ex-con who has his own business in addition to his loan sharking gig, and a ton of muscle to make it grow. His energy drink Rasta Monsta is still in dire need of exposure, and he doesn't really care what he has to do to expedite the process. Guzmán is a good actor, but I don't like Rene's character at all. This is a problem, because the show gives him entirely too much time. He bored me to death in the first season with his one-trick pony act. His constantly intimidating presence and violent demeanor made me feel like I could skip each of his scenes without missing anything important. I was hoping the show would eventually evolve him past a stereotype. Instead, his scenes were kind of a drag on the rest of the action. Luckily, his scenes in this season are a lot more entertaining, the best of which features a botched publicity stunt involving the notorious local loony skateboarder Wilfredo Gomez (Javier Núñez).
How to Make It In America: The Complete Second Season is light on features, even on Blu-ray. Of course, I've reviewed some of HBO's very best material (Boardwalk Empire, Deadwood, and Game of Thrones to name a few), and they were bursting at the seams with great extra content. This little collection comes with a small offering of extras. By "small," I mean "two, not counting commentaries." Inside The Series is exactly what you'd expect from a feature with that title, with cast and crew offering insight into the season. 3 Days Downtown is a bit more interesting, as it seems to exist to validate the authenticity of the show itself. It follows a young Canadian-American DJ, an artist from the Midwest, and a nightclub impresario in three days in the life. There are a lot of parallels to the show in the lives of these three young men, and it's a neat little feature. But I do mean "little." Neither of these features reaches the fifteen-minute mark.
Some people have likened How to Make It In America to Entourage. I can almost see why people would make the comparison: this show is heavy on the male bonding and sexual pursuit. But this show lacks the humor and the characterization of Entourage. Granted, we're only into Season Two, but the leads in Entourage were much better developed at this point. How to Make It In America might be picked up again later, but the writers will really have to bring their A game if it does, because at this rate, I won't really miss it much. I appreciate it for its portrayal of Millennials in a modern fast-paced market, but as entertainment, it falls woefully short.
