‘The Other Two’ balances just on the right side of unlikeable
What’s worse than two fame-starved millennials watching their 13-yearold brother find overnight success? Watching their mother do it, too.
More than two-anda-half years after “The Other Two” premiered on Comedy Central, the deadpan series recently returned for a second season on HBO Max.
With it returns its central family: Chase Dreams, whose pop hit, “Marry U at Recess,” launched his career and the show itself; middle brother Carey, a gay wannabe actor who can barely book a commercial; oldest sister Brooke, a former dancer and aspiring talent manager; and mom Pat, who at the end of the first season got her own talk show.
“In the second season, he lets a little bit of that success in but is judgmental about it and keeps moving the goalposts for himself and can’t quite be in the moment,” Drew Tarver said of his character, Carey.
“But it’s interesting to see Carey have a little bit of success and see what that means for him. Does it fix him?”
The easy answer is no. Carey has lucked into a series of hosting gigs, but they don’t live up to his own expectations. Brooke (Helene Yorke) had no problem tying herself to Chase’s career, but after he quit the industry to go to college, she finds herself floating aimlessly again, running around New York trying to sign clients while resisting her mother’s constant offers to manage her own burgeoning career as the voice of the middle class, middle-aged mom.
Carey and Brooke alternate between motivated and morose. One pushes
ahead while the other sulks. Then they switch. They’ll do whatever they need to get ahead, no matter how questionable or cringeworthy. “The Other Two” balances just on the right side of unlikeable for its two stars.
“More than anything, I feel like you don’t hate them because you can relate to them,” Yorke said.
“You know when you see a meme that is so perfectly in line with your stupidity and your own brain, and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I do that too’? What makes these characters really resonate with people is they’re not great, and their processes aren’t great, but there is a universality to it.”
Showrunners Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, former “Saturday Night Live” head writers, have pinpointed the line between unlikeable and unwatchable.
“If me or Sarah feel like we could do it or think it, we’re OK with the characters doing it. Maybe we heighten it a little — like, I don’t know if I would actually go to a Cameo birthday — but we try to feel, like, what are real insecurities we’ve had? What are real fears we’ve had? What are real embarrassing thoughts we’ve had? How
can we heighten that a little bit to comedic effect? But we try to make sure everything feels rooted in a normal, human insecurity or desire or fear or frustration,” Kelly said.
Pat (Molly Shannon) is on the precipice of building an empire by being likeable. Chase (Case Walker), with his boyish good looks and charm, caught the attention of millions.
“Both of them became accidentally famous by being naturally and authentically themselves, while Carey and Brooke are working so hard at something,” Yorke said.
The move from Comedy Central to HBO Max has barely changed “The Other Two,” only giving the show more freedom in episode and season length.
The inside baseball heightens the family story, taking it out of a world most people understand. And for a show made by and with people carried by the entertainment industry, “The Other Two” never worries about biting the mouth that feeds it.
“It’s niche, and there’s always something funny about it,” Yorke said. “Everybody is very serious about the business, and I think that’s very dumb.”