Master of None makes a delicious return

IT’S been an 18-month wait for the second season of Master of None. But it’s been worth it.

AZIZ Ansari must be obsessed with food.

Because the second season of Master of None is a gastronomic and visual feast to be gobbled up. If it doesn’t leave you salivating for more episodes, it will at least see you craving for a heaping bowl of spaghetti carbonara.

Ansari and Alan Yang return with their Emmy-winning series, a show with an indelible charm about the extremely likeable Dev, a struggling Indian-American actor in New York.

And what a return it is. These 10 new episodes are even better than the freshman season — it’s more confident about its tone and identity, likely bolstered by the acclaim it received for its debut.

The first season closed out on Dev (Ansari) and Rachel’s breakup and him on a plane to Italy with a pledge to learn to make pasta.

This is exactly where the second season opens, with Dev in Italy. In Modena, no less, home of Osteria Francescana, the now-second, then-first, best restaurant in the world (Massimo Bottura makes quick cameo in episode two). He’s learning to make pasta from an Italian nonna and he’s found a group of Italian friends, including Francesca, the granddaughter of the pasta-teaching nonna.

Food, glorious food.

The Modena setting is oozing with travelbug appeal — Dev cycling the cobblestone streets, walking under the porticos and across piazzas and perusing the colourful produce at the town market. Not to mention the villa setting of a Tuscan wedding.

And then there’s the food, the rapturous delight of the cheese, the pasta, the wine — everything. It’s enough to make you hop on a plane yourself, head to Emilia and just eat and drink the days away in Italy’s prime foodie region.

The first episode was shot in black-and-white in a nod to post-war Italian neorealist filmmakers such as Vittorio De Sica. The episode is even titled “Thief” after De Sica’s 1948 classic, Bicycle Thieves.

That the show returned after 18 months away to an unfamiliar setting with a dreamscape feel and half the dialogue in Italian (“Allora!”) is proof of Master of None’s ambition to be bold and unconventional.

The show won the Emmy for Best Writing for a Comedy Series for its debut season.

The black-and-white episode is just one of the series’ formalist experiments, a sign of the show’s daring that its viewers will appreciate a touch of something different. Another episode, “I Love You, New York”, cuts away from Dev and his friends and spends the bulk of the time with random New Yorkers in a series of intersecting vignettes — it’s captivating. A later episode, “Amarsi un Po”, is an hour-long romantic interlude.

There are insightful chapters about religion and dating, told through Master of None’s distinct brand of observational humour.

We get to see Dev’s parents (Ansari’s real-life parents) and Kelvin’s dad again — they made such an impression in the “Parents” episode in season one — while newcomers such as Bobby Cannavale’s bombastic and inscrutable Chef Jeff and Italian actor Alessandra Mastronardi as Francesca are welcome additions.

Master of None continues to be one of the best shows on TV with its understated wit and warmth. Ansari and Alan Yang’s singular and clever vision marks this as a delicious return for a series that continues to enchant. It’s the best TV so far this year.

Master of None season two is available to stream on Netflix now.

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Master of None proves its mettle with its second season.