With years of anticipation on its side, The Artful Dodger returns with an eight-episode season that has an absurd weight on its shoulders. For the most part, the show succeeds where it needs to, holding it all, especially with Belle and Jack’s romance. However, it’s understandable that the sheer number of obstacles they face will be a hindrance to some people’s viewing experience, as they are broadly similar to those in Season 1.
The Artful Dodger uses those familiar threads to explore different sides of the characters and Port Victory. Bigger threats in darker corners emerge as society’s rules are tested. Some character arcs become more prominent, like Fanny’s turn to the criminal side after a loss and Lady Jane’s self-reflection upon the arrival of a familiar face. Other characters, like Hetty, who begs for more screen time, and Rotty, whose thread from Season 1 is all but lost, leave more to be desired. Essentially, this show bursts at its seams with vibrancy in its characters and its world. So, hopefully, there’s another season soon.
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The Returning Ensemble
The first season makes an ensemble from what could be a show about only Jack, Fagin, and Belle. By the end, there’s a desire to see more from everyone – Aputi, Flashy, Rotty, Tim, Red Hetty, Fanny – that makes up Port Victory. Enjoyably, this season showcases how critical Tim is in the science of the hospital’s medicine. He makes life-saving devices like a galvanocautery, and he spearheads chemical tests to discover the source of arsenic in Port Victory. Tim is also a vital voice of reason when reminding Jack that Australia’s land isn’t Jack and Fagin’s to sell, even under a scheme. He’s someone that The Artful Dodger can only benefit from utilizing more.
The same is true for all of the supporting characters that make the show feel alive. This season attempts to go the extra mile with Aputi and Flashy as they unionize in the face of Fagin’s unkindness and lack of payment. In the end, the impact of that falls more on whether Fagin will change. Even so, Aputi and Flashy are the emotional backbone of that storyline’s resolution. Fagin’s death fakeout, of which they don’t know it is, doesn’t land with the impact that it does without believing that Aputi and Flashy (and even Jack) care about him. This season folds Rotty into that group more actively, too.
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Family in Ruins and Reunion
Unfortuantely, that choice comes at the loss of one of the first season’s most intriguing storylines – the relationship between Rotty and Edmund. It’s particularly disappointing to lose that story because of how it aligns with Lady Jane and Uncle Dickie and, of course, Lady Belle and Jack. Instead, Edmund becomes entirely preoccupied with his brother. Relatedly, The Artful Dodger’s second season never plays coy about Dickie, his past with Jane, and his connection to Belle. The culminating scene finds its payoff because of the season’s dedication to Jane and Belle’s relationship.
Susie Porter and Maia Mitchell turn in consistently excellent performances across the eight episodes. Both characters’ perspectives are clearly represented, and Jane’s motivations are understandable even when her methods in executing them are harsh. It makes slightly less sense that Jane contracts cholera, though it is a means to an end. That family scene in the season finale is exactly what it needs to be. The pan over to Edmund is breathtaking. Learning that he’s known everything the entire time, excitingly reframes the character in a way that feels similar to that of Edmund’s relationship with Rotty.
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New Characters, New Mystery
This season introduces Luke Bracey as Inspector Henry Boxer. A love triangle between Boxer, Belle, and Jack never really takes shape, and The Artful Dodger Season 2 is better for it. The mere idea of it takes the season into compelling directions for all three characters. For Boxer, his relationship with Belle is essential to see the cracks in his tough exterior built by the loss he’s experienced. She opens him up in ways no other character can; Bracey represents that in the slightest twinkle in his eye or the smallest smile on his lips when acting opposite Mitchell.
It speaks to Belle’s character and who Boxer lost in Sarah that Boxer can be vulnerable around Belle. For Belle, the two dynamics offer something different and equally specific. It’s as though Belle finds a connection to life in Jack and death in Boxer. The latter’s presence opens The Artful Dodger up to a new relationship with death and the law and how they intersect. It’s so far from Gaines’ reign of terror in Season 1. In turn, this season expresses how the show has matured into this darker space. Boxer’s addition only complements that.
His arrival also accompanies a serialized story. There are no other real suspects; it’s not entirely shocking that Prof is botching surgeries at the highest price in an attempt to save his brother from stomach cancer. The Artful Dodger sets up Prof’s relationship to grief and desperation to avoid its happening again early on by revealing that he lost his son. By giving the character that empathetic backstory, Prof barely avoids becoming a mustache-twirling villain.
Even in its weaker moments, that storyline provides interesting commentary on patriarchal power structures, with Sneed becoming a possible casualty, and who is unjustly expendable — the people of Devil’s Elbow.
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Fagin & Son and Lady Fanny
Hopefully, there’s a third season sooner rather than later because several lives are dangling in the balance as a result of that storyline. That’s also true for Fagin, who is buried alive after doing a mostly selfless act. It’s easy to imagine where Fagin will go from his grave – back to his old ways. Being buried alive isn’t the most ideal reward for trying to save his friends from murder, which is also brought on by his shady dealings. That act is essentially a season-long effort, mostly spearheaded by an unlikely yet riveting partnership.
The Artful Dodger’s sophomore run diverges from the tried-and-true dynamic between Fagin and the titular character. That’s bound to happen as the show grows. Even so, it’s so easy to miss the push/pull nature of Fagin and Jack’s twisted father/son relationship. Therefore, one must soak up the few, tender moments that exist between the characters, like the tears in Jack’s eyes when he “kills” Fagin. The metaphors there are rich, given that Jack practically breaks Fagin’s heart in the previous scene. There’s just so much to enjoy there that The Artful Dodger will never run out of creative opportunities.
So, it tracks that Fagin latches onto Fanny’s potential. Cracking that character open is one of the season’s greatest peaks; Lucy-Rose Leonard stuns at every turn. The character’s shift arising from Phineas’s accidental death is wild, yet believable. That relationship is bizarre from the jump, but winds up feeling like a loss of innocence that contributes to Fanny’s arc. The season unravels any external and internal assumptions about her. Relatedly, it’s believable that Fanny becomes entrenched in this criminal world as Jane focuses entirely on Belle. Through Fanny, The Artful Dodger proves its whimsy can easily have a darker edge.
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The DodgerFox of It All
The Artful Dodger is still at its best with Jack and Belle. The show is smart to immediately acknowledge that a two-year break is not possible for the characters or sustainable for the story. This season sees Jack and Belle literally work around it. Jack’s arc, focusing on his relationship to risk and whether he can walk away from the ever-present flirtation, is intriguing. Thomas Brodie-Sangster plays those beats when Jack really lets himself relish in it all with such abandon.
The show makes it simple to understand Jack’s conflict between a life in crime and that as a doctor. Belle is in the middle of that as the love of Jack’s life, but also the living proof of his risks paying off after the aortic aneurysm surgery. Plus, Boxer’s presence and what he offers externalize Jack’s insecurities in their relationship.
Meanwhile, this season also leans into Belle’s relationship with medicine through community outreach. It’s refreshing that The Artful Dodger still holds Belle’s love for medicine with equal care to her relationship with Jack. Realistically, Belle’s efforts to take medicine to Devil’s Elbow are met with distrust and resistance. Even so, Belle advocates for Orla’s healthcare against the hospital’s misogynistic lens through which it practices medicine. All the while, The Artful Dodger reflects and pushes back against Port Victory’s biases in its choice to quarantine Devil’s Elbow.
It’s devastating to watch Belle lose Orla on the table, and it’s a relief that the show actually takes the time to sit in the impact of that. It rocks Belle’s confidence as a surgeon and takes her to some rather gritty places. Through it all, Jack and Belle find their way back to each other, like magnets. They get so many incredible, romantic moments this season – a dance at a masquerade ball, grand gestures, great fights, the best banter, and a swoon-worthy love confession or two. The Artful Dodger never doubts that they’re each other’s other half, that they make each other better, that they make the show stronger.
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