Surface Season 2 Review

Surface season 2 premieres Friday, February 21 on Apple TV+. New episodes debut through April 11.

Considering Surface is an amnesia thriller, it’s on theme (and maybe a tad on the nose) if you can’t remember what happened in the first season finale. After all, it aired over two and a half years ago. Struggling to recall plot points would be a detriment to other shows, but this one stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a woman trying to figure out her past – add to that a change of setting from San Francisco to London, and this second season counts as both a soft reboot and a worthy jumping-on point.

Back in 2022, Surface fell into the meandering traps that affect so many streaming series, treating its first season like one long pilot episode. Thankfully, its sophomore outing is more urgent in its quest for the truth – and much less forgettable as a result. Memory loss from the accident that kick-started Surface still clouds a lot about Sophie, but the mystery stretches back to her childhood; she’s gone to England to crack the mystery of her mother’s death and its connection to a beautiful heiress. In London, where she goes by Tess, Sophie still travels in the same upper-class circles, and leaving behind the rich, Californian embezzlement victims of season 1 in favor of the ultra-wealthy Huntley family ups the ante for season 2 considerably. The money here is old, and the sizable closets are stuffed with skeletons. When Sophie’s ongoing probe intersects with a reporter’s investigation of abuses tied to the Huntleys, the puzzle at the heart of Surface takes on a new weight..

Having stolen millions of dollars from her husband, James (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), Sophie doesn’t have to ditch her life of luxury: Plush hotels, designer clothing, exclusive clubs, and expensive booze are still on the menu. How quickly she reconnects with the youngest Huntley sibling, Eliza (Millie Brady), reminds us of how good Sophie is at faking it until she makes it, and Mbatha-Raw expertly walks the line between drawing attention and slipping beneath the radar. While Brady portrays Eliza like a frayed nerve, Ted Lasso’s Phil Dunster plays troubled Huntley scion Quinn with a sinister edge, ditching the lovable-idiot aura that made him an AFC Richmond fan favorite – and showcasing his range in the process.

The Huntleys are preparing for Quinn’s lavish wedding, and his relationship with fiancée Grace (Freida Pinto) takes some surprising turns throughout the eight episodes. Grace’s uncertainty about becoming a permanent member of the family stirs up some conflict, but Pinto’s time on screen ebbs and flows and the role ultimately feels like a wasted opportunity. (What brief flashes we see of her complexities are far too fleeting.) Pinto isn’t the only one to get a short shift story-wise: the material for family members played by Joely Richardson and Tara Fitzgerald is similarly meager, but the actors make the most of it. Dunster gets the meatier part, juggling Quinn’s own follies and those of his father and grandfather.

Giving Sophie a part-ally, part-foil in the form of journalist Callum Walsh (Gavin Drea) brings us closer to the truth about what happened to her mother. Sophie’s amnesia means we’re learning everything at the same time she is, and vital information is frustratingly withheld until later in the season. You might be able to figure out the broad brushstrokes from the clues strewn about season 2, but it isn’t an entirely predictable outcome, fortunately – the finale culminates in some unexpected twists

Sophie had her therapist to confide in in season 1, but the keepers of her secrets are more fluid this time around. Considering Eliza hasn’t seen Sophie for a decade, it’s hardly surprising that she’s less than thrilled to see her former friend. The push-pull between the two is explored in some depth, but this thread unravels as the season progresses – disappointingly lost amid other, flashier developments like the fallout of Sophie fleeing San Francisco. Jackson-Cohen is listed as a season regular and appears briefly in the season 2 trailer, so it’s no spoiler to say that James eventually re-enters the picture. When he does, the season kicks up a gear, because it isn’t immediately clear whether he’ll be friend or foe to Sophie. The actor has a knack for playing a menacing husband with layers, and once again, he hits different notes between arrogance and vulnerability.

Having seen the whole season, I can assure you that answers are forthcoming, and there’s far less withholding and fewer bloated misdirects on the horizon. The second season improves on the first, and another tantalizing cliffhanger promises there’s still more of this story to be told. There’s more to Surface than its slick and seductive appearance, and Mbatha-Raw mines Sophie’s potent mix of grief and rage to new, satisfying depths in season 2.