Ramy Season 2 review: Ramy gets super dark — and super hilarious

Ramy Season 2 gets super dark — and super hilarious.

Ramy Season 2 is a strong follow-up to the fantastic first season. It is not easy for stories to find a balance between darkness and hilarity. Many have tried and failed. If you obscure the tragedy with too much humor, then it feels like you’re not taking it seriously, but if the pendulum swings too far in the opposite direction, then it may be too bleak for some audiences.

Ramy Youssef proves why he won a Golden Globe Award last year in Ramy Season 2, which gracefully navigates Ramy Hassan’s story without being afraid to get into the dark parts of his life and journey to becoming a “better” Muslim. At the same time, it also embraces the absurdity and sometimes hilarity found in life’s cruelest moments.

When we last saw Ramy, he had visited Egypt to see his family. While there, he slept with his cousin and witnessed his grandfather’s death. When he gets home, Ramy finds himself extremely depressed and struggling to figure out how to strengthen his faith and better himself.

He turns to porn and sex as a way to cope, frantically masturbating any time he gets a moment alone, even if that means somewhere as public as his work or at his dad’s boss’s house.

Ramy Season 2: Mahershala Ali is an incredible addition to the cast

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Things don’t start to improve for Ramy until he meets a new sheikh named Ali Malik, played by Mahershala Ali, who is a fantastic new addition to the series. Ali and Youssef have great chemistry together, which works well with the teacher-student bond they adapt as the season progresses.

Ramy is instantly drawn to the sheikh, believing him to have the answers he needs to fill what he describes as a “hole” inside of him. But Ramy still has a lot to learn, and one of the best things about Ramy Season 2, that carries on from the first season, is the show’s willingness to show its protagonist in an unfavorable light sometimes.

He makes mistakes, big ones. Youssef has said before that he doesn’t want the show to try and tell the story of “all” Muslim people, just like you can’t define Christianity by one person, or any other religion.

But it is even more difficult for storytellers trying to appropriately tell stories with protagonists who practice Islam thanks to the rampant Islamophobia in America and the lack of Muslim stories in our media.

Youssef is not trying to encompass every story. He’s telling his story. He’s speaking on behalf of what he knows, and that makes the series much more powerful. We do not expect a show with a white male character to tell the story of every white male in existence, just like Ramy does not have to tell every Muslim’s story. The narrowed focus enhances the journey and storytelling.

Ramy Season 2 is surprising in many ways. I did not anticipate the series getting as dark as it did in some places, especially early on. But right when you’re in the moment where something is as horrible as it can be, someone drops a joke that somehow lands perfectly.

There is so much heart in this series, but also a painful center and truth. Even if you aren’t Muslim, there is a lot you can relate to with Ramy, as many of us his age are struggling with feelings of loss and a desperation to find where we belong.

Your twenties are an awkward transitional phase, made even more apparent with the current political climate and state of the world. Something is comforting to see those struggles depicted in a show that is as well-written and sharp as this one.

Even better is that the characters are flawed, but they’re fleshed-out enough that their mistakes never feel like a reflection of the writers’ morals. They are three-dimensional people who make missteps, and we learn more about the worldview and experiences that led them to think or act a certain way.

Like Season 1, Ramy Season 2 does have what we call “spotlight” episodes where secondary or tertiary characters get their time to shine. Unlike Season 1, Youssef is directing every episode in Season 2, which helps create cohesion, but he shares almost every episode with a co-director, both women and men.

I went into Ramy relatively blind for Season 1 and was blown away by the smart, hilarious, and often moving series. Ramy Season 2 takes everything great about the first season and amplifies it.

What do you think of Ramy Season 2 so far? Do you think it’s as good or better than Season 1? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Ramy Season 2 is now streaming on Hulu.