The Hollow Season 2 Review

May 12, 2020 at 2:34am
By Jason Stettner

This is a Netflix Original animated series that follows a group of kids as they attempt to escape from a gaming experience. I randomly came across the first season years back, and was actually quite thrilled with it. The mystery; the intrigue, it was just a really unique sort of series. It was a fun guessing game to find out whether it was more of an adult animated show, as it kept teetering on that aspect. I did eventually settle on this being for the younger ones, but I liked how they did play with that aspect a bit.

This second season fully embraces a lighter side, and that’s a bit disappointing quite honestly. The secret is out there, and while they play with a new mystery it’s not quite as interesting. They do shuffle around the alliances though, and really mix up how the various characters do interact with one another. They don’t really introduce anyone new, but have extra players thrown into the mix. This made sense for where they were headed with the narrative, it’s still somewhat hard to build from.

I think there should be some shocks as to say, or at least surprises in where certain characters end up and the overall mysterious theme that’s present throughout the season. They did bring more action in this one, and some wild places to visit. It is very much a distant series of events from what that first season brought in, and I suppose that was disappointing to me. It’s still a solid time, and it wasn’t what I expected in a good sort of way.

I thought the animation style came across as improved over the first season. It’s still that same aesthetic, but it definitely carries a deeper level of detail to it. There’s a fairly strong, and well rounded cast in this one. We’ve got Mira (Ashleigh Ball), Kai (Connor Parnall) and Adam (Adrian Petriw) once again working together with some extras thrown in that return from the last season.

I’ll keep those under wraps however, as not to spoil appearances. There are some one off situations when it comes to those that appear, but nothing too memorable. Some of the more stand out characters are also more like glorified cameos this time, if you were a fan of death like I wise. They work these characters into the general lore of what this game is well, and I appreciate that aspect for sure.

The Conclusion

The Hollow Season 2 is a generally solid follow-up to the initial season, but one that’s not quite as mysterious or clever. It does some surprising things that work out well, yet at the same I wasn’t too shocked by the direction they took.

It definitely did become more action packed, and leaned heavily into certain gaming as a show tropes. This is fine as things are evolving, and they do provide some rather heavy themes in terms of existence. I won’t touch further than that since it’s better to discover that yourself, but they play into those ideals in a satisfying way.

I just wasn’t as blown away by trying to find out what exactly was happening, and this was much lighter tonally with a far more confident squad of characters. It was certainly an enjoyable watch, it just didn’t leave as much of an impact as that initial series did.

The Hollow Season 2 Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Content Access was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 7.0