They say sophomore slump is one of the hardest things to beat. But Peacock’s Based on a True Story seems to have done it. With the burden of a delightful maiden season that ended with an insane cliffhanger, the show had no choice but to deliver a worthy follow-up, and it has pretty much nailed it there. Unlike the last season, this one has considerably fewer characters to focus on. But that has also allowed the narrative to properly flourish. The plot may not be as novel as the first time, but the writing is sharper, the social commentary is very much on point, and all the meta-jokes—including the murder of Jared Leto—lands. What more could you possibly want after that?
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens in This Season?
Overwhelmed by her newborn baby, Ava is losing her mind over being the perfect mom to her son Jack. Nathan, now only teaching young tennis prodigies (possibly only one, Jaden, who we see), is heavily concerned about his wife and not doing that well by himself either. But what about the cliffhanger? Well, that got sorted out quite miraculously for the couple. When Simon walked in on them cleaning the mess, Ava put all the blood (that came from Ruby’s body) on her pregnancy. Fortunately, it actually turned out to be an emergency, as Ava had to be taken to the hospital right away, where she had Jack. Meanwhile, Simon got arrested for murdering Ruby. He does get out on bail, and the show promptly reveals that it was indeed him who killed Ruby for simply getting on his nerves. That’s how the mystery from last season gets wrapped pretty easily, as you keep wondering—now what? Well, it turns out to be a lot.
Even serial killers deserve to heal, right?
Yeah, we’re talking about our enigmatic The Westside Ripper (TWR from this point)—Matthew Pierce here. While Nathan and Ava are struggling with their new baby and normal life, Matt is having the time of his life at a holistic resort facility in Mexico. He has gone there after making a deal with the couple to put everything behind them. That said, it genuinely seems that Matt wants to help. The show also confirms another key thing here: Matt was indeed TWR (we did have some confusion last season, if you remember). But what matters is now he wants to quit the terrible habit of ‘serial killing’ and that’s why he is in Mexico. There’s another new development that also started brewing last season only: Matt and Tori, aka Ava’s sister. Not only are they a couple now, they also get engaged, which understandably freaks out Ava. It’s not exactly desirable for your only sister to have a fiance who used to be a serial killer, after all!
In the middle of all the chaos, Nathan and Matt become friends. Even though he goes to Mexico to convince Tori to leave Matt and return home, he ultimately ends up spending a lot of time male-bonding with the former serial killer. Their bond only grows as, upon returning, Matt asks Nathan to be his sponsor for sobriety from killing—and it actually seems to work. Nathan also starts regaining his lost confidence, thanks to Matt continuously pushing him towards alphadom (real word or not, this seems right). You’ve to admit it was fun to see Nathan reclaim his job after getting fired by Jaden’s promiscuous mom, who hired a much younger tennis coach only to be her friend with benefits. When Jaden gets flustered during an important match because of his mom’s irritating presence, Matt offers to take care of the woman—but interestingly, he does that without any bloodshed. This only proves that the ruthless serial killer is on the path of redemption, right?
Just when you think the whole season might go by like this only (I wouldn’t have minded, personally), a woman named Wendy gets violently murdered. As you’d expect, she fits the bill for a TWR victim. Ava suspects Matt and doesn’t even try to hide it. This creates a rift between Ava and Tori as the younger sister refuses to believe her fiance has gone back to the bad habit again. Well, Ava and Nathan soon realize that Matt indeed is not the killer this time around, after following TWR for a night. Turns out, he doesn’t kill anymore; all he does to blow off steam is go to this club ‘Lawless’ in the middle of the night and throw some axes. The more important conclusion here is that there’s another killer who’s clearly copying TWR. Matt can’t believe it’s happening, but he can’t do anything either!
Who is Ava’s new friend?
It is none other than Amy Santiago! Given how unabashedly meta this show is, watching Melissa Fumero play a homicide detective is not at all surprising. She is Drew Stevens, who’s also a new mom like Ava and planning to quit her job, but only after catching the one serial killer that always eluded her—who else but our TWR?
But of course, most things in Based on a True Story are not what they seem like, and Drew is no exception (more on that later, obviously). In any case, coming across a random stranger with a baby in the park and becoming best friends with her in no time is too good to be true! At least for a while, Ava gets to live that fantasy, though. She and Drew open up to each other over margaritas, although upon hearing about Drew’s profession, Ava conveniently lies about having zero interest in serial killers and crime podcasts. She is running her own investigation though, and this time, she is more of a concerned citizen than a true crime enthusiast. Ava (along with Nathan and Tori) is the only person who knows for a fact that Matt didn’t kill Wendy and there’s another killer out there.
The Copycat Killer (that’s what the show is calling the new villain; I’m going to go with TCK from here) soon strikes again. But this time around, the victim—a doctor named Anna Friedman—doesn’t match the usual profile. This one’s followed by another woman called Carly having the misfortune of getting a visit from TCK. With the victims not quite fitting inside the usual TWR pattern, Ava had to find a common link—and that turned out to be sex. Ava and Nathan land in an underground sex party, with him hoping to rediscover the lost mojo of their conjugal life and she is seeking for clues. Upon realizing why he is here, Nathan is hurt initially but then starts to help Ava’s cause. The man is a green flag, after all! Speaking of Nathan, the whole subplot of him going through a midlife crisis—where he pays tons of money (it’s from the podcast, by the way) to play one of his former rivals and has a meltdown at the court—is the only sore thumb in this season. Although, it is still great to watch Chris Messina going completely berserk, you’ve to admit that!
What Happens to Olivia Carter?
Alright, I am not bragging, but I did figure out this one the moment Drew said she has an older kid with a terrible ex. That ex had to be none other than TWR, which also validates her obsession to nail him. And the best way to do that has to be getting close with Ava by posing as a detective. There’s a real Drew Stevens, who’s in fact looking into the latest murders—that now includes Academy Award-winning Jared Leto, who got his due on the set while playing Doctor Fauci—except he’s not quite good at it. What Olivia really wants is to make Matt kill the real detective and expose him in the process. The first half of the plan works as a really jittery Matt goes out to run an errand on the day of his impromptu wedding with Tori – which just happens to be killing Drew Stevens. Now that she doesn’t need to pretend, Olivia arrives at Ava and Nathan’s house, unannounced, holding a gun to their faces. Upon his return from killing the detective, Matt is shocked to see his ex-wife, on the day when he’s just about to start a new life. Olivia is absolutely livid, as she threatens to shoot if her wish of nabbing TWR is not fulfilled. Sadly for her, the show’s most ‘this changes everything moment’ had to come now only, with Tori stabbing Olivia to death. We understand that she only meant to protect the people she loves, but a murder after all is still a murder. But in this show, you don’t go to jail for killing someone. All you have to do is take care of the body. Well, in this case, Ava, Nathan, Matt, and Tori have to handle the random wedding guests who are waiting outside. That doesn’t seem to be a problem, but thanks to a group of neighborhood moms watching Ava’s house like a hawk, getting the dead body out of home appears to be impossible. That’s a side effect of Ava’s new TikTok – ‘Murder Bunny’, where she shares her expertise about TCK (well, she sort of is one) that includes revealing potential victims. So when Ava finds out about Olivia Carter, she instantly provides the information to her followers, who start monitoring this woman who might be TCK. Except Olivia isn’t, which Ava has also realized by one simple observation—the woman is left-handed (as per the postmortem reports of the latest victims, the killer is a righty).
Back to Olivia’s dead body, Ava finally comes up with a plan. Although it’s not at all an easy one, especially for her dear sister, who now has to pose as Olivia (the woman she has just murdered) and drive her car to her address to throw the neighborhood moms off. Only then Nathan and Matt can take the body and bury it in the wilderness. Diabolical as it may seem, but we’ve gotta admit that the plan is a good one. Unfortunately, Ava did not consider the possibility of Nathan and Matt having a falling out in the worst possible time – while burying Olivia’s body. After his tennis court meltdown (which expectedly went viral), Nathan was already mad at Matt for pushing him way too much towards alphadom, and now he has had enough. He can’t digest Matt’s sadness for his ex, who kind of had to die because of him only. The very physical fight (where Matt mostly gets the better of Nathan) is still very stupid under the circumstances, but also serves as the right kind of ingredient to make the story spicier. Not to mention that because of the tomfoolery of the two men, the body doesn’t get buried, and police discover it the next morning. But luck seems to really favor our main characters, as the police automatically come to the conclusion that this is a work of TCK.
Who Is The Copycat Killer?
It had to be someone you’ve seen already. Olivia/Drew would have been too obvious, so here the show decides to bestow the honor on a minor supporting character, Sarah Lake. Remember Chloe Lake from the first season? She was the first victim of TWR in the show. But in this season, Matt is trying to make amends. So, he gives a visit to Chloe’s sister, but he obviously can’t say anything. She also doesn’t seem to be very excited. But that’s also when she figures out who the real TWR is. Sarah was doing the copycat killing only to draw TWR to her and things mostly went as per the plan. Nathan and Ava getting targeted by her was a given, which happens in a much elaborated, hilarious manner. Surely none of us expected ‘The Crime Sisters’ (the rival podcasters from season 1) to return, and kidnap Nathan and Ava (after her ‘Murder Bunny’ identity gets out due to a technical glitch of the filter not working), forcing them to do a podcast, only to get horrifically murdered inside the studio by TCK (very cool scene by the way).
TCK, aka Sarah, was always trying to reach Matt only. Even when Ava thought all the riddles and messages were for her, it was actually for Matt. Quite naturally, how can Matt not respond here? His original and logical plan was to go away with Tori and his son Ollie, whom Tori picked up now that Olivia is dead (oh well). But that’s not the kind of thing that happens in Based on a True Story. So, we finally have Matt coming to the Endgame studio (is that a Marvel nod though?) and finally confronting Chloe. Sarah is soon knocked out, but instead of Matt, it’s Nathan who saves the day. Well, the relief is only momentary as the show then decides to drop us an even bigger cliffhanger than last season. Matt lets Ava and Nathan know that he intends to come clean, confess all his sins, and also save the couple from being incriminated by telling the police that he was forcing them. That sounds really novel, except he doesn’t quite follow it, and outside the studio, Nathan gets arrested by the police as the murderer. We don’t know for a fact if the police are going to charge our tennis coach as TCK only or both the killers yet. Meanwhile, Matt has escaped, and he has taken Sarah with her. The season closes with Matt planning to have a conversation with Sarah, her hands tied. Clearly, Matt has duped everyone here, and we haven’t seen the last of Based on a True Story. A third season is now inevitable, and I genuinely hope Peacock continues to invest in this show.
