Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (season 2)

Season 1 concluded with Dirk (Samuel Barnett) and Ken (Mpho Koaho) captured by Black Wing, a government agency that sought to contain people who had supernatural powers.  Todd (Elijah Wood) and Farah (Jade Eshete) were on the run, trying to avoid being swept up by Black Wing while also seeking to locate Dirk.  Amanda (Hannah Marks) and Vogel (Osric Chau), the last member of the Rowdy 3, were likewise on the run and searching for the rest of the gang.  Somehow, most of them are drawn to a small Montana town where strange things are happening.

Farah meets her brother at a sailing ship in the middle of a field.  No one knows how the ship got there as there is no navigable waters for miles around.  Todd has a run-in with Sheriff Sherlock Hobbs, who is entirely too friendly.  Meanwhile, the local pariah, Suzie Boreton (Amanda Walsh), witnesses her boss's murder.  She was on the brink of being murdered when Bart (Fiona Dourif) arrived to kill all the thugs.  Though Bart thinks she maybe should kill Suzie, she desists on account of her time with Ken; Ken often counseled against killing.  Moments later, Bart regretted her decision to not kill Suzie.  Suzie blasted her with a wand!

In the land of Wendimoor, the Dengdamors and the Trosts are on the brink of war.  Panto Trost, the greatest swordsman of the land, sought the witch of the woods who would allow him to fulfill the prophecy by locating Dirk Gently!  In this fairy realm, strange creatures exit, pink is a natural hair color, and the wizard (John Hannah) is the bad guy.  Soon, Panto finds himself in Montana and teams with Bart.  Conversely, Amanda crosses into Wendimoor to become the wood witch's apprentice!

Though entertaining, this is not nearly as good as the first season.  Our titular hero is a whiner.  Oh, how he whines and cowers and quakes.  It is really hard to like Dirk.  Since there was a holistic detective and a holistic assassin, how about having a holistic actress?  Yes, there is Mona Wilder.  She has the ability to play any part, and she means any part.  She played a chair for 6 years.  Oh, she's a shapeshifter who claims to be able to transform herself into something as big as an aircraft carrier.  The entire dimension of Wendimoor was created by a holistic creator.

This story does not tie neatly together like the first season.  It does end with some interesting twists that change the dynamic between some characters.  The show was not renewed for a third season.

Just okay.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (season 1)

In Seattle, Todd Brotzman (Elijah Wood) is a hapless bellhop who awakens to find his landlord demanding the rent.  The landlord is so furious that he wrecks Todd's car with a hammer.  Having taken the bus to work, Todd asked his boss about getting paid early.  Instead, his boss dispatched him to address some issues.  On the way up to the penthouse, he saw the most alarming thing: himself.  Yes, it was him wearing a fur coat and with a black eye.  The other Todd looked at him, then dashed out of sight.  And then the day got weirder.  In the penthouse, he found three corpses that appeared to have been killed by a shark attack.  One of the three victims was Patrick Spring, a noted millionaire whose daughter happened to go missing recently.  After the police told him not to leave town, he returned to his apartment where a stranger was breaking in through the window!  The intruder introduced himself as Dirk Gently (Samuel Barnett) and said he was on a case; he's a holistic detective.  Todd threw him out, but like a bad penny, Dirk kept showing up and demanding that Todd was his assistant.

Elsewhere, Ken (Mpho Koaho) is an electrical engineer who does contract work.  On this particular day, he was working for a bald tattooed man.  Then Bart (Fiona Dourif) arrived with a machete and killed the bald man.  Ken fled for his life.  Bart stopped trying to kill Ken when he explained that he was not Dirk Gently.  Ken found himself as Bart's captive as she hunted for Dirk and killed seemingly random people along the way.  Bart claims to be a holistic assassin.

It turns out that everything is connected.  The universe has a flow to it that both Dirk and Bart can feel.  Pulled into the orbit of these holistic agents, Todd and Ken begin to sense this flow and get caught up in it.  There is no escaping the interconnectedness of everything.

A very different take on the source from the last Dirk Gently series (2010).  Where Stephen Mangan's Dirk was eccentric in such a way that absolutely baffled his sidekick, Richard (Darren Boyd), Barnett's Dirk is more of a helpless oaf stuck in a river current that takes him where he needs to go regardless of his ideas on the subject.  He only shines when the plot requires some exposition, at which point he becomes a Sherlock Holmes of keen deduction.  His jumpy, cowardly, anxiety-ridden demeanor adds to his victim of fate rather than captain of it.  He does not have the aptitude for his chosen profession.

Overall, the series was a lot of fun and managed to tie together a vast number of storylines into a neat package.  It ends on a cliffhanger to prep for the second season.  Recommended.