Netflix released all eight episodes of The Four Seasons Season 2 on Thursday, and the new run opened with an 86% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, a sharper start than the show managed last year. For a series that already survived a brutal first-season ending, the early reception gives Tina Fey’s ensemble comedy a cleaner path into its second act.
That attention is landing now because viewers are not just checking in on the score; they are checking in on what happened to the people left behind after Season 1. Steve Carell’s Nick was killed in a tragic car accident in the penultimate episode, and the finale revealed that Ginny was pregnant, setting up the new season’s emotional center before a single frame of Season 2 arrived.
The stronger Rotten Tomatoes debut matters because it comes with a clear comparison point. Season 1, which premiered on Netflix in 2025, finished with a 78% fresh critics’ score from 80 reviews and a 63% fresh Popcornmeter score. Season 2’s 86% mark is based on 14 reviews as of Friday, so the sample is still small, but the opening response is better than the first season’s critical landing.
The show is still built on the same premise that carried over from the 1981 film of the same name: three couples, Kate and Jack, Danny and Claude, and Anne and Nick, vacation together through the year. But the new season is already moving away from the Jersey shore and upstate New York trips that defined the first run, sending the group — and Ginny — to Italy instead.
Not every critic is sold. One review from Ben Travers called Season 2 rotten and dismissed it as no better and no worse than the first season, a reminder that the series still divides reviewers even as its overall score improves. Another critique took the opposite view, arguing that the humor works because the writers and cast understand that the joke comes from the group itself.
For now, the verdict is mixed but leaning positive, and that is enough to keep interest high around a show that did not need an easy second act. The unanswered question is not whether Netflix has a new season to promote; it is whether the audience response will track the critics, once the verified user ratings and audience consensus finally catch up.
