Marc Maron’s game-changing WTF podcast, in which he intimately profiles a widening circle of entertainment figures including comics, musicians, directors, and pro wrestlers, earned him an IFC show about — wait for it — a guy named Marc Maron who has a podcast. IFC isn’t exactly in every house, so the arrival of Maron Season 2 on Netflix is great news for lots of fans.
Maron was a talk radio vet before he started his podcast, which has gotten better and better while building on that solid base. The TV show has plenty of inherent appeal, but it’s not nearly as much of a polished work as the podcast – probably in part because the real-life Maron has almost no experience in narrative film or TV. Season 2 shows serious progress, though, and there are moments when Maron at least brushes the hem of its obvious inspiration, FX’s Louie.
The occasional daydream sequences in Season 1 felt spliced in and a little unbalanced, but in Season 2 that aspect of the show improves. Most notably, in the episode “Mouth Cancer Gig,” we get an extended hallucination involving waffles, guitars, and the deeply disturbing Jerry Lambert as a straight-laced, upbeat salesman with some serious issues just under the surface.
“Mouth Cancer Gig” feels like a show getting closer to a unique voice — a little unhinged and manic, unapologetically self-involved, but still reaching for real depth. In the cancer gig of the title, Marc has a scare that ends in an on-stage revelation. That’s a direct reference to Tig Notaro’s mind-blowing “I Have Cancer” set in 2012. In a powerful meta-move, Notaro is featured in the episode as an extremely unlikely El Paso hotel clerk.
The other notable change in Season 2 is that, while Maron the person has become better adjusted over the years, Maron the show has taken a darker turn. That’s at least partly due to the appearance of the comic Dave Anthony as a new Maron posse member, playing himself as one of the most morose, nihilistic, and even occasionally hateful people imaginable. Death and ill winds abound, and Maron makes some life decisions so terrible it'll make almost everyone feel better about their own screwups.
The best darkness on Maron is always showbiz darkness. Another huge highlight of the season is an episode centered on Stu, a desperate, washed-up comic played by Eddie Pepitone. Pepitone was himself in a less than great place only a few years ago, but in part thanks to help from the real-life Marc Maron, he’s had an amazing recent run, including the absolutely staggering special “In Ruins.” Pepitone’s fictional counterpart isn’t so lucky.
That episode is an extended meditation on success in the arts, with Maron feeling guilty and insecure about his rising stature (one of the weirdest parts of Season 2 is that Maron is, for no clear reason, living in a different, nicer house — a move the real-life Marc Maron hasn’t made). It’s just one of many thoughtful considerations of the weirdness of making a living from creativity.
So, while it hasn’t yet reached the universal appeal of Louie, Maron is a must for anyone with an artistic bent or ambition. Season 3 is in preproduction now, so now's the time to get caught up.
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2014.