Firefly Lane Season 2 review: Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke's series is an underrated gem that didn't deserve to end

4/5

Tully and Kate, our "Firefly Lane Girls Forever," had a close-knit friendship that lasted for thirty years. This season will provide the solution, but first, Kate must deal with the agonising effects of Johnny's tragic tour to Iraq, and Tully must rebuild her career from scratch after quitting her talk show due to a lawsuit. This prompts her, despite the desires of her reclusive hippy mother, Cloud, to look for information about who she is and her family's history, including a mission to meet her father.

As Tully's career progresses as she spars (and flirts!) with arrogant sportscaster Danny Diaz, we witness Kate and Johnny fall in love for the first time in the 1980s, causing quite a bit of drama in the newsroom where they both work. If they can manage a five-minute truce, she might have found her match. While Tully moves in with her grandmother far from Firefly Lane and Cloud is sent to prison for drug dealing, young Kate and Tully strive to maintain their connection in the 1970s. The girls are aware that each other is the only thing they actually need while they navigate high school life separately.

Netflix has titles of every genre that perk up every emotion you have in your body. There are series that are so underrated that we discover them and value them when they are just about to end. Firefly Lane is that series for me. When Season 2 was released in December 2022, that was when I got to know about the show. I was quite surprised that Katherine Heigl, whom I loved in 27 Dresses and The Ugly Truth, and Sarah Chalke, whom I enjoyed watching in How I Met Your Mother, have come together to play best friends. Ah, my favourite kind of story—friendships!

I started watching the series, and in no time I was so invested that I recalled all of the moments I had with my best friend. If you have a best friend, this show will make you love them even more. Tully (Katherine) and Kate (Sarah) are Siamese twins who cannot be separated, but they do want to live separate lives. However, they are never ready to let go of each other and never will.

A series that only lasted two seasons had divided the final part into two. Season 2 Part 1 premiered on December 2, and the final episodes started streaming on Thursday. That's something Netflix has been pulling off with Money Heist and Stranger Things, but for a series like Firefly Lane, it has worked wonders.

I didn't want the series to end in any way, so watching fresh new episodes after almost five months warmed the cockles of my heart. Season 2 began with a mystery: Tully and Kate are not friends anymore after being together for three decades. During the course of the nine episodes, we get to know that Tully gets involved in an accident after a DUI, which puts Kate's daughter Marah's life in danger. Well, it comes as no surprise that this will lead to their friendship hitting a roadblock. But we get a new twist towards the end of Part 1: Kate has been diagnosed with an aggressive type of cancer that is spreading like wildfire.

You will just be jumping from one emotion to another as the narrative progresses and jumps from one timeline to another. Set in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, by the time we get to the second part of the second season, a new timeline is added, which is set in 2016. How much are we supposed to cry? Let alone that our tear ducts also refuse to dry. This crying emotion includes not only heartbreaking moments but also happy tears, which are too beautiful for words.

The 10th episode ends with a goosebump moment of Tully finally seeing her best friend after a year apart, and that too after she has become weakest and lost her hair. I had to wipe my tears to get onto the next episode, which is The Breast is Yet to Come. As the title sounds quirky, the episode becomes quirkier with a dash of heavy emotions. Kate goes from bra-stuffing to breastfeeding to battling breast cancer, and we see her love-hate relationship with this integral part of her body.

If the first part was Katherine Heigl all the way, Sarah Chalke shoulders the second part with the most shattering storyline and unforgettable performance. The actor is shown comfortable in her skin in the most palpable way, be it looking bald and beautiful, facing the ocean naked, or getting her face deeper and weaker while donning a pixie cut. Over the course of two seasons, we have seen Kate as an underconfident person who, no matter how much she believes she is a good person, falls into a murky pit.

One of the most hilarious moments in the series was when I laughed as I typed about Kate cheating on Theo with Johnny, and in the whole process of getting caught, Theo ends up losing one of his testicles. As she narrates the story to Tully, we both burst out into laughter at the same time. Simultaneously, we see a Romeo and Juliet play taking place in their high school, and the soulmates that Kate and Tully end up actually playing the titular characters.

Beau Garrett's outstanding performance as Cloud, who says that no matter what the problems are between them, they are never the result of outside factors, perfectly sums up their friendship and the entire series. They are so involved in each other's lives that they cannot function without each other and cannot even let each other in the whole time.

The end of Firefly Lane is predictable, but that doesn't stop you from getting wrecked. And how? We know that an end to a beautiful friendship has to be someone leaving for a heavenly abode, which is not far-fetched and has been witnessed in many stories based on friendship. The blame game continues, and with that comes the value we have for people who are not your family but are more than that, thus undefinable.

As the curtains closed, I realised that Firefly Lane proves that misjudgements by viewers can lead to defeat. We, as viewers, lost the battle, as an underrated Netflix gem has come to an end. And as usual, its value is understood after the ultimate end. There will be no other season, no other sassy and emotional moments with Katherine and Sarah. We lost, and I am back to crying buckets!

Who hasn't even watched Firefly Lane yet? I can't recommend you enough! We are in a dearth of good content, and it's time to eyeball the Netflix titles that are on your watchlist, give them a view, and regret their short lives.