Starstruck Season 2 review: Charming, witty and delightful
Review Overview
Rom
9Com
9Likeability
9Sophie Davies | On 07, Feb 2022
Warning: This contains spoilers for Season 1. Not seen it? Read our spoiler-free review here.
Season 1 of Starstruck began with “little rat nobody” Jessie (Rose Matafeo) having a one-night-stand with, unbeknownst to her, famous actor Tom Kapoor (Nikesh Patel). After almost a year of flirty friendship and will-they-won’t-they tension, they finally decided to make a go of it… at the point when Jessie was just about to leave London for good and move back home to New Zealand.
The second season picks up exactly where the first left off – with Jessie and Tom at the back of a bus à la The Graduate, silently passing the stop she needed to make her flight – and it goes on to explore the aftermath of this choice. Many a rom-com has ended with someone taking a big, spontaneous leap for the sake of love, but what happens next?
First of all, Jessie has to face up to the real consequences of the “crazy decision” she’s made. There’s the wasted money of the flight to consider, the gluten-free meal she ordered in advance and the plans she had to watch Dunkirk. Not to mention the fact that her parents paid for her flight and have already made up the spare room for her arrival. Tom assures her that it’ll all be ok and they can still watch Dunkirk. “On the ground?” is her exasperated response. “In a house?”
An awkward day ensues, in which the pair umm and ah over where they should go from here. Jessie keeps putting off returning to the flat she left that very morning and facing the reaction of best friend Kate (Emma Sidi). Meanwhile, Tom is also under pressure from his stressed, slightly scary agent (Minnie Driver) to get to Ireland for a film shoot that’s starting the next day.
Starstruck has never really romanticised the idea of dating a celebrity and Season 2 does an excellent job of showing what the realities of the situation might be now that Jessie and Tom are together. There’s naturally a bit of a culture clash, since he’s a rich movie star with a stylish house (Jessie wrongly assumes that he hasn’t moved in most of his stuff yet), while she lives in a shared flat in Hackney. When he throws a party, she finds herself surrounded by posh, glamorous people who are “either called Ebenezer or Chlorophyll” and keep mistaking her for a waiter because she’s shown up wearing a tux.
It’s clear that Tom doesn’t feel embarrassed by her in any way, but Jessie is noticeably uncomfortable in his world. A fun caricature of the two of them looks just as out of place in his minimalist home as she feels.
Later, other obstacles to the relationship emerge in the form of Jessie’s ex, Ben (Ed Easton), worming his way back into her life, and her commitment-phobic habits frustrating Tom. We also get to see more of Tom away from Jessie this season, as he struggles with an acting job under a difficult director (Russell Tovey) and spends Christmas with his parents, who don’t have much interest in his acting career and seem more impressed by his insufferable surgeon brother (Parth Thakrekar).
In following this new stage of Jessie and Tom’s relationship, Starstruck proves to be just as compelling and likeable as it was before. Matafeo and Patel have an easy chemistry with each other and their dialogue hits the right balance of being witty without feeling fake or overwritten. The dynamic between Matafeo and Sidi feels just as natural (perhaps because they happen to be real-life best friends too) and Al Roberts continues to steal scenes as Kate’s awkward boyfriend. Jessie’s wider circle of friends, including Alice Snedden and Nic Sampson (co-writers of Starstruck with Matafeo), are also so funny that it feels like a real treat when they show up sporadically throughout the show.
As for Matafeo herself, she’s still the perfect lead – charming, relatable and easy to root for. By the time Season 2 reaches its punch-the-air climax (via tension at Crazy Golf and a heart-to-heart at laser tag), you’ll be desperate to spend more time with her in the delightful world she’s created.
Starstruck Season 2 premieres on BBC Three at 10pm on Monday 7th February 2022, with all episodes available at once on BBC iPlayer.