Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 is your typical Netflix slop, only with more vibrant colors. Like its first season, the second puts you into hibernation mode with its self-satisfied parade of machines, carnage, and second-rate sorrow. Season 2 is marketed as a new standalone story, which means you don't need to watch Season 1 to enjoy the latest ten episodes. But then, why waste your precious time watching either season when you can play Cyberpunk 2077 on PC and consoles? The game is vastly superior to this slop. You are unlikely to tire of spending hours in Night City as a playable character. The same cannot be said of Edgerunners, though, where one or, at most, two episodes are enough to turn you off. As with the first season, the longer I watched Season 2, the more I felt my mind—and, indeed, my entire worldview—closing in on itself. Every thought, every idea, seemed to be driven out of my head, leaving me numbed by the show's coherently incoherent assault of garish images.
What's funny, almost ironic, is that Edgerunners 2 speaks of the value and virtues of cinema while looking down on braindance, or BD (a technology that allows you to record and play back someone's experiences). Yet the show itself, with its forgettable story and tinsel tears, ends up doing a grave injustice to the romantic notion of movies it apparently celebrates and cherishes. That thin romanticism is matched by its equally thin conception of a good boy and aspiring cinephile named Roman Carax (Momoka Terasawa), who mostly views Night City through the lens of his camera. Roman is supposed to be a talented young filmmaker, but the footage he records and edits looks remarkably ordinary and conventional. The show insists that he is gifted, yet its only apparent attempt to demonstrate this involves softening and mellowing the images whenever we see the world through his camera. The effect is less an illustration of his talent than a cosmetic trick designed to make his footage look artistic. It's about as convincing as expecting us to believe that Roman's father never tells him to pick up a book.
Are there no schools in Night City? If there aren't, was Roman homeschooled? If so, why has his homeschooling stopped now? Does his father have a job? Are they struggling financially? Is that why Roman has to work for a man who pays him peanuts? A quick Google search tells me that Roman is 12 years old. Are there no child labor laws in this world? Edgerunners 2 remains mum. All it's willing to reveal is that Roman loves movies and has the potential to become a great documentary or narrative filmmaker. But it gives us little sense of how he thinks about his craft. What, according to him, makes for a good composition? How does he understand editing? Which filmmakers or films inspire him, and how do their influences manifest in his work? Given the praise he receives for his videos, he should have something to say about these questions. He is, after all, not supposed to be an amateur.
And yet, he comes across as precisely that: an amateur whose primary skill seems to be pointing his camera at whatever he needs to record. At one point, Roman films a series of videos for a friend, D (Koki Uchiyama), that end up inciting riots against the people of Arasaka. How does Roman understand the power of his images, particularly when they produce such dangerous consequences? What ethical questions does he wrestle with? Does he feel terrified of his own talent, or does he even recognize it as something that demands responsibility? These are precisely the questions that could give Roman an inner life and turn his filmmaking into something more than a plot device. But Edgerunners 2 sidesteps them all. It is content to tell us that Roman is gifted without exploring what that gift means to him, how he understands it, or how it might change him. The result is a character whose supposed artistic promise remains largely abstract. The show, unfortunately, is just as committed to remaining unimaginative, narrow-minded, and superficial. It's a piece of metallic junk that leaves you paralyzed with tedium. Apart from Roman, there is D (Koki Uchiyama), a netrunner seeking revenge; Talia (Akari Kitō), a rebellious daughter addicted to augmenting her body with cyberware; Weak Kingsley (Kentaro Tone), a veteran edgerunner; and several other characters who shouldn't be discussed here, as doing so would mean giving away spoilers. It's better to meet them firsthand, especially if you're a fan.
None of these characters, however, really does or says anything that could be described as "surprising," "wonderful," or "awesome." The show's visual style is partly to blame. Its cluttered compositions, clashing colors, and relentless sensory assault make Night City feel less like a place to inhabit than a succession of images competing for your attention. The result is paradoxical: the more the show tries to overwhelm you with its futuristic spectacle, the less immersed you become in its world. Nor does the visual chaos allow for meaningful contrasts between quiet and violent moments. Every scene seems to be in a mad rush, leaving little room for stillness, reflection, or the gradual accumulation of tension. When everything is turned up to eleven, nothing feels particularly intense. The overall effect is to leave you simultaneously numbed and overwhelmed by the visual assault of Edgerunners. The game, by contrast, makes Night City feel like a world worth inhabiting and its technological advancements worth admiring.
Consequently, the weepy sentimentality at the end, reminiscent of Season 1, fails to tug at your heartstrings or bring tears to your eyes. I yawned. I didn't care who was being separated from whom or who would live or die beyond the confines of the final episode. But when the show ended, I did wonder whether Roman would grow up to make something like this second season of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Or perhaps this is Roman's Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Did the footage he recorded end up on Netflix's desk? Now, that's a mildly interesting thought. More importantly, it reinforces the impression that Roman has barely evolved as a recorder and assembler of images. He is still an amateur, which, I think, makes him a perfect fit for creating streaming-service slop. If Roman really is a good boy, he won't bore us with a third season.
Final Score - [1/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times