SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for St. Denis Medical Season 2, Episodes 1 and 2.

NBC struck gold last season with St. Denis Medical, the latest in the network’s history of mockumentaries. The show’s Season 2 premiere, consisting of two back-to-back episodes, proves that it’s just as good the second time around. “Aloha, Everyone” and “Mama Bear Activated” are two very different installments, but they share common strengths and of course, a still first-class cast.

St. Denis Medical is naturally compared to The Office and Parks & Recreation because of the network it’s on; NBC is even using that in its Season 2 ads, and about to pair the show with the Office spinoff The Paper. But what makes this series successful is that it doesn’t strictly follow in the footsteps of those shows. It’s found a pretty good balance between absurd humor and genuine moments, while not overusing the mockumentary format.

It’s a smart decision to do a back-to-back premiere, because “Aloha, Everyone” is mostly setting the stage for Season 2. The bulk of the plot is catchng viewers up on what happened to the characters since the end of Season 1. Joyce spent the massive donation that St. Denis got at the gala to build a new birthing center (because by Episode 2 she’s back to saying there’s no money in the budget). This provides most of the humor, because she’s trying to make it look perfect, then imperfect in repeated attempts to appease the donor.

But when the dust settles, the best scene is the heart-to-heart between Joyce and Alex, whose happy vibes from her vacation have been predictably destroyed. Joyce is despondent because the birthing center was her idea, so she can’t blame any issues on the prior hospital administration. Wendi McLendon-Covey plays the moment really well; there’s a great laugh when Joyce compares it to her childhood birthday parties, but at the same time, it’s clear that she really does care. And that little bit of emotion is important in balancing out all of Joyce’s other zany behaviors—which are particularly on display in “Mama Bear Activated” when she tries to offer self-defense tips she’s made up.

That episode starts with Dr. Bruce Schweitz being attacked in the hospital parking lot, and once again Josh Lawson is thrown a very random idea and runs with it. His attacker is eventually revealed to be a goose; the end scene of Joyce in the parking lot trying to scare off the whole flock of them with just an air horn is St. Denis Medical‘s best gag of the night. But Lawson is fantastic in showing how such a random thing immediately collapses Bruce’s ego. And it’s a total 180 from his bluster in the premiere, when Bruce feels he’s being upstaged by a patient (as played by NBA star Draymond Green, who does well in a brief role).

Yet again, St. Denis Medical uses outlandish and sometimes even childish humor on top of a grain of truth. “Mama Bear Activated” brings up the very real issue of violence against health care workers. The show’s writers are consistently able to start from a realistic place, and then find a way to make that bigger and more ridiculous to find humor. It’s never just throwing jokes around to see what sticks. And just as importantly, the scripts don’t then forget about these topics simply because they’ve gotten to the funny part. The episode still takes the problem seriously, particularly through the person of Alex (a spot-on Allison Tolman)—it just adds humor by making her attempt to draw attention to the issue self-destruct once she finds out what really happened to Bruce. Tolman, McLendon-Covey and Lawson all coming together in the scene with a local news reporter is a perfect triple act that just stacks ridiculous on top of ridiculous.

St. Denis Medical Season 2 is off to an excellent start. The cast is stacked with comedy professionals, so the only question was if the writers could continue to deliver them good material. While the first episode is a little exposition-heavy, when the two installments are taken together, they drop viewers right back into the middle of the chaos. They also remind viewers why they want to be there.

St. Denis Medical airs Mondays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.