In the second season of The Reluctant Traveler, Eugene Levy is going to journey from one of the northernmost points in Europe to one of the southernmost points, continuing to meet people and do things outside his comfort zone. Never a big traveler or someone who likes to try new things, Levy is finding out some things about himself by traveling at the ripe age of 76 (at the time he filmed the second season; he turned 77 in December). He’s even a bit less reluctant in the show’s second season, but no less funny.
Opening Shot: After an intro that shows Eugene Levy going through the airport, and reluctantly saying his first season travels opened up his outlook “to a degree,” we see him standing among a row of red-clad houses in the northern part of Sweden.
The Gist: Levy starts his European trip in Gammelstad, Sweden, only 30 miles from the Arctic Circle. He’s there to observe and participate in the celebration of Midsummer, a festival that happens during the time when the sun doesn’t set for days in that part of the world. He’s taken by boat down the river to the Arctic Bath, a luxury hotel that includes a circular spa with a plunge pool in the middle. His bungalow is all windows with some vertical blinds that barely keep the light out, which Levy thinks might be a problem when he tries to sleep.
He goes back into town to talk to two people who participate in the town’s Midsummer festival, including the creation of a flower-covered maypole, which they openly say is there as a phallic symbol. It doesn’t take long for Levy to figure out that a lot of kids are born in the northern part of Sweden nine months after each Midsummer festival.
Levy bakes bread with Jane, the mother of his guide Jessica; he tries to spot a moose with a woodsman named Michael; and kayaks down the river to a cookout along the shore. Then he goes with Jessica to the town’s Midsummer festival, ironically in a constant rain. He tries to “go with the flow,” which is the Swedish philosophy that he learned from Michael while calling moose, which allows him to really get into the joy that everyone in town seems to have as they dance around the phallic maypole.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Reluctant Traveler is a funnier, kvetchier version of shows like Somebody Feed Phil or Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy.
Our Take: The main difference between the first and second seasons of The Reluctant Traveler is that Levy is a little less reluctant in the new season. The travel he did during the first season opened him up to new experiences, no matter how begrudging he is to admit it, and he now knows that the experiences he’ll have during this European journey will outweigh whatever inconveniences he has.
It certainly feels like Levy’s reluctance is played now more for comedic effect than anything else. Of course, there are small moments during his journeys where he feels some mild annoyance, like when he swats at one of the 47 different types of mosquitoes that fly around in Northern Sweden during the summer or he sips at some strong Scotch whisky during the second episode in Scotland. For the most part, though, Levy seems genuinely ready to experience the joy of travel in the second season, entertaining the people he’s around with his dry, self-directed wit.
That second episode, in Scotland, is especially interesting because he looks into his mother’s origins there. Before she moved to Canada with her family when she was 13, Levy’s mother’s family had migrated from Poland to Glasgow, living in a neighborhood of tenements where 11 people slept in a two-bedroom apartment. It was an interesting look at how Levy starts to feel at home in Scotland — somewhere he’s never been, despite him knowing his mother’s background — the more he finds out about his mother and her family. He even tries some Scotch that’s to his liking.
It’s those kinds of personal insights, ones that Levy is discovering in his golden years after a celebrated entertainment career and a fulfilling life as a family man, that give all of us hope that you can do new things and learn more about yourself at any age.
Sex and Skin: Besides the phallic maypole, which is more abstractly phallic than anything else, there is none.
Parting Shot: Like in every episode, we see Levy pick up his prop suitcase, covered in destination stickers, and walk away from the camera, supposedly to his next destination.
Sleeper Star: We didn’t even notice that Michael’s hands had no fingers until Levy met him and some of the other people he met in town at the riverside cookout. This is a guy that’s a veteran woodsman with some pretty decent survivalist instincts. Impressive.
Most Pilot-y Line: We’re not sure what the prop suitcase is all about, given that it’s tiny and very retro. Are we supposed to believe that Levy actually uses that during his travels?
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Reluctant Traveler With Eugene Levy finds the comedy legend less reluctant, than he was during the show’s first season. But the series is still entertaining, mainly because Levy is so self-deprecatingly funny and because we love seeing him discovering all of these new things in his later years.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.