The Mosquito Coast’s second season starts with a bang [Apple TV+ recap]

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The Mosquito Coast season 2 recap Apple TV+: Allie Fox (played by Justin Theroux) comes clean to the kids -- mostly -- in the season two premiere.★★★★☆
Allie Fox (played by Justin Theroux) comes clean to the kids -- mostly -- in the season two premiere.
Photo: Apple TV_

TV+ ReviewApple TV+ show Mosquito Coast returns Friday with more under-the-radar thrills. Based on the book by Paul Theroux and starring his nephew Justin as wanted criminal and escape artist Allie Fox, Mosquito Coast is about the many little compromises we make on our way to what we hope is a better life.

In the season two opener, Allie and his wife Margot reminisce about their past lives for their children Dina and Charlie, finally explaining why they’ve been living their lives on the run this whole time. And one telling lie means they’re still not really ready to be honest. It’s a solid return to form after last year’s stellar season finale.

Mosquito Coast recap: ‘The Damage Done’

Season 2, episodes 1: In this week’s premiere, entitled “The Damage Done,” Allie Fox (played by Justin Theroux), his wife Margot (Melissa George) and their kids Dina (Logan Polish) and Charlie (Gabriel Bateman) have evaded authorities, drug dealers, police and family thus far. But their troubles are only beginning.

As Allie finally confesses to his kids, 13 years ago he was an idealistic scientist and Margot was an English professor. He had developed a weather-prediction system based on the migration and flight patterns of birds. But before his presentation about it at a think tank for investors, he just wasn’t feeling it. He and Margot were fighting. She was dating other people — activist Richard (Ariyon Bakare), to be precise.

Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Richard wasn’t really just Margot’s boyfriend. They were planning to blow up a biotech lab. They filled a shop vac with a homemade bomb, but the day that they were going to do it, Allie showed up. He noticed the schematics for the lab in the kitchen when he was picking up Charlie and Dina. Margot told him to go away and mind his own business.

That day Allie learned that the people buying his software wanted to use it for Homeland Security. Mad and depressed, he did something a little rash. He went to the company that was going to buy him out and hacked into their database to see how much data they’d stolen from Americans already. He wanted to see what they were using his software for — but also to dig up dirt on Richard.

A plot and a counterplot

They stopped him before he could flee the building, and the head of security (Matt McCoy) interrogated him. Turns out, of course, he and Margot had a history of demonstrations that put him on several watch lists. (Margot got arrested a lot back in the day.)

The company tried to use that and his infraction against Allie, hoping to have him spy on Margot, but he obviously said no. Unfortunately, she was already delivering the bomb. Allie paid a hacker friend of his to completely destroy the software he invented. And then he went looking for Margot and Richard.

After they delivered the bomb, they saw someone driving into the building, having forgotten something at work. Margot tried and stop her, but it was too late. Richard drove off and Allie showed up, which meant he and Margot both showed up in the security footage after the bomb went off and the woman died. They went on the lam that day.

Allie only tells the kids the part about hacking the database, sparing them judgment of their mother. Margot’s not cool with the lie, but Allie is convinced this is the best thing for them. After all, they’re in Central America, they’ve escaped the law, things are gonna be different now, right? Right?!

A return to The Mosquito Coast, where everything’s a lie

The Mosquito Coast recap season two Apple TV+: Margot (played by Melissa George) isn't as innocent as she seems.
Margot (played by Melissa George) isn’t as innocent as she seems.
Photo: Apple TV+

Oh but it’s good to be back in Mosquito Coast’s world of traitors and criminals. I liked very much this little bit of backstory, because as much as it takes us out of the world of the series (and most showrunners would be in a hurry to pick things right back up, to remind the audience who they left behind in the intervening months), it’s still very much in keeping with the show’s central themes.

For the whole first season, Allie Fox kept afloat with white lies and huge, damning lies. So to go back and realize that this endless vacation the family has been on since the kids were still in diapers wasn’t entirely of his making is fascinating.

On the one hand, it’s clear that Allie enjoyed having A.) something over Margot after he’d spent so long losing everything and having no bargaining power in their separation and B.) a reason to start over with her, and to say “damn the system” at the same time.

Allie wasn’t, before Margot’s bombing, the kind of guy willing to break the law to make a point. But concern for her and the kids (and no little jealousy that he was being replaced by Richard) led him to take the first step. Seeing how far Margot was willing to go made him redouble his commitment to not being anyone’s pawn. Now he gets to live his life his way, and no one will stop him — not even his own family.

The Mosquito Coast season two opener conjures a very stark and stunning psychological profile. And it’s a joy to watch a guy whose neuroses and mendacity are on full display for us to examine, without being told how we need to feel about him. I can’t wait to see what else is in store this season.

★★★★☆

Watch Mosquito Coast on Apple TV+

The first episode of the second season of The Mosquito Coast premiered Friday. New episodes arrive on Apple TV+ every Friday.

Rated: TV-MA

Watch on: Apple TV+

Scout Tafoya is a film and TV critic, director and creator of the long-running video essay series The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Film Comment, The Los Angeles Review of Books and Nylon Magazine. He is the author of Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Form of Tobe Hooper, the director of 25 feature films, and the director and editor of more than 300 video essays, which can be found at Patreon.com/honorszombie.

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