The second season of The Promised Neverland is 11 episodes long. The first season took place at the orphanage (known as the House to the children), where they discovered a horrifying secret. As a result, they managed to make a daring escape, but now they are in the wide open world, and the scope massively expands. It’s all uncharted territory here, and as expected, the second season is completely different given that the children are not confined to a small area anymore with only the one purpose of escape.
Mainly following Emma and Ray, the two eldest, and smartest, members of the children who had escaped, they are now trekking through the forest with the demons as their pursuers. They’re well prepared with food and clothing, but woefully unprepared for what lies outside given it was impossible for them to find out. As a result, everything they see is new, and the same goes for the viewers. This season lacks the tense creepier atmosphere of the first but amps up the mystery and intrigue.
Surprisingly, there are several big revelations early on. The children find out more about the world that they live in and what had caused it. Their knowledge was that it was a relatively peaceful world, so how did it come to be like this? The answer isn’t going to be mind-blowing but it is a good enough explanation to keep things going. It continues with the theme of characters not being who they visibly are, having secrets and other motivations.
You’ll probably wonder how the children are going to survive, and how they are going to ever return to stage a massive recovery operation to save the rest of their brothers and sisters that they had to leave behind. Naturally, they get some help, they get to learn how to survive out here, and they get to learn how everything works. However again, not everything is as it seems and it gets to the point where as the viewer, you will always be paranoid about every little thing that the children comes into contact with.
The various teases that it made in the first season are revealed in full by the middle of the season. It does feel a bit quick as a result, and it wasn’t a surprise when it happened. The surprise will be the how. This worldbuilding is the best part of the season. There are a lot of information presented and it takes a while for the viewer to digest and then realize the implications. From how the currently society works to the ramifications of what they are doing.
The pacing is fast with the season never stopping in one place for long. That’s the other surprising thing, the first season had slow pacing for the most part but here, if you thought it was going to dwell on the characters spending time in the forest and slowly gaining their feet, then think again. Time passes fast, and so we never get to see how the characters slowly adapt. As soon as they find a safe place, they need to move on to their next objective. This can make it feel like it’s glossing over several important elements, until you realize that it did this in order to focus on even more important elements.
Emma is a relatively simple character. She and Ray doesn’t really change too much in terms of personality and their morals. Both can be naïve and idealistic but that is what makes them likeable. Other characters though… they’re harder to understand. It’s a guess at their motivations which does mean that some characters felt like they’ve suddenly changed personalities or lost their morals.
Surprisingly, the season wraps up the whole story, hence when it ended up rushing things so much in the last few episodes. In the process, there are an enormous number of plot holes. It swings too much to the idealistic side to the point of stupidity and not caring whether it made sense or not. It introduced elements that does not feel like they belonged to the world, clashing with what we already know. It wraps it up by trying to have the same big emotional impact as the first season’s finale, but it fails on all counts just because it did not take the time to properly set things up. It ends up being quite disappointing and the reason for this is that the studio decided to go on their own and not follow the manga at all, cutting many plot developments, hence the shift in tone and direction.
Overall, the second season of The Promised Neverland had a lot of promise. It carries it at first in the first few episodes. Unfortunately, it then decides to fast forward everything, where it jumps from place to place, rushing all the way to the ending. It’s a weird decision to do this, given that it is so unsatisfying and the change in direction and drop in quality was very noticeable. Characters change personalities and motivations on a whim, and it takes on not only an overly idealistic direction but also something very stupid. It’s a shame that the series was ruined in such a way, it’s better to think that this season never existed at all.
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