REVIEW: ‘I Hate Christmas’ Season 2 Highlights The Messiness Of Love

The holiday season can spark different feelings in people. Some associate it with joy, while others associate it with dread. For Gianna (Pilar Fogliati), Christmas became synonymous with endless questioning about her lack of a romantic partner from her family. In the last season of I Hate Christmas (Odio il Natale), we were left with a cliffhanger surrounding who Gianna saw at the door of her parents’s home Christmas night. Now, in I Hate Christmas Season 2, we get answers to all our questions, and Gianna finally learns what love means. But first, plenty of mistakes must be made.

Part of the frustration and joy in I Hate Christmas Season 2 is in how messy almost all of the characters are, including our leading lady. If viewers have made it past season one, the characters still remain hit or miss, depending on what each viewer brings with their watch. Insecure and immature, Gianna is an embarrassment and frequently self-sabotages.

Admittedly, she was like this last season, but with the collapse of her parents’ marriage, her older sister Margherita’s (Fiorenza Pieri) marriage, and overhearing her boyfriend, Umberto (Glen Blackhall), discussing presenting a gift to Gianna at her family’s dinner, the self-sabotage kicks into high gear. Making things super cringy from the start of the season, Gianna has a long way to go to make her bearable to viewers this time around.

Margherita and Gianna’s friend, Titti (Beatrice Arnera), are not as cringy but still incredibly imperfect. Last season, after complaining non-stop about her husband’s lack of attention and care, Margherita cheated on him. In I Hate Christmas Season 2, Margherita is determined to proceed with the divorce, while her husband (Tommaso Basili) desperately tries to convince her to stay. For her, it’s realizing what their love was originally like and why they eventually fell out of sync.

Titti has less developmental growth than the other major characters this season, but we do learn more about her. She’s a former choir girl who spent years shaping herself into the chicest woman. But, likely due to the impact left by her high school boyfriend, she doesn’t stay long in relationships. In I Hate Christmas Season 2, she learns through the mouths of babes, so to speak, that her aversion to anything uncool comes from a place of hurt. However, as arguably the more mysterious woman of the friend trio, it’s a shame we don’t get to spend as much time digging deep into her life compared to Gianna and Margherita.

New characters in the series help Gianna grow, forcing her to see how her approach to all things has been wrong the entire time, but also to teach her what love means. Introducing a new neighbor, Filippo (Pierpaolo Spollon), presents the friend and companion she never knew she needed. Filippo is a widowed father who has spent the past fifteen years raising his daughter, Monica (Chiara Bono), by himself. The experience of raising his daughter has taught him many different life lessons, which allows him to share his wisdom with Gianna. His words and those of other past lovers come together to sink in and make her see what she is truly missing.

Part of the appeal of I Hate Christmas was that Gianna had developed this deep-seated dread over what the holiday entailed for her every season. The animosity towards the holidays is lost this season, defeating the original thesis that the series started with. Instead, for Gianna, Christmas, particularly the focus on keeping with the annual holiday dinner tradition, becomes the focal point of I Hate Christmas Season 2. Instead of hate, the emotional focus turns into preservation. Maintaining the traditions that kept Christmas feeling like, well, Christmas becomes essential for Gianna when all else feels lost.

Ending on a tone of finality, there’s unlikely to be another season greenlit for this holiday-themed comedy series. But, under its messy characters, embarrassing moments, and uncomfortable conversations, I Hate Christmas Season 2 reminds us that in order to take care of others, we must also take care of ourselves. And, in order to find love, we should not conform to what others expect from us. If someone loves you and you love them, all walls tumble down, creating something so magical that you can even see Santa’s sleigh.

With plenty of bumps and bruises along the way, I Hate Christmas Season 2 can be an uncomfortable viewing based on how you digest Gianna. But, as far as protagonists go, she still remains delightfully human and reminds us that the journey to finding love and figuring out life is complicated and messy. Regardless of whether or not we have our s*** together.

I Hate Christmas Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.