‘Minx’ Season 2 review: Bringing their A game to the adult entertainment business once more

In Minx Season 2, fashion, feminism and fun are back for a second round as Ophelia Lovibond’s Joyce and Jake Johnson’s Doug deal with the perils and pitfalls of success 

In the first episode of the second season of Minx, the wonderfully titled ‘The Perils of Being a Wealthy Widow’, Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond) is being courted by publishers, while the erstwhile publisher of Minx, the erotic magazine for women, Doug (Jake Johnson) is trying desperately to keep his company, The Bottom Dollar, afloat.

He tells Joyce that Constance (Elizabeth Perkins), a tough businesswoman who was eased out of the shipping business she built with her husband, is the right publisher for Minx. Constance, who has survived assassination attempts, starts off as a silent partner, but her increasing say in the direction Minx has to take causes all the stakeholders to question their motives and goals.

There is everything to like in the second season of this workplace comedy that just happens to be set in 1970s Los Angeles in the adult entertainment industry. With great success comes great responsibility. Though Doug tells Joyce, “It is just the two of us, only our clothes got better,” Joyce knows it is not true.

Having achieved her dream, of a magazine with “a real point of view”; “politics, culture, sexuality”, Joyce feels it will be snatched away from her unless she agrees to everyone’s suggestions. She suffers from imposter syndrome, feeling like she does not deserve all this success, however much the people around tell her she is just where she is meant to be.

Doug feels he is being made redundant as Constance nixes all his ideas, Richie gets no job satisfaction and Joyce does not allow him to try different things. Bambi needs to find herself rather than be the Bambi everyone expects her to be and Tina needs to choose herself over all the others clamouring for her time and attention.

Joyce’s sister, Shelley (Lennon Parham), is exploring her wild side in the ‘burbs with her affectionate orthodontist husband, Lenny (Rich Sommer). The celebrity cameos from journalist, Joan Didion (Samantha Sloyan), and astrophysicist, Carl Sagan (Josh Fadem), to rocker, Linda Ronstadt (Caroline Arapoglou), and photographer, Annie Leibovitz are fun and cease just before they get tedious. Needle drops are par for the course and it is fun to revisit all those ‘70s campus favourites.

Well written, shod and acted, Minx offers the best kind of fun and frolic. From the episode titles (‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sexiness’, ‘A stately pleasure dome decree’, thanks ST Coleridge) to the insane shenanigans including a mad dash for the reels of Deep Throat and a watch party for a tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, there are pleasures aplenty in this hip, hectic show. Go Joyce go.