Mother and Son S2 review: healthy relationships are death for comedy

Rebooting Mother and Son was never going to be an easy job.

The original was a classic featuring a pair of Australia’s best actors giving brilliant performances; it also mined the antics of a possibly senile old woman for laughs. That’s some serious obstacles, and any revival was always going to struggle to even come close to the original. But does the new version need to struggle quite so much?

To start with the good news, Denise Scott is easily the best thing here and series creator, writer, and co-star Matt Okine has realised that the more she has to do, the funnier this is. He’s still playing his usual manchild character, devoted to vapes and video games – only now he’s trying for a career in freelance journalism, which goes a long way towards explaining why he’s still living with his mum. But increasingly it’s Scott that’s driving the comedy side of things, and it’s a better show for it.

Mother and Son: promising start

Things get off to a promising start in the first episode, when Maggie (Scott) falls for a dodgy activities manager-slash-‘fun captain’ (Mark Lee) at the resort where the family is hoping for the holiday of a lifetime.

Arthur (Okine) tries to put a stop to things and wacky mix-ups involving dick pics and pickleball ensue: it’s the kind of situation that should highlight how the pair care for each other while still being bad for each other, even if the actual comedy is stuff like Arthur getting hit in the eye with fried Japanese food. Eyepatches are always funny, right?

Mother and Son: more is less

Unfortunately, adding new characters doesn’t really add anything new to the comedy. Bitchy sister Robbie (Angela Nica Sullen) remains good value, but the series is constantly bringing in new faces – Arthur continues to be something of a ladies man – who mostly serve to water down the central relationship rather than show us their connection from a fresh angle.

To be fair, having Jean Kitson return as Maggie’s old nursing buddy Heather is a highlight; throw Arthur under a Bondi tram, have Heather move in full time, and suddenly we’ve got a much more enjoyable comedy on our hands.

And there are other episodes that seem to have figured out what works. A later instalment built around Maggie’s not-so-secret nest egg (and her children’s attempts to separate it from her) is a solid plot, and the episode where a pair of busted wrists puts Arthur in Maggie’s hands manages to tease some actual co-dependency – until it’s shunted aside in favour of a plot where Maggie deals with some bitchy knitters.

Over and over promising plot lines and humorous situations are undercut by a steady stream of uninspired physical comedy and jokes that constantly edge towards the cartoony. Which would be fine if this was an entirely different sitcom, but for a comedy titled Mother and Son, the actual relationship between the mother and the son is about as deep as the oldies pool Arthur is splashing around in during the first episode.

Mother and Son: the basics are there

The basics are there. Maggie is often off in her own world and she can’t be bothered communicating clearly with Arthur; that’s a good start. Arthur is constantly frustrated that he has to be dealing with his mother instead of living his life: again, a strong grounding for comedy.

Every time we see the life he wants to be living it’s kind of pathetic, which tips the scales back in Maggie’s favour. And simply putting the tall Okine and the short Scott together in a scene can get a laugh.

Yet despite that solid set-up, there’s never any real sense that these characters need each other. Maggie mostly seems fairly capable, Arthur is constantly looking for a girlfriend he can latch on to. The sense that Maggie was slyly manipulating things to keep Arthur under her thumb drove the original but rarely gets a look-in here; when Maggie does go for the heartstrings, Arthur often seems immune.

Nagging aside, this mother and son relationship seems basically healthy, which is nice for them but death for comedy.

The original was hardly bleak psychological drama, but it did strive for a certain kind of realism. Here the zany mix-ups, physical injuries (Arthur hurts himself pretty much every episode) and shouting – the second episode, which is partly based around Maggie’s hearing loss, is comedy gold if you think talking loudly makes jokes funnier – aren’t trying to deflect from or highlight the underlying emotions, because there aren’t really any.

They’re just there to make you laugh.

Or not.

Mother and Son Season 2 premieres 24 September on ABC at 8.30pm, with all episodes available to stream on ABC iview.

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