‘Drops of God’ Season 2 Review: Mature and More Complex

The superb, globe-trotting wine drama “Drops of God” debuted in the spring of 2023, almost concurrently with the final season of “Succession.” On the one hand, the two series rhymed with fitting synchronicity; “Drops of God,” too, was driven by the question of which protagonist will take over the empire of a father figure who deeply damaged them. But on the other, the deafening noise produced by the acclaimed HBO drama — among a slew of simultaneous releases rushing into the gap between pandemic-era production shutdowns and impending strikes — initially drowned out a largely subtitled show distributed stateside by Apple TV, a relatively niche service where many series seem to fade into obscurity. Even I, a working television critic, didn’t catch up with “Drops of God” until months after its initial run concluded — to my great shame, because the eight-episode season became one of my favorites of that, or any, year.

Based on Tadashi Agi’s manga series of the same name and spearheaded by creator Quoc Dang Tran, “Drops of God” Season 1 was a near-perfect marriage of comics’ heightened, cartoon logic with the emotional nuance of flesh-and-blood reality. Protagonists Camille Léger (Fleur Geffrier) and Issei Tomine (Tomohisa Yamashita) were plunged into an objectively absurd situation, posthumously pitted against one another by Camille’s estranged father Alexandre (Stanley Weber) in a competition to determine who would inherit the renowned wine expert’s multimillion-dollar collection. (Challenges included such simple tasks as being asked to identify a singular wine from a painting inspired by the vintage.) Yet Geffrier and Yamashita’s performances imbued Camille and Issei, who come to understand they’re half-siblings due to Alexandre’s affair with Issei’s mother, with an intense and wounded humanity. As fantastical as their circumstances could seem, down to Camille’s synesthesia that allows her to identify tasting notes by positioning them in a “Sherlock”-like mind palace and gives new meaning to the term “supertaster,” she and Issei were perfectly legible as people.

Season 2 arrives almost three years after Camille, who technically won the contest, sent Issei half of Alexandre’s cellar as an olive branch with a note reading “brother and sister.” It was a lovely grace note and a satisfying conclusion, sending audiences out the door with a smile. A second installment, with director Oded Ruskin and producer Klaus Zimmermann returning but a new writing team taking over from Tran, risks retroactively undoing the pleasure of a finite, well-executed ending. Season 1 had an ideal structure in the trio of obstacles engineered by Alexandre, dovetailing with Camille and Issei’s dawning acceptance of each other as allies instead of enemies. But if Season 2 can’t match that perfect marriage of style and substance, it’s also an opportunity to spend more time in the arcane, obsessive world of wine enthusiasts — and follow Camille and Issei into the complicated reality that often comes after a happy ending. Like the beverage its characters have built their life around, “Drops of God” gets more multifaceted and mature with age.

Bad news first: “Drops of God” Season 2 features another high-profile wine competition, another brother and sister at odds thanks to their late father’s subpar parenting and another Alexandre assignment from beyond the grave. Such instances of repetition can’t help feeling like fainter echoes of the original, especially when Season 2 doesn’t deliver the same thrill of discovery as its predecessor. Yet extending the story also has its advantages. When it’s not trying to recreate the past, “Drops of God” follows Camille and Issei into a future left wide open by their new fortunes. The siblings and their struggles prove more than worth revisiting, even if the delivery device isn’t as immaculately designed.

Season 2 also seizes on an obvious opportunity. “Drops of God” is initially Camille’s show; we meet Issei through her eyes, as an impassive and intimidating foe, then only warm to him as she does. This time, it’s Issei’s turn in the spotlight. Despite Camille’s gift, losing the competition and learning his true paternity have done a number on the young man, who can’t simply turn off his competitive instincts overnight. To cope, he’s turned to free-diving, flirting with the void by diving into caves off the coasts of Okinawa and Marseille. (Season 2 ups the ante even further on jaw-dropping locations, toggling between Japan and Europe with an interlude in the Caucasus in between.) While Issei’s stayed in touch with Camille, he also resents her for securing his withholding mentor’s ultimate approval. And he’s jealous of what he deems her “visions,” pursuing his own communion with the divine by staying underwater until he nearly drowns.

Camille, for her part, is consumed by proving she’s nothing like her brilliant, cruel, controlling dad. She’s settled down with her partner Thomas (Tom Woznickza) to co-run his family winery in the south of France, updating the producer’s techniques to keep up with the realities of climate change. (The rest of her inheritance, Alexandre’s authoritative Léger Guide, has been delegated to friends who oversee its day-to-day operation.) But when a bottle of wine Alexandre reserved for his “true heir” turns up, along with instructions to do what he could not and track down the red’s mysterious provenance, Camille’s resulting fixation — shared with Issei — reveals she’s more like their father than she’d like to admit. This nepo baby doth protest a little too much.

It doesn’t take Issei and Camille long to make their way to Georgia (the birthplace of wine!), where Tamar Abashidze (Ia Shugliashvili) presides over a small vineyard that mostly supplies a local monastery. Tamar’s tiny enterprise is endangered by an inheritance dispute with her brother Davit (Tornike Gogrichiani), a businessman who wants to erase the family legacy to settle some childhood scores. But Tamar and Davit’s dysfunction never becomes more than a mirror for Issei and Camille’s, and the middle stretch of Season 2 is the slowest as the show hovers in place to focus on their feud.

Issei and Camille don’t really need new foils, though; they already have the perfect one in each other. “Drops of God” forsakes much of the surreal imagery of last season, including nearly any return trips to Camille’s mind palace, to embrace a more grounded mood. With Alexandre gone, Issei works up the courage to confront his mother Honoka (Makiko Watanabe), a wealthy heiress whose virulent antipathy toward wine he now understands. Meanwhile, Camille’s headstrong determination proves a double-edged sword, driving a wedge between her and Thomas as she throws herself into this latest quest. By continuing to outline their lasting emotional damage, “Drops of God” demonstrates that overcoming one’s issues isn’t as simple as acing an assignment. The show is undermining its own happy ending, but with intention and in a way that’s true to life.

Geffrier and Yamashita are both captivating screen presences who project a determination that’s almost contagious. You don’t need to be a wine enthusiast — I’m not! — to take vicarious pleasure in expertise, heritage and pure, sensual pleasure. (France and Japan are two different, distant countries, but “Drops of God” celebrates their shared interest in epicurean greatness.) In bringing Camille and Issei to life, the two actors have helped build a world that’s worth the return trip, even one that’s a little less exciting and more downbeat than the maiden voyage.

The first episode of “Drops of God” Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Wednesdays.