14 Shows That Went from Good to Great in Season 2

It's no secret that some TV shows, even good ones, can lose their luster after the first season. It's commonplace for a series to come out swinging, earn a renewal, and then not be able to recapture the magic that made them interesting in the first place. On the other hand, there are also quite a few series which enjoyed the opposite effect, starting out fine enough but then blowing everyone away with the follow-up run.

When it comes to the shows in this gallery, they were all more than decent at the outset but became fully realized and incredible additions to this Peak TV landscape in their second years.

While Season 1's "Tracy Does Conan" is often thought of as 30 Rock's first great episode, Season 2 is when Tina Fey and Robert Carlock's workplace comedy came into its own. In its second go-around, 30 Rock was more self-assured and character-driven, embracing the bizarre humor it became known for. Season 2 laid the groundwork for themes that recurred through the end of the series, like Liz's (Fey) ham-fisted attempts at having it all (in one episode, she stuffs a sandwich into her mouth at TSA check while trying to catch up with her ex-boyfriend) and Jack's (Alec Baldwin) career crisis. It's rare to look at a season of TV and think, "Wow, every single episode is good," but that's just the way it is: Thanks to the 2007-2008 writers' strike, 30 Rock had a shortened season, meaning they had to make every moment count. And, by the hammer of Thor, they did. - Allison Picurro

We'll be the first to admit that The 100 took a minute to find its footing, but by the end of Season 1, it was a solid show. Then, in Season 2, everything just seemed to click for some reason! The stakes were higher than ever, the storytelling moved at a breakneck pace, and it became impossible not to watch this show every week. Most of that can be attributed to spending more time on world-building, creating a vivid (and sometimes incredibly dark) picture that grabbed the audience and didn't let go. - Lindsay MacDonald

Alias had an excellent premise from the jump (don't even get us started on how excellent this show's pilot episode was), and Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) instantly became an iconic female lead. It's hard to pick out exactly what made Season 2 so amazing, but we'd definitely start with the addition of Sydney's mother, as well as the takedown of SD-6 and the Alliance. While Alias, unfortunately, became one of those series where you couldn't miss an episode without being totally lost, it also ensured you'd rather cut off your own limbs than miss an hour of this show. - Lindsay MacDonald

Black Mirror's second season is only three episodes long (gotta love British TV!) but it starts off strong with one of the strongest episodes of the show's history, "Be Right Back," about a woman who creates an android version of her deceased boyfriend. That would almost be enough to solidify it as a perfect season of television, but with the unforgettably tense "White Bear" and the cautionary tale that is "The Waldo Moment," the anthology series allowed itself to double down on what it's best at: exploring the intersection of humanity and technology. - Allison Picurro

If Community's first season established what the comedy was setting out to do, Season 2 leaned into its most delightfully bizarre sensibilities. Every episode sought out to heighten what was done in the one before -- in one, the characters accidentally create a mini zombie apocalypse; in another, a Pulp Fiction spoof becomes a My Dinner with Andre reboot. It brought lightning-fast jokes, endless pop culture references, and pulled off ambitious plots without sacrificing character development. Its two-part paintball-themed season finale should earn it a place on the TV hall of fame forever. - Allison Picurro

The first season of Fleabag was a rousing adaptation of Phoebe Waller-Bridge's celebrated one-woman show, with a few bonus elements like the penis wall she just had to keep and her mastery of fourth wall-breaking. But the second season was a masterpiece right from the start, with a premiere that introduced the world to Andrew Scott's deliciously sinful Hot Priest. It got all of the key players together for a dinner sequence that set a thrilling tone for the series' second (and final) bow. From there, the season was laser focused on filling its precious few episodes with laugh-out-loud hilarity, clever symbolism, and one wonderfully messy love story. There's a reason Hollywood threw all the trophies at Waller-Bridge for Season 2: it was perfection. - Amanda Bell

Grey's Anatomy was a bonafide hit from its very first episode. Those first few episodes introduced us to Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey) and an intern class that has yet to be matched. It created a great foundation for what was to come, but it was the show's second season that cemented Grey's Anatomy in the pop culture zeitgeist. The second season took the first season's drama and made gold. Season 2 is where we got Meredith's now legendary "Pick Me. Choose Me. Love Me," speech. Season 2 is when George (T.R. Knight) coached Bailey (Chandra Wilson) through giving birth to Tuck. Season 2 is when we first met Mark Sloan (Eric Dane). Most importantly, the end of Season 2 is when Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) died and showed that TV could break our hearts in ways we didn't yet know were possible. Everything hurt and we were all Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) laying on the floor in our misery, together, knocked out by a sensational and star-making season of television. - Megan Vick

Justified was a competent crime drama in Season 1, but it became one of the best shows of the 2010s after transitioning completely to serialized storytelling, digging deeper into Boyd (Walton Goggins) as a person outside of his complicated relationship with Raylan (Timothy Olyphant), and introducing the memorable weed-dealing Bennett clan, led by Margo Martindale in an Emmy-winning performance, all in Season 2. In a season filled with dynamite performances, Martindale's Mags stood out. Because she gave off the appearance of being a soft and sympathetic woman who had Harlan's best interests at heart, she was frequently underestimated, and it was in these moments that the depth of her ruthlessness and cruelty was revealed. Justified would go on to have several other power-hungry villains throughout its incredible six-season run on FX, but Mags set the bar so high, very few could ever clear it again. - Kaitlin Thomas

Revisiting The Leftovers' first season after seeing the entire series is a very different experience than watching it for the first time. Upon review, the first season deftly, albeit slowly, established the nuances of its post-departure landscape while building to and dropping clues about what was to come from the two seasons to follow. For first-time viewers, though, it can be something of a slog. The narrative is heavy, few of the characters are easy to like, and the narrow focus on a single family can be tedious. Thanks to the meticulous groundwork establishment of the inaugural season, though, the series was finally free to fly in Season 2 and had so much more fun within its mysteriously existential framework. From its tense cavewoman opening sequence to the all-time great episode "International Assassin," the second season introduced exciting new mystical realms for the show to journey through and cemented its legacy as a TV miracle. Believe the Leftovers stans when they yell at you to muscle through Season 1 with the promise that Season 2 will make it all worthwhile; that is absolutely the truth. - Amanda Bell

In Season 2,Orange Is the New Black realized its greatest strength was in its supporting cast, taking the spotlight off Piper (Taylor Schilling) and shifting it to fan favorite characters like Poussey (Samira Wiley) and Taystee (Danielle Brooks). It introduced Red's (Kate Mulgrew) rival, the unforgettably cold and calculating Vee (Lorraine Toussaint). More than that, it went deeper into showing the realities of being an incarcerated woman and forced the audience to think about the kinds of everyday injustices that don't make headlines. The stakes were high, the comedy and drama equally balanced, and it upped the game in an exciting, nuanced way. - Allison Picurro

After a short, middling first season, Parks and Recreation returned harder, better, faster, and stronger for Season 2. The comedy proved it wasn't afraid to lean in to political satire, presenting takes on marijuana legalization and public sex scandals, and re-established Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) as hard-working and passionate rather than bumbling. It also introduced one of the show's most important characters: Pawnee, Indiana, injecting the town with its own personality. But maybe the best part of the season is how Parks and Recreation realized its strongest element was the chemistry of its ensemble, putting out some of the best group episodes in the show's history, like "Hunting Trip" and "Telethon." Also, come on, Season 2 gave us the first Galentine's Day! It doesn't get much better than that. - Allison Picurro

You have to wait for Schitt's Creek's second season for the show's GIFable "fold the cheese"-style funnies to truly shine through -- it's only after the Roses decide to actually appreciate their quirky new homestead that the show's comedy really starts to flourish. While the show begins as a simple fish-out-of-water story about a family of spoiled and disconnected weirdos, the second season also starts them on the path to making the best of their second chance, and the charm factor is exponentially increased as a result. From there, the characters' hearts, and those of the watching world as well, were on full display, and the series fully reached feel-good favorite status. - Amanda Bell

HBO's cutthroat family drama Succession is another series which really hit its stride in Season 2. To be fair, it was the last few minutes of the first season's finale that really elevated the power of the story. However, the show found a real rhythm for its characters as everyone in the Roy family circle showed their teeth -- particularly when it came to Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and all of his boar-on-the-floor humiliation tactics -- in their individual pursuits of the same power. Like others on this list, if you made it through the first season, the second season was a major reward, especially when it came to the surprises certain characters had in store for us. From the "L to the OG" to "You can't make a Tomlette without breaking a few Gregs," to that unbelievable finale, Season 2 is the good stuff. - Amanda Bell

The Vampire Diaries took us by storm with a tasty first season, which is why we were all so thunderstruck when it blew the roof off its second. Rather than experiencing a sophomore slump like many breakout hits, it's like someone gave The Vampire Diaries' writers a cheat sheet of all the things that worked well in Season 1, and they flawlessly doubled down on those elements in Season 2. The series most fascinating characters got even more compelling, the world-building became a thing of art, and stakes got higher than ever. If you ever want an example of exactly how you should do a Season 2, look no further than this show. - Lindsay MacDonald