‘Real Men’ Season 2 Review: What Happens When Four Men Finish the Class and Real Life Starts the Exam

Netflix’s Italian comedy ‘Real Men’ returned on October 7 with eight new episodes, picking up the lives of Mattia, Massimo, Riccardo and Luigi. Maurizio Lastrico, Matteo Martari, Francesco Montanari and Pietro Sermonti all return as the quartet. The pitch for this second season is that these guys now consider themselves deconstructed from toxic masculinity, and the world is about to test that claim.

The series began in May 2025 as an Italian remake of the Spanish comedy ‘Machos Alfa’, and it carries over that format’s central joke. Grown men who once grumbled that nobody can say anything anymore must now learn how to live alongside the women in their lives. Season two flips the board, placing each of the four couples in roughly the opposite position from where we last saw them.

That setup should be a gift for a comedy, and for the first few episodes it mostly is. Riccardo is forced to reinvent himself after his club closes and Ilenia leaves, while the others stumble through new jobs, new partners and fresh complications. The writers Furio Andreotti, Giulia Calenda and Ugo Ripamonti have a clear idea of what they want, which is to move the joke from “these men are clueless” to “knowing better and doing better are two different things.”

Here is where my reservations begin. Once the men have the vocabulary, a lot of the clumsy spontaneity that powered the first season drains away, and the gags land with a softer thud. Several situations feel like ones I have seen the show run before, only with better manners.

The supporting players also pay the price. With a cast this large, and five newcomers arriving in Carolina Crescentini, Silvia D’Amico, Alessio Boni, Giancarlo Commare and Ilenia Pastorelli, some characters get plenty of room while others barely register. Several of the women and secondary figures lean toward sketches rather than people, and the show never quite earns the deeper reflection it keeps gesturing at.

What holds everything together is the friendship at the center. Lastrico, Martari, Montanari and Sermonti have an easy rapport, and the scenes where the four simply sit, bicker and cover for each other are the funniest and warmest in the season. Directors Matteo Oleotto and Milena Cocozza keep the episodes moving at a brisk, light pace, and the cast sells even the thinner material with real commitment.

I also appreciated that the story seems to know when it is done. The closing stretch ties off the dangling threads in a way that feels like a proper farewell rather than a setup for yet another round. That confidence gives the finale a small emotional lift the middle episodes do not quite earn.

So where does that leave me after eight easygoing episodes? ‘Real Men’ season two is pleasant company with a sharp premise that never fully sharpens, and it is better at making me smile than making me laugh out loud. The leads and their bond keep it comfortably watchable, but the bite is gone, and I wanted more risk from a show about men being forced to change. I land on 6 out of 10.

If you are a longtime fan, this is still a cozy reunion worth an evening or two. Newcomers would do better starting with the first season and letting the friendships build from there.

Did the second season of ‘Real Men’ win you over or leave you wishing for more bite, and do you agree with my verdict in the comments?