By Ned Jordan
The second season of Army Wives opens with the aftermath of the tragic event
at the army wife hangout Hump Bar that brought season one to a literally
explosive conclusion. Once the dust settles, the second season settles into more
standard fare for a bubbly drama with the Lifetime touch and avoids the
melodramatic theatrics of lovelorn bombers and the like. That's not to say that
the second season is boring, at least for not those who like their dramas at
least a little melodramatic. The army wives of the title and their loved ones
manage to run through a gamut of modern troubles such as painkiller addiction,
infidelity, troublesome pregnancy, teen drug use, office politics, social
backstabbing, career vs. family conflict, midlife crisis, and, because this is a
military-related show, deployment stress and war-related injury. And I'm barely
touching on the half of it. All of this leads up to a season finale which
manages to create a major crisis for each cast member within the space of an
hour, leaving you to choose which storyline you're looking forward to the most
in season three.
The second season is a bit more careful to try and paint a more accurate
picture of military dependent life, but the show is still most certainly
touchy-feely drama first and a portrait of military families a distant second.
All of the issues that the army wives face (and the one army husband, who is
conveniently a psychologist) are dealt with a lot of heart-to-hearts played out
to a soundtrack that's extremely heavy on John Tesh style tracks. If you like to
watch your TV with a box of tissues nearby you'll be in "good cry" heaven, but
if you're not then you'll probably find the whole thing torture to sit through.
The series' producers were probably feeling the sting of complaints that the
first season was pretty inaccurate on a number of points when it came to
portraying the military, so three of the special features demonstrate the
lengths that they went through to be more accurate in season two. The first
document's the cast's field trip to Fort Bragg to view a military base in
operation, go through some training exercises, and interview real military
personnel and genuine army wives. The second documents the show's use of
military consultants in season two, who taught the cast everything from how to
salute properly to how to wear their berets. Lastly, there is a look at the
charity work done by the cast to help out military families, which also helped
them to better connect to the realities of military life. Lastly, there are some
behind-the-scenes, blooper, and deleted scenes features to round out the
collection. All-in-all it's a pretty complete package for fans of the show who
will undoubtedly enjoy the entire collection of features.
Final Rating:
