‘Real Men’ Season 2 Review: Four Men Pass the Course, Then Fail the Real Test

Netflix has brought back its Italian comedy ‘Real Men’, known at home as ‘Maschi Veri’, with a second season that landed on October 7. The first run arrived in May 2025 as a remake of the Spanish series ‘Alpha Males’, and it was quick enough on its feet to earn a return trip. Eight episodes this time, directed by Matteo Oleotto and Milena Cocozza, with the same trio of Furio Andreotti, Giulia Calenda and Ugo Ripamonti writing.

The setup is a neat piece of irony. Mattia, Massimo, Riccardo and Luigi, played again by Maurizio Lastrico, Matteo Martari, Francesco Montanari and Pietro Sermonti, now consider themselves fully deconstructed from toxic masculinity. Then the show flips every couple into the opposite position from where we left them, and the confidence starts to leak out of the room.

Here is where I land on the season as a whole, and it is a mixed feeling. The idea is sharper than the jokes. The show keeps circling a big punchline about men who have memorized the right vocabulary and still fumble every real situation, but it rarely lands the punch cleanly. Too many scenes explain their own humor right after it has already worked, which drains the fun out of a gag that was perfectly fine on its own.

The women are a clear step up from last time, and that matters more than any single joke. The partners are not just there to correct the men and walk off, and the season gives its actresses real room to be funny, frustrated and flawed. Nobody here is a flawless spokesperson for enlightened modernity, which keeps the power reversal from turning into a lecture.

Then there is the friendship, which is the true engine of the thing. When the four men sit together and finally say what they actually think, the writing loosens up and the performances click. Lastrico, Martari, Montanari and Sermonti have a lived in rhythm now, and their rowdiest scenes together are easily the highlight.

The supporting characters are a mixed bag. A few of them are little more than sketches with a single trait, and a couple of the returning faces feel like they were handed less to do than they deserve. New arrivals including Carolina Crescentini, Silvia D’Amico, Alessio Boni, Giancarlo Commare and Ilenia Pastorelli widen the circle nicely, though not all of them get the material to make a mark.

Still, I kept watching, and I kept smiling more often than I rolled my eyes. The half hour runtimes help enormously, because the story never overstays its welcome and each episode moves through its romantic mishaps at a brisk clip. It is light, it is easy, and it mostly knows what it is.

My verdict is that this is a pleasant, uneven follow up that trades some of its bite for warmth and friendship. It does not reinvent the formula, and the satire could have cut deeper, but the central quartet and the better balanced female characters give me enough to recommend it. I would give ‘Real Men’ Season 2 7 out of 10.

Did the second season of ‘Real Men’ earn its score from you, or do these four still have more deconstructing to do, so tell me in the comments.