Living Free (Season 2)

The second season of Living Free was announced November 11th, 2021. Created by Mike Barkhoff, he will also star in the season and wrote all episodes. The season will include more guest directors, and includes an additional character, portrayed by Conner Paulsen.

## Plot

Mike Barkhoff is dealing with alcoholic tendencies after severing ties with his therapist. During a period of increased cases in COVID-19, he spends large portions of his days in solitude and finds himself struggling to stay busy so he can keep his mentality clear and in a high position. He even considers retiring from writing even, to the point of beginning to make a video about it. However, when he is in the middle of this, he gets a call from Zach, who informs him of the opportunity to make a music video for an artist named Give Me Water who has made a song of the same name.

Mike is reluctant to take the opportunity, fearing he will critique and dislike the song and thinks that isn't a good mix for the director of the song's music video. Nonetheless, he ends up taking the job to try and clear his mental and with some more convincing done by Zach. Mike struggles to come up with any ideas for the song due to its lackluster themes, but sticks to elements of water - his cat drinking out of the sink, his washer running, a water bottle on a table, etc. Mike talks his feelings of his recent job out, admitting that he fears it will make him essentially a sellout, but that the job is done, and that the video is set to release the next day. The video comes out, a lackluster one with no themes.

Mike struggles while writing Dylan's film, which is on a particular schedule. He distracts himself, unintentionally, with his Star Wars shirt (from Astral), and by checking his phone often. He lies, however, saying that writing is going perfectly fine and is on course to be finished by the desired timeframe. He soon finds himself humming a song he can't figure out the name of, and, when he does proceed to type away it is revealed he's actually on the Reddit for Breaking Bad. Upon completion, Dylan notes its few spelling errors, and a second completion date is set. Again, Barkhoff is forced to delay it, but this time because he has fever dreams which see him contemplating his life thus far, especially faced with explaining to his family why he didn't go to college and how he plans to excel without the expierence. Upon waking up, Mike sets off to work on Dylan's script, rattled by the dream's message.

Mike continues struggling to sleep, this time having nightmares. Explaining his troubles to Ron, Ron suggests that Mike is going through a dilemma similar to that of the Candyman one. Mike tries saying Candyman five times in the mirror as Ron suggested and, at the fifth time, is stung by a wasp. Mike wraps his arm and tries sleeping it off, but struggles and works on the script some more. When Dylan asks about a start date for filming, Mike reveals he is going to an art showcasing before his lights power off and Candyman confronts him. After a fight, Mike defeats Candyman by repeating his name five times. Mike awakens from the nightmare and sits up before realizing his shirt actually has a hole in it where he was stabbed.

Trying to shift his focus in an attempt to rejuvenate from the film's script, Mike begins working on an autobiographical novel titled "What I Learned From Philip E. Clarke". Philip Clarke, a screenwriter who helped a young Mike hone his skills before demanding he pay for further assistance, is someone Mike views as "corrupt" due to his methods. Mike writes about this, and how it requires artist's helping one another out on an understanding level. One morning, however, Mike realizes a large portion of his book has been edited to seem less fueled by anger. Mike asks Ron for help, and Ron suggests setting up a camera when Mike assures him that the document is secure and not shared with anyone. Mike then receives a visitation from himself in the future, who tries to convince him to change the concept of the book and warns him that he will end up the same as Philip. Mike stops and considers this and changes the book's plot line.

Having a week before Dylan's project starts filming, Mike finds himself bored and unsatisfied with life around him. He tells this to an old friend, Conner, who suggests he try watching Downtown Abbey. Mike starts the series and falls asleep - he tries again, to the same effect. Every time he tries, he falls asleep. Mike begins to go through the film's script and highlight parts he can begin filming without co-stars, afterwards filming said parts. Mike hears nothing back from Dylan for multiple days and, when he finally does, Dylan tells him he wants to film everything at once. Mad, Mike imagines trashing his office - he holds it though. Mike tells Conner he can't get into Downtown Abbey, to which Conner replies that he was joking about it being a good series.

As soon as Dylan's film is ready to begin shoots, riots outpour the nation in a similar suit to a Black Lives Matter act. Commuting to start filming, Mike's car is shaken. This visibly frustrates Mike when he finds out Dylan's intent is to start the process with photography - something Mike felt he could've done at home. Mike storms off, again having his car shaken, and berates Dylan to Ron. Ron suggests Mike be more patient, as he doesn't fully understand the movement. Mike reverts to being depressed and bored again, and ponders aspects of his own life, such as smoking. Mike turns to Conner for advice too, who suggests that he may be more in the wrong than he thought. After reflecting, Mike extends a call to a crying Dylan and apologizes, agreeing to commence filming again the next day. As Dylan leaves the scene, he gets a phone call and, looking bestowed, says: "Are you kidding me?".

Dylan and Mike meet in a parking lot and sit in Mike's car, where Dylan tells Mike that a rumor is spreading amongst school that he was snooping in the girl's locker room. Mike, not knowing what to believe, asks Dylan to explain it, so Dylan tells him the full story - that he was shadowing for the school janitor and heard that the drain in the girl's locker room wasn't fully efficient so he went to take pictures to put it on his list and, upon doing so, saw the deaf girl in the locker room. Mike tells Dylan about Kendrick Lamar's album "To Pimp A Butterfly" and suggests nobody is perfect, trying to make him feel better. When Dylan seems unapologetic, Mike gets angry and leaves. Mike returns home and gets a call from Conner. He tells Conner about the Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Catholic School Girls Rule" and how the band member admits their fault on there - Conner suggests Mike give Dylan time to admit his fault. Realizing, Mike thanks Conner and concludes his book "What I Learned From Philip E. Clarke", giving thank you credit to Conner and Dylan in the epilogue.

Mike resorts to drinking alcohol after having a sustained day of sobriety, due to stressful obstacles stemming from Dylan's film loosing an actor and the company budget not reflecting enough to complete Ron's next film. Mike breaks the bad news to Ron, feeling bad, and asks Dylan to post an ad for a new actor and suggests that they film what they can with who they have to work with for now. Conner informs Mike of an imminent blog site his cousin is working on entitled Blog Goggle. Mike's alcohol relapse leads him to early ideas of self harm due to the pressure closing in around him. Mike makes a video announcing his intent to retire from the industry, when he gets a call from Norff who asks him to effectively release an album of his last minute. Mike reclines at his office and looks at the ceiling, lost in emotion.

## Cast

- Mike Barkhoff (Episodes 1 - 10, TBD)

- Dylan Van Hauen (Episodes 1, 5, 7, TBD)

- Ron Gomes (Episodes 5, 6, TBD)

- Conner Paulsen (Episodes 7, TBD)

- Anessa Smith (Episode 7)

## Production

Barkhoff began writing the season right after he finished writing the first, but ended up making his potential plot a storyline for the third season, opting for a new storyline to occur in the second. Similar to Season 1, Barkhoff had a difficult time writing this season. While writing, he would often believe he had written the total number of episodes, but ended up going back to write another due to having another idea to explore. The season shifted from six episodes to eight to ten.

Upon the season's announcement, it was revealed Barkhoff, Dylan Van Hauen, and Ron Gomes would all be returning as their fictional selves, while Conner Paulsen would join the season as a recurring minor role across four episodes.

It was also announced alongside the announcement of Jarrod Van Hauen directing Season 1, Episode 7 that he would have a cameo in an upcoming episode. It remains to be seen if this is for Season 2 or 3, if the latter were to come to fruition.

An episode of the season is inspired by Clive Barker's novella "The Forbidden", which inspired the film series titled "Candyman". The episode itself is titled "Candyman" and is directed and written by Barkhoff. This was notably the only episode to feature prominent advertisement outside of the series.

The sixth episode, Bully, has been described by Barkhoff as a "type of sequel to Doppelgang". With the sixth episode, Barkhoff revealed that every episode is named after a particular song, a fact he "hoped" would be evident due to Episodes 5 and 6 both ending with their songs playing.

The season was announced formally with a poster, which has no purpose in the overall season, and depicts a dart hitting a fly on a corkboard. Barkhoff took the image after planting a dead fly to the corkboard and tacking it with the dart. The reasoning for the image becoming the poster is because Barkhoff wanted it to "feel like it fit a classic album's mold".

Barkhoff attributes the writing process of the season to that of making an album, stating that "every episode after 4 was based around a specific song" and stated that even then, the first four episodes fit the theme "out of sheer luck", minus Episode 1, which still held enough similarities that Barkhoff could name it after the Tupac song, "No More Pain", with the word "Please" added before because his character says "Please No More". At one point, Barkhoff imagined a fourteen episode season because he had so many ideas for installments based on songs. This is why Episode 9 is titled after two songs, Barkhoff mentions that it "fits two narratives". Due to this, three episodes were placed on Barkhoff's back burner for a later season, as "ten episodes felt concise".

Episode 1's naming of the Tupac song is described above. Here's the rest of the season's name attributes - Episode 2 is named after the fictional song "Give Me Water" by Give Me Water, which plays within the episode. Episode 3, "Can't Stop", is titled after the song by Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mike hums this song in the episode and can't recall it's name. Episode 4, "2nd Chance" is taken from a Shinedown song - in this episode, he is forced to write a second draft of a script (getting a second chance) and has fever dreams making him imagine a reality where he may have a second chance at his youthful thoughts. Notably, these episodes all happened to "work out" before Barkhoff concocted the idea to style every episode after a song.

"Candyman" is based off the film of the same name - as mentioned above - as well as the song of the same name by Sammy Davis Jr. "Bully" is an unreleased track from Eminem, played in the episode. "Interlude" is named after the common track that splits two halves of the same album, used by several rappers - it remains to be seen if Barkhoff named it after any particular Interlude. "There's Alot Going On" is attributed to Vic Mensa's song and EP of the same name. "Mortal Man/Catholic School Girls Rule" is two songs, the first by Kendrick Lamar, the second by Red Hot Chili Peppers. "Outro", similarly to "Interlude", is named after the commonly named last track from several albums, and it remains to be seen if Barkhoff named it after a particular one.

Episode 8 was written to mimic the state of the world during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest. Behind the scenes, Barkhoff scheduled a week between episodes 5 and 6 of off time because he wanted this episode to air on May 13th (interestingly, he almost delayed it due to Kendrick Lamar releasing his fifth album on the same date). Barkhoff explained the importance of the episode, stating "You have to remember that this season isn't in 2020. It feels like 2020. We had the 'quarantine' episodes as the first four to give you an idea of Mike's mental and why he really needs these people in his life, not because we wanted a COVID season though. So with Episode 8, it's really important to me that people walk away understanding that what I was trying to say with that script and episode is that it's a process that keeps repeating, and it shouldn't be that difficult."

Notably, Episode 8 is the directorial debut of Anessa Smith. Also notable is that Barkhoff told production this was "there most 'Atlanta' episode yet" during filming, attributing two scenes in particular, when Dylan is following a popular internet trend but doesn't know as much about the news.

Episode 9 is the only episode in the series' entirety thus far - and of Season 2's marketing - to feature a clip as promo rather than the traditional 'teaser trailer'.

## Episode Intros

Season 2 of Living Free features noticeable changes to the intro of the series than formulated in the first season. Original theme music was created by Barkhoff and is used at the start of every episode. Episode 1's Intro is done on a clapper board, whereas Episodes 2 - 4 all introduce a traditional opening sequence (actor credits next to particular objects - notably, Ron Gomes credit is a keyboard with the letters repositioned to spell his name). The intro ends with a text document, reading like a screenplay, credited the series as Barkhoff's and revealing the title. Each episode with this intro still has a variation to the intro's ending, with some seeing Barkhoff's name encountering a spelling error by the person typing or it being stylized differently.

Episode 5's Intro mimics that of the original "Candyman" film's, though on a much smaller scale, utilizing a lamp, Barkhoff's cat, a bedframe, and more. For Episode 6, the traditional intro is again removed in favor of the opening page of Mike's book being written, then crediting the actors without properly introducing the series (rather than "Living Free - A Mike Barkhoff Series", it reads "What I Learned From Philip E. Clarke - An Autobiographical Tale By Mike Barkhoff"). For Episode 8, the show uses an animated intro that appears as newspaper headlines.

## Episode Outros

Again, the outro to the episodes have been restructured following Season 1's. Whereas all episodes in Season 1 feature a basic rolling screen of credits over a black screen for roughly fifteen seconds, Season 2's vary, with some episodes bearing that but for twenty seconds or longer (i.e. "2nd Chance", "Give Me Water"), and others bearing that but against a backdrop from the prior scene (i.e., "Candyman", "Can't Stop", "Please No More Pain"). Episode 6's Outro saw the words based around Barkhoff's head during the last frame. Episode 7's closing credits resemble that of an episode of The X Files, down to the "cheesy music" that closes the final scene - Barkhoff wanted this in an effort to pay homage to the series. Episode 8 ends with a pan in to a brick wall before the credits roll. It then contains an after credit scene. Episode 9 sees Mike's character giving thanks credits to Dylan and Conner in his book, before typing out the episode's cast and crew.

Barkhoff explained his "odd fascination" with all the various ways to start and end a film or TV episode being "fed well" by this season.

Notably, Conner Paulsen was never credited by name. Instead, he was titled jokingly per episode, one such example being "Sexy Pool Boy".

## Reception

The second season of Living Free has been signaled out as one of the best seasons of a web series released online by several commentators. All episodes maintain a higher rating than a 9.0/10 on IMDb.

With its premiere, Season 2 gained critical acclaim for its themes of solitude, self doubt, the branding of comedy, and its camerawork and writing. The second episode of Season 2, Give Me Water, was complimented for all of the aforementioned content, as well as its usage of Live Free musician, 12Digits, song to poke fun at mumble rappers. Several cited that, while it wasn't making fun of 12Digits, it shouts him out and gets his music to a wider community, but still manages to get the point across, and considered that a feat.

The comedy in Can't Stop was singled out and favored by many, and Barkhoff received compliments for his acting in the episode. The episode received a 9.6/10 on IMDb. 2nd Chance was met with positive reviews for its approach, but was lightly criticized for being "too repetitive" to some of Barkhoff's other work in recent years. Nonetheless, it garnered a 9.1/10 on IMDb. Episode 4 also held the position for most views of the series in its timeframe up until the third day. The fifth episode, Candyman, was met with critical acclaim and scored a 10/10 rating on IMDb. Clarke Accloads commented that the episode "proves that Living Free has a niche when it focuses on keying one in, and sets up an even stronger half of the season". After Episode 5, there was a week off before the next episode.

Bully also managed a 9.1/10 on IMDb in its first two days, and saw the ratings boost after the previous episode didn't manage to match Episode 4's rating success (Candyman did boost after Bully's release, however). Bully was regarded positively by critics, but also saw comments suggesting the "camerawork was still on vacation with the series". Interlude received a 9.3/10 on IMDb from twenty-two reviewers and maintained eighty views in the two day window following it's Friday release, it received positive reviews for it's editing and usage of "Downtown Abbey" platform marketing. Episode 8, There's Alot Going On, was met with universal acclaim, particularly for it's themes and message - the comedic timing from Dylan Van Hauen was also complimented, as well as the camerawork and editing. This episode scored a 9.9/10 on IMDb from 23 voters. Likewise, Mortal Man/Catholic School Girls Rule retained a 9.8/10 on the same site from the same amount of receptors - it also gained the most views for any episode of the series following it's focused marketing campaign (after Alfred Clarke declared it "the best episode yet"), garnering over 1,000 views and 200 likes for the episode. The season finale, Outro effectively managed a 9.3/10 from 23 people on IMDb and saw positive reception from Clarke Accloades and Drake Vegas, creator of Drakoloid content. The former expressed the season as "the best" amongst current web series and stated that it'd be "in his head for a long time". The latter maintained that the season was the "best yet" and, reportedly, intends to mold a potential second season of 'Men of the House', starring Mike Barkhoff, off of the series.