There have been a flurry of remakes of the 2022 Netflix comedy Alpha Males, and one of the best was the Dutch series Roosters, mainly because the men actually get some real comeuppance for their toxic masculinity. But as Season 2 of the comedy starts, the four buddies may not be practicing what they learned in their “Roosters” classes.
ROOSTERS SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A car drives in a suburban neighborhood and into a driveway. A man walks into his house and says “Honey, I’m home!”
The Gist: That person is Mike Mulder (Jeroen Spitzenberger), who owns the house. Responding to “Honey I’m home!” is Mike’s buddy Danny (Waldemar Torenstra), who is crashing on Mike’s couch after closing his restaurant. Danny jokes “The kids are here!”, with the “kids” being their friends Ivo (Benja Bruijning) and Greg (André Dongelmans).
They all took the “Roosters” course to figure out how to live without their toxic masculinity, and the results have been mixed. For instance, Mike hasn’t found a job since getting fired from his old TV job for programming shows like Fuck Island, and his ex-girlfriend Stevie (Eva Laurenssen), who has become a successful health influencer, moved out. Danny doesn’t know that his ex-fiancé, Pam (Jennifer Hoffman), has started seeing someone else; he wants her to help him with the paperwork to open a new restaurant as a way of maybe getting back with her.
Ivo has gotten back together with his ex-wife Desirée (Fockeline Ouwerkerk), but he confides to their daughter Tess (Frouke Verheijde) that he doesn’t feel the same about her and wants to leave. Greg is still married, but he’s dismayed when his wife Merel (Jelka van Houten) tells their son Jason (Kiame Papeleu Doria) to kick a bully that’s been bothering him at school, not realizing that the bully is a girl. Also, Merel confides in Greg that Pam is dating someone new, but swears him to secrecy. They have an open relationship, but neither has seemed to take advantage of it, given how busy they are.
Mike manages to find a new job at a cable network that is mostly staffed by women. His new boss actually recognizes him from his “Return of the Rooster” course, and appreciated the audacity of Fuck Island. But on his first day, when he tries to come up with show ideas with his all-female staff, he realizes he has a lot to learn, especially when they all go home on time due to “work-life balance.”
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Roosters is a Dutch remake of the Spanish comedy Alpha Males. Other remakes of Alpha Males are the French comedy Shafted, the Italian comedy Real Men and the German comedy Dudes.
Our Take: Of all the Alpha Males remakes that have come out in the past few years, we enjoyed Roosters the most, mainly because the four buddies at the center of the show saw some real consequences after acting like the clueless men they were. As we get into the second season, the men are less clueless than they once were, but still exhibit enough cluelessness to get into scrapes.
But what we noticed when we watched the second season’s first episode is that the show really should be about the women in these dopey guys’ lives. Not only are the characters smarter and more dynamic than the men they were/are with, but they’re funnier, too.
That distinction is especially true for Greg’s wife Merel, who is becoming increasingly aggro as the series goes along. It’s of course part of the show’s main conceit that as Greg, who was the least toxic of the friends to begin with, becomes more sensitive, Merel becomes less so.
But we’d love to see an episode where we just get Merel, Desirée, Pam and Stevie talk about these dopey guys, especially the ones they can’t seem to shake for one reason or another. They seem a whole lot more interesting than the guys who struggle to learn their lesson about how they act.
Performance Worth Watching: We just mentioned Jelka van Houten as Merel, who is the funniest of the WAGs on this version of the series.
Sex And Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Danny encourages his buddies to jump into Mike’s pool fully clothed; they agree, then fake him out, leaving Danny the only one who’s wet. He ends up leaning into it and floats on his back.
Sleeper Star: Stacy Ines is Andrea, Mike’s former housekeeper who now works for Stevie. She goes to Mike’s house to tell him that Stevie is depressed and might be wanting to get back together with him, despite what she tells him when he shows up to her book signing.
Most Pilot-y Line: Mike meets one of the only other male employees at his new job, a guy in accounting, and he’s so toxic that he recites the old misogynistic saw, “What kind of creature bleeds for five days straight and lives?” He even says it in English.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Rooster is the least annoying of all of the Alpha Males remakes, and once you realize the women on the show are who you should really watch, you’ll enjoy the show a lot more.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
