Zolisa Xaluva and Connie Ferguson in Kings of Jo’Burg season two
Kings of Joburg season two is finally here, just over two years after viewers were first introduced to the show and despite palpable curiosity about how the show will be able to move forward without its creator and lead star, Shona Ferguson, viewers are wondering if the latest season is worth the watch.
The Citizen was lucky enough to get to see the new season ahead of it’s worldwide release on Friday, 27 January, and we have a few thoughts about Kings of Joburg season two.
The first season of the show was met with some lukewarm and negative reviews, with many referring to it as “that show with the mermaid” due to the decision by the creators of the show to include the supernatural subject matter in the show’s overarching “crime families” theme.
The main family in Kings of Joburg is called the Masire family and they are wealthy and successful all thanks to a dark secret – a mythical creature kept in a water tank in a secure lair that offers the family luck and protection in exchange for the blood of their children.
In the first season, the CGI mermaid was modelled after and voiced by actress and producer Connie Ferguson. And despite the fact that Connie is loved by the masses, many weren’t impressed by the inclusion of the Masire mermaid in the storyline.
This part of the story left me wondering if the continent has ever tackled the supernatural subject matter in a compelling and believable way. Most of what mainstream audiences have seen over the years has felt amateur and comical at the worst of times and the mermaid in this story, though dark and eerie, just doesn’t “give what it was supposed to have gave” as the kids would say.
In spite of the negative feedback, the Masire mermaid returns in season two, voiced by a different actress, freeing Connie up to take on a different role in order to enable the story to move forward.
She also found herself with more time and energy to pour into this show after putting her production house’s longest-running project – The Queen on Mzansi Magic – to bed for good.
If you have been with a show from the beginning, you don’t often need to rewatch the first season to be able to continue the new season, but with the lengthy gap between season one and two of Kings Of Joburg, you’re definitely going to need a refresher.
It’s understandable to have forgotten key elements in the story after a two-year wait filled with an unprecedented amount of new content being released and consumed in that period.
Neither the production company nor the streaming service can be blamed for the production break, however, since they lost the show’s creator and producer to Covid around the same time the rest of the world was suffering varying degrees of loss all due to the pandemic.
Despite the devastating loss, the team responsible for the show had to hold themselves and each other together as they forged on to continue a project near and dear to Shona Ferguson’s heart.
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Speaking at the premiere event in Rosebank, Johannesburg, Connie revealed that Shona was meant to play a big part in season two of the show. In fact, they were scheduled to go into pre-production just before he fell ill.
Following his passing, the crew had to go back to the drawing board and reimagine the entire second season of Kings Of Joburg.
Mirroring the recent events of real life, the new season of the show picks up after a series of life-changing events and losses for the on-screen Masire family.
But with so much hanging in the balance for the characters in the story, the earliest episodes of the show left much to be desired. Simply put without giving anything away, there just wasn’t enough to keep the viewer both interested and entertained in where the story was going before it got to this season’s all-important destination.
Most of what happened in episodes one to five felt as though it was merely going through the motions of setting things up. But once the show gets going, man does it get interesting!
If you’re the kind of person who enjoys a good payoff, then ‘Kings Of Joburg 2’ is worth the watch for the mid-season plot twist. However, if you find yourself struggling with patience and a strong attention span then you may struggle to stick with the show long enough for things to get going.
Now all that’s left to see is what the world has to say about the show and whether or not it will suffer the same fate of many of the Netflix fan-favourites that were recently cancelled.
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