The Defence (Chylka) season 2 finds irreverent lawyer Joanna Chylka embroiled in a chilling murder case. Piotr Langer (Artur Amijewski) is a major client at Chylka’s former firm Zelazny and McVay. Although Chylka was fired from the firm last season, Langer insists that she defend his creepy son, Piotr Langer Jr (Jakub Gierszal) in a murder case. At the end of last season, police busted into Piotr Jr’s apartment to find Jr. waiting for them on the terrace, and 2 seriously decomposed bodies in the bedroom. When Chylka meets with Jr in prison, he won’t talk, but it’s possible that he was set up because of his father’s bad deeds. Meanwhile, drug kingpin Siwowlosy (Olgierd Lukaszewicz) wants to know what’s going on in the case, so he puts his goon Gorzym (Tomasz Schuchardt) onto Chylka and her assistant, “Zordon” (Filip Plawiak). Annoyed but undeterred, Chylka tears around the city, looking for clues that will get her client acquitted.
Read our review of The Defence, season 1 here.
Byzantine Plot points
The Defence (Chylka) Season 2 gets complicated for a few reasons. Chylka loses the case when she is forced to plea insanity, so she has to appeal. She loses the appeal also, but when they find some information that will help Jr., Zordon finds a way to get the appeal annulled. That seemed unnecessarily cumbersome. Chylka is being spied on by both Artur Zelazny (Szymon Bobrowski), her former boss, and by the gangster Siwowlosy. How about just one person spying on her? Siwowlosy makes the most sense because once Jr. starts talking, he implicates Siwowlosy in the murders. Zordon is caught between the carrot and the stick, because Zelazny gives him a raise and a promotion in return for intel on Chylka, and Siwowlosy sends Gorzym to beat the crap out of Zordon to get intel on Chylka, but Zordon is in love with Chylka and doesn’t want to help either of these guys. The show Chylka is based on a book series (not available in English), and the adaptation could be the source of some of these extraneous plot points.
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Joanna, herself
Chylka’s life is a mess. Her sister keeps trying to get Joanna and her father to reunite, but it always ends in a fight. The sister finally tells Joanna to leave them alone, which makes Joanna sad because she loves her niece. Zordon is making passes at her, and normally she would fire him, but they are such a good team that she can’t. She starts sleeping with a detective, who actually seems like a good match for her, but Zordon catches them in bed together. Lastly, her drinking is so out of control that she even shows up to court drunk.
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Our take on The Defence (Chylka) Season 2
Season 2 is weaker than season 1, but still bingeable. The case is decent, and you don’t really know if Piotr Jr is innocent or guilty until the end. My beef with Jr is that the actor does some scenery chewing. Also, and this could be the directing, he constantly tips his chin down so he looks “scary”. The complications in the plot lead to a lengthy scene where everything has to be explained to Chylka, i.e. the audience, which is a cop out in storytelling. Some people hated the ending, but I was OK with it. I like the main characters-Chylka, Zordon and resident hacker Kormak (Piotr Zurawski), so I’m happy to spend time with them. I just wish some of the subplots were dropped in the adaptation between book and TV. As in season 1, the case for the next season is set-up in the last episode.
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