The Four Seasons Season 2 Episode 8 Review: "Maratona" — a half-Christmas, a bad photo, and a marathon that turns into a marriage argument
What happens — the short version (spoilers)
- Danny's frantic Christmas run and Beverly's hospital crisis make the opener feel like a relay race.
- Anne's Mark Brett photo campaign shows how hard she is trying to feel like herself in Italy.
- Jack's marathon becomes a physical version of grief and self-definition.
- Kate runs with Jack and finally admits she is afraid too.
- The finale ends with Anne staying in Italy for now and the family choosing a workable next step.
Danny has three minutes for Christmas. Anne is trying to make Italy feel like home. Jack is still willing to take the wrong turn if it means the day can become a story. By the end, grief, age, marriage, and reinvention all show up as bodies, phone calls, and a calendar nobody can negotiate with.
Danny’s speedrun Christmas and Beverly’s emergency turn the opener into a relay race
The episode opens like somebody set the season to fast-forward. Danny has to get to Philadelphia, Beverly is in the hospital, Aunt Pam is one bus behind schedule, and the family is trying to force Christmas into the few minutes before the car arrives. It is ridiculous and weirdly moving, because the episode knows that this is what adulthood looks like when nobody can actually do enough.
That rush also sets up the farewell energy underneath the whole hour. Everyone is already in motion before the emotional plot even starts. The season keeps saying that travel and care work are the same thing: one person leaves, one person stays, and somebody else has to make the logistics feel like love.
Anne’s Mark Brett photo campaign and Gino’s first Christmas show how hard she is trying to feel like herself
Anne’s attempt to build a life in Italy keeps coming through in the smallest, funniest details. She is decorating for Gino’s first Christmas, trying to look like she is thriving, and asking for the exact kind of picture that can fool an old flirt into thinking she has become mysterious and glamorous instead of just exhausted.
That is why the Mark Brett thread works. It is not about Mark. It is about Anne trying to prove to herself that she can still be wanted, still be legible, still be the woman who used to run around the East Village. The episode understands the pathetic little photo-op as a real cry for continuity.
Jack’s marathon starts as a bad idea and ends as the season’s cleanest physical confession
Of course Jack does the marathon. He is the type of person who cannot hear a terrible idea without deciding it is fate. The race lets the finale turn his internal mess into something visible: pace, cramps, distance, failure, and the increasingly comic fact that he forgot he was running in kilometers.
What makes the run land is not the athleticism. It is that the marathon becomes Jack’s version of grief and self-definition all at once. He wants to prove he can still do hard things, still be the one who keeps going, still be the person the group can point at and call admirable. The body has other plans.
Kate runs with him, and the two of them finally say what they have been orbiting all season
The marathon’s best move is that Kate does not let Jack quit alone. She runs with him, argues with him, and refuses to let the emotional conversation stay theoretical. The scene becomes a duel between his instinct to drown in feeling and her instinct to hold the whole thing together until it can be named.
When Kate finally says she is afraid too - afraid of her career, her body, the world, death, and the weird future that keeps arriving anyway - the episode lands on the real engine of the season. She has not been cold. She has been carrying the shape of the panic for both of them. Jack has been honest about the dark; Kate has been honest about what it costs to keep that dark from swallowing the room.
Anne’s call with Mark goes nowhere, which is exactly what the episode needs
The Mark Brett flirtation could have turned into a tidy romantic detour, but the finale refuses that shortcut. The photo is bad, the misunderstanding is embarrassing, and the call ends in a way that makes the whole thing feel like what it was: a half-real attempt to borrow a different version of herself.
The flirtation stays small, and that is the right move. Anne is chasing proof that she can still surprise herself and feel like the wild creature she used to be.
Beverly, Claude, and the final stay-over plan make the ending feel like a family decision instead of a plot twist
Back in the Italy thread, the hour reaches its smartest bit of practical comedy: Beverly cannot just be managed from afar, so Claude and Danny decide she is coming with them. That turns the finale’s emotional shape inside out. Italy is no longer just the couple’s adventure. It is now a multi-generational negotiation with bad lift options and better intentions.
Anne choosing to stay in Italy after all gives the episode its final pivot. She is not suddenly transformed. She is making a temporary decision because the current life feels worth extending. That is a much better ending than a grand announcement, and it fits the season: this group keeps discovering that the next chapter arrives as a logistical compromise first and a feeling second.
Tiny details worth clocking
- The “three minutes for Christmas” opener is a perfect speedrun of family guilt.
- Gino’s first Christmas stocking made from an old knee sock is exactly the right level of scrappy.
- Jack running in the wrong units is the kind of gag that turns a marathon into a personality test.
- Kate saying “we ran a marathon” is both a victory lap and an exhaustion report.
- Anne meeting Gianpiero at the end keeps the finale open without making it feel unfinished.
Final verdict
This is a strong finale because it does not try to tie the season up with one clean ribbon. Instead, it lets the big feelings arrive through action: the race, the phone calls, the mother problem, the move, the photo, the bad picture, the leftover grief. That is the right shape for this show, which has always been better at showing how love gets expressed through errands than through declarations.
The marathon gives the hour its clearest metaphor, but the real ending is relational. Jack and Kate are still learning how to stay in the same emotional lane, Anne is still figuring out who she is when nobody nearby remembers the old version, and Danny is still trying to turn care into an actual home.
The season closes because the characters stop treating change like a hypothetical. They are in it now.
Rating: 9.0/10 — a finale that earns its distance by making the season’s emotional race feel physical, awkward, and fully lived in.
More episodes from The Four Seasons — Season 2 — Friend-group grief comedy, trips, holidays, and second chances. Jump to any episode in the season:
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Reviewed by Mira Vance · QuizFandom Editor & Lead Reviewer. Every rating is an honest per-watch assessment from the desk that also writes the quizzes — not a press release rehash.