SMILF remains deliciously thorny and droll in season two, even as its impending death knell resounds louder and louder with every disturbing behind-the-scenes revelation.

[The second season] is a great improvement, with some of the warmth and cohesion that were missing [from season one]. Shaw and her team seem to be more aware of the themes in play, more deliberate in building the episodes toward emotional peaks instead of letting them float in place as raw, envelope-pushing non sequiturs.

Season two has moments that are moving, raw, and imaginatively conceived. But sometimes, Shaw tries too aggressively to be edgy or darkly clever. The Weinstein evocations are one example of that.

Judging from the first five episodes the cable network provided, the sophomore season looks to be an upgrade from the first, but Shaw proves to be the least interesting person here. That’s not the slam it sounds like. The Brookline native gives her cast juicy material, and they steal the show from her.

Shaw struggles to show real-world progress, even if the battlefront is vivid and rich in her imagination. Together, it creates a fitfully effective season; one that intrigues slightly more often than it tires, but there’s still too much of the latter.