Snowfall gets dark but the producers use its tensions to grip the audiences as opposed to oppressing us. Franklin and the people he loves may be on their way to a hard fall from the clouds, but as this new season begins, the trip is fascinating.

At its worst, this is a still-not-quite-there prestige drama, but at its best and most interesting, it plays like a very solid 1980s B movie, the kind that young filmmakers and critics would have discovered two decades after it came and went, then scrambled to remake.

Andron, Amadio, and Singleton know what they’re doing with Tucker, and their attention to what was missing in Season 1 makes the new episodes a marked improvement, if not a game-changing one.

Season 2 is at its most fascinating when it considers the concept of power, and how it’s gained and lost--but again, it focuses on the winners, at least for now.