Netflix ‘Tour de France: Unchained’ season 2 review: A certified step up

After a successful pilot season, Netflix’s docuseries ‘Tour de France: Unchained’ has returned for a second season. The sophomore season will be released internationally on Tuesday 11th June at 8am BST and will feature eight episodes of around 45 minutes in length.

As before, the series touches on an array of themes inside some of the Tour’s biggest teams. This season has behind-the-scenes access at race winners Jumbo-Visma and Tadej Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates, as well as Alpecin-Deceuninck, Bora-Hansgrohe, AG2R-Citroën, Groupama-FDJ, Soudal-QuickStep, EF Education-EasyPost and Ineos Grenadiers.

Netflix has given Cyclist an advance copy, and after already binge-watching it all, I can confirm it’s a step up from season one. Here are my key takeaways…

SPOILER WARNING: This article will be littered with spoilers from the start.

Establishing the GC pathos

‘Tour de France: Unchained’ greatly improves its telling of the Tour’s general classification story in its follow-up season, which centres around the 2023 race. It’s noticeable from the opening episode as the show introduces the protagonists early on. While the chronology of the first season felt slightly disorientating, the second season delivers a linear narrative that is far simpler to follow, especially if the memories of the events of last summer are hazy.

Much of the first episode follows each of the season’s characters in the build-up to the Tour de France, including Tadej Pogačar in Monaco, Jonas Vinegaard at an altitude camp, Ben O’Connor in Tignes with his wife and Julian Alaphilippe making crêpes in the Pyrenees with his child.

A classic awkward trope soon takes over as the riders are interviewed by their partners, and it reaches its most uncomfortable zenith when Jasper Philipsen is asked questions in English by his Flemish partner as they sit far apart on separate couches. It’s all a bit wooden and certainly not natural but I’ll admit it does help establish some character and allows these often neglected personalities to flourish.

Of course, the inclusion of the two main teams – UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma – is a key facet in season two’s improvement. In the first season, UAE Team Emirates opted out of featuring in the show and Jonas Vingegaard was missed out of the early Tour footage, so it felt as though we missed the two main contenders in large parts. With Pogačar being such a key part of the race’s story, UAE’s inclusion in this series is a much-needed boost.

Ultimately, this allows us to compare the approaches between Vingegaard and Pogačar and their respective teams, with UAE Team Emirates appearing at times far calmer and relaxed – especially under the calm helm of Slovenian sports director Andrej Hauptman – in contrast with the tense atmosphere in the Jumbo-Visma camp.

'I want to go from "Jasper Disaster" to "Jasper the Master"'

A big emphasis is placed on the sprinters in season two. Jasper Philipsen, Mark Cavendish, Wout van Aert and Fabio Jakobsen are those under the Netflix microscope this time out. They enter the frame with an exploration into the sprinting field during episode three, 'No Mercy'.

Philipsen is the main sprinting attraction, building on the narrative from the previous series, saying, 'I want to go from "Jasper Disaster" to "Jasper The Master".' He isn't always framed in the best light when the show discusses crashes, sprinting lines and the sprint train cold war, however, and Alpecin-Deceunick are generally portrayed as the black sheep of the sprinting field.

Following a crash-ridden finale to Stage 4, Jakobsen recounts his Tour-ending crash. 'Jasper is chaotic in the way he moves,' Jakobsen says, also calling him 'impulsive' as he accuses Philipsen of causing the tumble. Meanwhile Philipsen's teammate Mathieu van der Poel laughs off a fine imposed at the end of the stage and team leader Christoph Roodhoft says, 'Not everyone wants us or Jasper Philipsen to win.' This narrative is further emphasised as the show documents the ins-and-outs of sprint relegation debates and results contested by commissaires.

Mark Cavendish appears refreshingly calm in the episode as he's filmed relishing his supposed farewell Tour de France. Before the race begins, he says he's excited about his retirement and looking forward to spending more time at home with his wife and children, and the series shows he's unable to join his children on their trampoline, with five days until the Tour. It's a harsh reality check on these sprinters' sacrifices. I hope you'll be able to trampoline one day, Mark.

'For Gino' examines grief, risk-taking and cycling's brutality

The death of Bahrain Victorious rider Gino Mäder just before the Tour plays a key role in the second series. The opening episode confronts his death, revealing the devastating moment former teammate and close friend Ben O'Connor learns of his passing.

The fourth episode, titled 'For Gino', however, serves as an homage to the Swiss rider. Mäder's teammate and Tour de France stage winner Pello Bilbao establishes the tone eloquently, saying, 'We all think about Gino before the race, after the race.' Similarly, teammates and colleagues around the peloton are shown reflecting on the difficult month the sport faced following the incident.

The episode follows the Bahrain Victorious riders on their journey of grief, perseverance and finding purpose at the Tour. As Bilbao wins the stage in Issoire, he and his team reflect on the weeks prior. 'They could hear my scream at home,' Bilbao says, recounting his exaltation coming across the finish line.

Teammate Matej Mohorič explained how Bilbao and Mäder were close friends, and how he was affected in the run-up to the Tour, and says 'I hope he's proud watching from the sky,' in a touching moment of frank and genuine reflection.

The Tour can't always go to plan

Beyond the glitz and glamour of the super-teams fighting for yellow, season two of 'Unchained' taps into the stories within AG2R-Citroën. Their story begins with Ben O'Connor displaying his bullish podium ambitions in a Franglais conversation with the team's trainers.

In the second episode, we see O'Connor react angrily to compatriot Jai Hindley's stage win, saying, 'It felt rough. I felt betrayed.' O'Connor – who finished fourth at the 2021 Tour de France – felt as though the team had 'gifted' Bora-Hansgrohe's Hindley the stage win.

As O'Connor falls down the GC standings, the atmosphere within the team switches from faith to disappointment in the Australian. 'He's so negative, he isn't calm enough,' the team staff say after Stage 9's tough summit finish at Puy de Dôme. 'When he's racing and loses it, he still has the time to scream down the microphone. He shouldn't grab his mic, he should pedal.'

After a tense passing of the baton between O'Connor and his teammate Felix Gall over coffee before Stage 10, O'Connor's role in the show and the team soon turns to one more joyful and committed. Episode six follows Gall's queen stage win at Courchevel and the visceral joy between O'Connor and Gall demonstrates how the Australian developed over the course of the Tour in a way that few others in the series do.

Similar in its themes of leadership changes and underwhelming performance, the fifth episode follows Ineos Grenadiers' Tour.

Tom Pidcock played a lead role in the first season after his breakthrough win on Alpe d'Huez. In season two, there's a lot of attention given to the Brit, however, it doesn't always come across as pleasant. Often his bluntness appears brash, abrasive and at points somewhat braggadocious, particularly in the first half of the episode, which is titled 'The Enemy Within'.

'My opinion is the only one that matters' is Pidcock's first quip of the episode, a 38-minute-long investigation into his team's scattergun approach at the race.

Pidcock appears stubborn in the face of Spanish rising star Carlos Rodríguez, the eventual fifth-place finisher. When met with the reality of faltering GC hopes, Pidcock is unhappy. Staff members ask if he agrees with a new plan to support the rising Rodríguez, to which he responds: 'I'm not sure. Can you turn the cameras off?'

The tension intensifies on Stage 13 when Pidcock attacks, ignoring team orders to stay with Rodríguez. After the stage, Pidcock doesn't seem frustrated in letting the team down, instead planning out his own ambitions to attack on a descent the next day. As Ineos boss Rod Ellingworth described it, it's tough to 'manage [his] ruthless winning streak'.

'If you catch him, you will kill him'

The sixth episode, 'Domination', focusses heavily on the crucial Alpine stages of last year's Tour, including the Stage 16 time-trial and the fatal day at Col de la Loze. The show successfully replicates the tension felt before Stage 16, when only nine seconds separated Pogačar and Vinegegaard overall.

'Not many GC guys will be able to beat Wout,' Jumbo directeur sportif Grisha Niermann says before the start of Vingegaard's ride. On the road, the show highlights the ferocity of the Dane's effort; 'If you catch him, you will kill him,' Niermann shouts as he approaches the final kilometres, with Pogačar just in front of him on the road.

The show doesn't diminish the Slovenian's ride either, though in a moment of fragility, the Slovenian recalls asking his partner, Liv-Jayco-AlUla rider Urška Žigart, how much time he lost to Vingegaard. She responded, 'You don't want to know'.

The episode turns murky for a brief time, however, as the focus turns towards the credibility of Vingegaard's performance. The collective shock of staff members, riders and journalists alike is highlighted, while Jumbo-Visma staff members reinforce their own honesty and transparency, culminating in Vingegaard stating, 'I'm clean, and even when they test these samples in 100 years, they won't find anything.'

That's immediately contrasted by the Groupama-FDJ rider Valentin Madouas, who says, 'There is no truth in cycling.' Madouas' team manager, Marc Madiot, follows suit, saying, 'There are undoubtedly still some [cheats] in cycling. That's human nature.'

'Cheers, Richard!'

At the end of the sixth episode, Jumbo-Visma CEO Richard Plugge closes out the examination of Vingegaard's time-trial by saying, 'There's a lot of attention on Jonas, so we try to divert the attention from it to distract a little bit, from the riders to something else.' This sets up Plugge's role in the series as a cold, calculated and rather ruthless agent provocateur who 'doesn't care if people like him'.

That takes us onto Beergate. This media polémique was triggered when Plugge criticised Groupama-FDJ for 'drinking poison' by having beers on rest days. In response, the season's finale shows a tense dynamic between Groupama-FDJ and Jumbo-Visma.

In response to the controversy, Groupama-FDJ general manager Marc Madiot hits back at Plugge, saying, 'No one attacks my riders. If you attack my riders, I get mean.'

In a team meeting before the 20th stage, we see Madiot continue his frustration, 'When your legs start to ache, they'll ache even more when you think about those assholes... and what he [Richard Plugge] said about you', he says, adding that Plugge takes them 'for clowns'. He clearly takes Plugge's comments to heart.

The episode continues a back-and-forth between the two managers and their polarising philosophies. Plugge says, 'Why are you making such a fuss about it? We also drink beer,' he pauses, 'in Paris'. He proceeds to suggest that Madiot should follow the science and data as his team has. However, Madiot calls Jumbo-Visma's approach 'very Germanic'.

This rally of insults makes for very entertaining viewing, and Madiot certainly acts as the entertainer in response to the media barrage, toasting, 'Cheers, Richard' after Stage 19. For the following stages, you can see him poke fun at the comments, sipping on large pint glasses of what appears to be a golden beer over dinner. To some extent, the spat takes attention away from Thibaut Pinot's farewell stage across the Vosges that plays a big part in the final episode.

The show's final sequence offers one last chance for Madiot to dig back at his Dutch counterpart. 'I want to show Richard Plugge that real cycling is about men, the effort, the goosebumps – connecting with those around you,' he says. 'Yes, he won. But winning isn't necessarily the most important part. Pinot, without trying, conveyed something else. He ended with the public's love.'

No sophomore slump for 'Unchained'

Overall, the second season of 'Tour de France: Unchained' is a drastic improvement from the first. The show captures a range of emotions, and when presented with challenging themes and events, it generally confronts them maturely.

It does feel as though there is still the bizarre fetishisation of crashes and injury voyeurism that some may dislike in season two. Likewise, the doping speculation wrapped throughout episode six feels sour, as does Plugge's villain arc that's perpetuated in the closing episodes of the show. Despite winning, Jumbo-Visma don't feel like winners in the personality contest.

Like in season one, talking heads Steve Chainel and Orla Chennaoui help explain the racing and the sometimes bamboozling tactics unfolding on the road. However, the riders enter the second series without any pretext from the previous season or an assumed bank of audience knowledge. It's also peppered with more personality to help establish the riders' own pathos. Generally, you can enter the second season without watching the first as there are no real continued narratives here, it acts as its own entity.

Cycling fans will take great pleasure in tucking into this season of 'Unchained'. The show leans into spectator frenzy, physical endurance and grandiose vistas just as much as the TV broadcasts do. The behind-the-scenes coverage provides more captivating storytelling than the TV broadcast though and importantly, given the show's release just before the Tour, season two leaves you wanting to know how the rivalry between Pogačar and Vingegaard will progress. Let's hope the cameras keep rolling.