Season 1 of Peacock‘s Ted prequel series laid on the gross gags pretty thick. There wasn’t a whole lot in the way of character development, and humor coming out of those characters. Sure, we don’t expect Seth MacFrarlane’s vulgar and racist teddy bear to get better — he’s a talking teddy bear! But we wish we saw more than what we did in the first season . Is the second season better?

TED SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: At the Bennett house, John Bennet (Max Burkholder) and Ted (voice of Seth MacFarlane) watch an SNL episode hosted by Patrick Stewart with Salt-N-Pepa as the musical guest; they try to come up with the most “fucked up” host-musical guest combinations they can think of.

The Gist:  After SNL ends and Showtime At The Apollo begins, John and his vulgar teddy bear buddy see an ad for a phone sex line. They know if they call a 1-900 number, John’s parents Matty (Scott Grimes) and Susan (Alanna Ubach) would probably blow their stacks (at least Matty will).

At school the next day, as they look for a place to smoke a joint, John and Ted find a phone in the basement. They call the 1-900 line from the ads and they get through. Success! They talk to a girl named “Shawna” who makes believe she’s having an orgasm almost as soon as they say their names. “We’re hurting her!” the inexperienced John says to Ted.

Days go by and many boxes of tissues are consumed. In the meantime, John’s cousin Blaire (Giorgia Whigham) tells Matty and Susan that her father — Matty’s older brother — Bernie (Scott Michael Campbell) wants to visit, and Blaire doesn’t want him there. Matty, who always believes he’s the king of the castle, insists. Of course, when Bernie does arrive, he spends time bullying his little brother with strong nut taps and other physical abuse. He also wants Blaire to come back home, mainly because Blaire’s mom left him and he needs someone to take care of him. Blaire, for her part, starts to call her father on his bullying of her uncle, but not before she’s confronted by Matty’s bare ass slung over Bernie’s shoulder.

Back at school the inevitable happens; the principal (Penny Johnson Jerald) tells the class that they got a phone bill for $5000 and they’re going to investigate who called this phone sex line with the help of determined Board of Ed investigator Mr. Lawrence (Peter Macon). The seniors are angry that the state-sanction “senior cut day” was taken from them and they chant for the “masturbators” to reveal themselves. In the meantime, John and Ted try to figure out how to get the heat off of them, including making up a student named Jeremy Schwarzfinger, who “liked Sublime before 1992.”

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Ted is a prequel to the Ted movies that starred Mark Wahlberg. More than ever, it feels like a live-action Family Guy.

Our Take: We will say that the writing of MacFarlane, who directed the episode, and his writers was a bit tighter in the second season premiere of Ted than it was in the first season. There was more than one gag that made us laugh, and we didn’t get a whole lot of the signature MacFarlane “stretch a gag until it becomes unfunny, then funny again” schtick.

We kind of wish the story wasn’t about Ted and John as much as it is, though. Sure, the show is called Ted, and having a living, f-bomb-dropping, somewhat racist teddy bear is this show’s reason for being. But all we see Ted and John doing is stupid crap and getting away with it, while there’s actual stories going on with the rest of the Bennett family.

Blaire is actually the emotional center of the show, and it’s evident in the story where she tries to get her father Bernie to stop bullying her uncle Matty, and takes matters into her own hands when he won’t stop. We would love to see a show about how Blaire is making her own way in mid-’90s Massachusetts, and finding that living with the Bennetts, including her dopey cousin and a bear that wonders which order he’d sleep with the women from Friends, is still preferable to her own family.

We do get the feeling that most of the season will progress like this, with John and Ted getting into stupid crap and actual character development happening around them. That’s a whole lot better than what we got with the first season, so maybe sight gags like seeing a pile of used tissues get bigger is the price to pay to get to know the other Bennetts a little bit.

Performance Worth Watching: When we say that Blaire is the emotional center of the show, we mean it, and it comes through in Giorgia Whigham’s performance.

Sex And Skin: Surprisingly, nothing explicit except the sight of Matty’s bare ass. The rest is just talk.

Parting Shot: Matty and Blaire have a beer, and she says, “I’m glad I’m here.” Matty says, “Have you heard about this kid Jeremy?”

Sleeper Star: Scott Grimes has been doing this a long, long time, and he does a great job of showing how Matty pretends he’s in control, but knows he absolutely isn’t.

Most Pilot-y Line: Mr. Lawrence: “No one in Framingham was listening to Sublime before 1992, when their debut studio album 40 Oz. To Freedom rocked the charts!”

Our Call: STREAM IT, but barely. Ted is definitely more watchable in Season 2, more interested in character and story than it was in Season 1. But we just wish that, while Ted himself is pretty irredeemable, we got more growth out of John rather than just a series of gross shennanigans.

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How To Watch Ted

Peacock currently offers two subscription types: Premium with ads and Premium Plus ad-free. Peacock Premium costs $10.99/month, while Premium Plus costs $16.99/month.

You can save a bit by subscribing to one of Peacock’s annual plans, which give you 12 months for the price of 10. These cost either $109.99 with ads or $169.99 without ads.

Peacock Premium Plus is also available to subscribe to via Prime Video with a seven-day free trial that you can’t get by subscribing directly on Peacock.

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Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.