The Two Coreys - Season 2
Starring: Corey Haim, Corey Feldman
Created By: (Produced by) RDF USA and Tijuana Entertainment
Premieres: Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 10:00 p.m. on A&E
I don’t know what it is about The Two Coreys that keeps drawing me back. Is it because as a kid, for a brief time I thought Haim and Feldman were the greatest duo in the history of twosomes? Perhaps. Fate (with the help of A&E) brought the two 80’s teen icons back together last year with the first season of the series and despite having felt flashes of what can only be described as an awkward discomfort on more than one occasion during previous viewings of The Two Coreys, I still felt compelled to check out the premiere episode for the second season.
Things didn’t end well for the two Coreys last season. The friendship, which was strained from day one seemed to have fallen apart (again) by the end of the season. But obviously they’re willing to give their friendship another chance otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing a second season of this series. The premiere episode starts up with Corey Haim returning to L.A. to reunite with Feldman (again) and work on Lost Boys 2. Before they can be friends, they need to have a talk about where they’re at in the relationship. This involves an extremely uncomfortable meeting in which the two argue over who is more to blame for their falling out. They dig into their history, going past the things that took place during the first season of the show and bringing up things that happened when they were teenagers. One of the major issues they have involves at least one incident of sexual abuse that took place when they were younger.
Seeing as their problems run deeper than arguing over who drank the last of the orange juice, the two get set up with a couples therapist, who might be the key to keeping their friendship together. There’s something oddly amusing about two former celebrities seeing a marriage counselor together but at the same time, their relationship really does need a lot of work and having a professional on hand to referee some of their arguments isn’t such a bad thing.
Here’s the thing though, while these two have a lot of history, I don’t get the sense that either of them really wants the friendship to work. Or maybe it’s more that they’re both in different places in their lives, with Haim a bachelor and Feldman married and settled down. The show seems to focus almost entirely on the Coreys trying to get along, which just seems forced. It’s as though it takes an effort for them to even carry on a simple conversation. I guess there’s a certain train wreck quality to that, which is probably what gets people to tune in in the first place.
One of the things that I think holds the series back is the Coreys’ inability to really let their guards down in front of the cameras. Sure, they open up about some very personal things but I still get the impression that they’re both all too aware of the cameras. Having not been on a reality show myself I can’t say that I know what it’s like to have cameras on me all the time but comparing The Two Coreys to some of the other celebreality series out there, it just seems like even after a full season, these guys still haven’t allowed themselves to just act natural and let people see them as they really are.
Despite the mess that is the Corey/Corey relationship, I still can’t help watching this show. Maybe I’m just hoping to see both Coreys grow from this experience or at the very least, learn to like each other for the people they are now. Am I being totally overly optimistic and sappy? Who knows? Probably, but stranger things have happened on reality TV.
