The first season of the PBS series Marie Antoinnette was more about Antoinette finding her way in the French royal court as she’s paired up with Louis XV’s oldest son, who wasn’t exactly Antoinette’s romantic cup of tea. The second season picks up the story ten years into the sudden reign of Louis XVI and Antoinette, who ascended to the throne as young adults after Louis XV’s sudden death. Now, we’re a few years away from the French Revolution, and discontent is already being fomented in both Paris and Versailles.

Opening Shot: After an opening description that sets us ten years into the reign of Louis XVI (Louis Cunningham) and Marie Antoinette (Emilia Schüle), we cut to a horse-drawn carriage running through a bleak, snow-covered city. “Paris, 1783. One of the coldest winters on record.”

The Gist: A pregnant Antoinette is in this carriage with her court. She sees snow effigies of her and Louis around the city, a testament to their empathetic rule. When she sees a man sleeping outside a church, she insists that she and Princess Lamballe (Jasmine Blackborow) exit the carriage to help him. But as soon as he reaches towards her, Antoinette is shepherded back to the carriage, with the thought that she’s in danger.

At Versailles, a pickpocket and grifter named Jeanne (Freya Mavor) has been able to infiltrate the court. She hangs by Antoinette’s apartments when a jeweler brings the queen a massive necklace that’s worth millions, a necklace Antoinette refuses to buy because of the optics it’ll project with the people.

Both Antoinette and Louis are busy, so busy that they barely see each other, but she finds warmth with her young son and daughter, as well of the companionship of the kids’ governess, Yolande (Liah O’Prey). On Louis’ side of the palace, his younger brother, the Count of Provence (Jack Archer), is lobbying the king to appoint him as the crown’s financial controller.

Antoinette, tired of scions of privileged families constantly lobbying her and Louis for favors, proposes to her husband that commoners who have been loyal to the palace get large pensions and titles. Louis is on board for it, including providing for Yolande, who becomes a duchess.

But Yolande and her family have debts to pay, and Antoinette starts questioning Yolande’s loyalty when she becomes too busy trying to get her friend Alexandre de Calonne (James Northcote) installed as financial controller — so he can skim off the royal budget — to tend to the queen. In addition, Jeanne infiltrates the queen’s apartments and steals Antoinette’s secret love letters to Axel von Fersen (Martijn Lakemeier), her Swedish diplomat lover who was sent to the Americas to help the revolution there..

Calonne gets the controller’s job, then finds out from the king’s right-hand man, the Count of Vergennes (Guy Henry) that the country is in a massive amount of debt with little hope of paying it off. Meanwhile, Jeanne forms a plan to steal the necklace Antoinette refuses to buy.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Before the first season we cited Becoming Elizabeth as an analogue to Marie Antoinette, and we’ll stick with that. Also there’s the 2006 Sofia Coppola film of the same name that starred Kristen Dunst as the queen.

Our Take: The second season of Marie Antoinette, created by Deborah Davis, introduces us to a blizzard of characters who are aiming for the king and queen of France in one way or another. Some of them are fomenting dissent based on the fact that Louis is weak and indecisive, and prone to shunning the privileged in favor of loyal subjects. Antoinette, on the other hand, is a lonely former spendthrift who is now trying to go in the opposite direction and show that she’s the people’s queen. But she has no idea whom she can trust.

Remember, Louis XVI was the last king of France before the revolution eliminated the monarchy; he was dethroned and executed in 1792, but the seeds of the revolution are being sowed here. It seems like Louis and Antoinette are being sold a bill of goods when they’re told that the people see them as modern and progressive rulers, given how poor most of them are. And this is before word gets out that the country is swimming in debt.

It makes for an intriguing second season, given how the monarchy ends up being compromised from both inside and outside sources. But the complexities of what led to the revolution make for confusing drama. This parade of ponytailed men and dark-haired, bun-headed women start to blur after awhile. Even after a second viewing of the first episode, trying to sort out who everyone was, and what their various plans were to infiltrate the royal inner circle, became a blur.

It’s a tough balance, though, for Davis and her writing staff to achieve; if they concentrate on one or two people, it doesn’t accurately show just how many directions Antoinette and Louis were pulled in. But showing just how many people were gunning for them will inevitably lead to some of those characters fading into the background, storywise. It’ll be interesting to see how Davis and company negotiate all of this as the second season moves forward.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode, which is a bit of a surprise.

Parting Shot: After she miscarries what turned out to be a baby girl, Antoinette sits on a balcony with Yolande, wondering who her friends are.

Sleeper Star: Jack Archer is appropriately slimy as Provence, but he’s certainly not the only slimy person hanging around Versailles.

Most Pilot-y Line: Rohan calls Antoinette a “c—y country countess”, which is what we think is what he’s saying — even our screener bleeped out that word. Damn you, PBS!

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite the confusion fostered in the first episode, Marie Antoinette is setting up a potboiler of a second season, given just how many people are looking to topple the reign of Antoinette and Louis.

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.