Sneaky Pete Season 2 Recap

Here’s a recap for Sneaky Pete season 2. The brainchild of Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston and House creator David Shore, Sneaky Pete is an Amazon Original crime dramedy that stars Giovanni Ribisi as conman Marius Josipovic. After a three-year stint in jail, Marius assumes the identity of cellmate Pete (Ethan Embry) to con his estranged family who – according to Pete – own a lucrative bond business and have the $100,000 Marius needs to pay off gangster Vince (Bryan Cranston).

Unfortunately for Marius, it turns out Pete’s family aren’t rich but what they lack in funds they make up for in dysfunction. Nevertheless, Marius sticks around and eventually grows fond of his fake family as he pulls off a series of cons that benefit both him and Pete’s grandparents and cousins. At the end of Sneaky Pete’s first season, however, a cliffhanger saw Marius’ identity-stealing antics catch up with him when he was kidnapped by two thugs thinking he was the real Pete who owed their boss a lot of money.

Sneaky Pete season 2 picked up where that cliffhanger left off with the two goons Frank (Joseph Lyle Taylor) and Joe (Desmond Harrington) telling Marius he has 72 hours to find Pete’s mother who stole $11 million from scary gangster Luka (John Ales), who has a rather gruesome habit of melting his foes in an acid bath. Marius concocts a scheme to get Pete out of prison so he can find out where his mother and the money is. Pete’s mother Maggie (Jane Adams, Jesse Stone: Stone Cold) turns up at the family homestead but for reasons known only to her decides not to reveal Marius isn’t Pete and tells him the money is hidden inside a taxidermied buffalo at a casino.

Elsewhere in Sneaky Pete season 2, family matriarch Audrey (Margo Martindale) tried to cover up her killing of crooked cop Winslow (Michael O’Keefe) in season 1. With NYPD detective Joyce Roby (Jennifer Ferrin) hot on her tail it didn’t look likely for a while, but she was able to pin it on that pesky dead hitman from season 1 with the help of her cop grandson Taylor (Shane McRae). Said dead hitman – who patriarch Otto (Peter Gerety) hired to kill him so his family could cash in on his life insurance – proved a problem post-mortem when his son turned up looking for him, but he soon ended up dead too.

The crux of Sneaky Pete season 2, of course, was the $11 million supposedly stuck inside a stuffed buffalo. After Marius enlists the help of the real Pete to pull off an elaborate ruse involving a decoy buffalo, they find out Maggie has pulled a fast one on them all and the money was hidden inside the walls of Luka’s office the whole time. Rather than make off with the loot, Maggie made a dying Luka (who’d been shot by his goon Frank) watch as she dissolved the $11 million in his infamous acid bath as revenge for killing her boyfriend years ago. Sneaky Pete’s second season ended on another cliffhanger which saw Pete’s cousin Julia (Marin Ireland) meet with Marius’ parole officer to find out his real identity. Would Marius’ long con masquerading as Pete finally be discovered in season 3?