The opening moments to the second season premiere of Apple’s Palm Royale are admittedly intoxicating. Maxine Dellacorte-Simmons (Kristen Wiig) exiting a vehicle in a vibrant yellow outfit to enter the titular Palm Royale country club. She’s treated like a goddess, entering the ballroom where she is greeted by a host of synchronized-dancing attendees and a sultry Robert Diaz (Ricky Martin), alive and well, singing Mel Torme’s “Comin’ Home Baby”. Soon, Maxine gets into the groove and joins in on this electric musical number. Of course, this is all a fantasy in her head, as she’s drugged up on sedative medication after the chaotic events of the first season finale. A bizarre, but enchanting opening to what is ultimately a pretty terrible follow-up season, with a plot so haywire and out of control, it almost feels like episodes were being written on the fly while they were filming. But if that were the case, this show wouldn’t be as expertly directed and visually-dazzling as it is. Clearly time went into the production of this second season, which looks even more colorful and pastiche than the first. Absorbing, glitzy production design and occasional show-stopping musical numbers are simply just a distraction though.

The first season of Palm Royale was met with a fairly mixed reception in its own right, with many critics finding the stretched-out plot and confused tone a large problem. But while its soapy narrative and goofy presentation were divisive, the show was popular enough to score big Emmy nominations as well as be renewed for another. Based on the novel Mr. & Mrs. American Pie by Juliet McDaniel, the first season at least had a narrative prepared to be adapted from, allowing its characters and world-building to be relatively easy to follow. While not a particularly faithful telling of that novel, the source material at least planted the seeds for a television adaptation. The second season feels aimless, helplessly in search of a plot, in search of what to do with its enormous ensemble of characters, in search of a reason to keep going at all.

We last left Palm Royale in that very ballroom the opening scene takes place. Mary Davidsoul (Julia Duffy) attempted to assassinate President Nixon, Linda Shaw AKA Penelope Rollins (Laura Dern) attempts to stop her but the bullet hits Robert. Linda is mistakenly apprehended for the assassination while Robert’s fate is left unknown. Maxine makes a giant fool of herself in front of her fellow crowd of high society members after discovering her husband Douglas Dellacorte-Simmons (Josh Lucas) is expecting a baby with the much younger Mitzi (Kaia Gerber). Oh, and Norma Dellacorte (Carol Burnett) is revealed to not actually be Norma, but her twin sister Agnes, who she killed long ago. It’s a lot of material to carry over into a follow-up season, but the series struggles to both keep these storylines efficiently paced, and even worse, keep them engaging at all.

It takes a while after that great opening scene for the first episode to settle into itself. Evelyn Rollins (Allison Janney) is at odds with Norma after her conspiring with Maxine to gain control of the estate, forcing her to make an alliance with Maxine. Maxine is delirious in a straight-jacket, on so much medication that she believes she’s sitting poolside in her bikini with a martini in her hand. Linda is nearby, able to spot her from the basement window of her solitary confinement. Linda screams to get her attention, “Repeat after me: my name Maxine Dellacorte and I drink grasshoppers!” It takes a simple reminder of her signature drink, a far cry from the martini in her fantasy, to snap her from her delusion. From there, Maxine must make a convoluted escape back to her reality and find a way to rescue Linda as well.

Still grappling with a wacky tone, Palm Royale struggles even more to define itself. The performances of this incredible cast are all over the place, with very few appearing to understand their character’s motivations. It all seems like it was great fun to film. A show that was definitely more fun to make than it is to watch. Maxine coordinating Linda’s great escape with her fellow female socialites is done with a goofball-Ocean’s Eleven charm and with quirky comic beats. But those sequences are drowned out by a flood of subplots that drag and tangle the main narrative to an impossible-to-follow degree. The show simply does not know what to do with anybody but Maxine and for a series that is committed to hour-long episodes (a mistake from the start), it becomes a chore to sit through.

Best in show this season is Leslie Bibb as the rich and well-connected Dinah Donohue, a character whose purpose this season feels too lean but Bibb makes every second of her wildly fun screen-time count. Carol Burnett finally gets more to do in the first few episodes as Norma/Agnes than she did in the first (given she spent most of the first season comatose) and manages to be an intimating presence, though with the show’s absolutely nonsensical swings, even her characterization gets completely muddled. Then there is a surprise appearance by a Broadway legend, given a flashy cameo and an enormous, but pointless musical number. A highlight, but much like this season, a distraction to cover up a season that seemed completely butchered in the writer’s room. Where we go after the first five episodes is unclear and it will likely remain unclear even after they arrive. Perhaps the production design still can work like a dopamine hit for viewers, but following the plot will be a bad trip. Much like Maxine in her hallucinatory state, this disastrous second season is a dense mess masquerading as candy-coated luxury.