Distance between set and home helps keep distance between North Vancouver actor and character

In the second season of the CBC TV comedy Son of a Critch, the kids are now in high school and facing all the ups and many downs that come with that rite of passage.

Lead character Mark (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) is faced with a lot of change. And, frankly, he is not ready for any of it.

After a summer apart, he discovers that his pal Ritchie (Mark Ezekiel Rivera) has made new friends. And his crush Fox, played by North Vancouver’s Sophia Powers, has a car-driving, leather coat-wearing, sneering Grade 10 boyfriend.

Set in St. John’s in the 1980s, Son of a Critch — based on the memoir of the same name from comedian/actor Mark Critch, who plays young Mark’s dad Mike and is the narrator of the show — is a coming-of-age story where pathos is often the punchline and everyone, it appears, is an underdog. The series started season two on Tuesday and is airing on CBC TV and Gem Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m.