Unlocked: A Jail Experiment Season 2 Review 2026 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
The Pinal County Correctional Facility houses inmates that are either awaiting sentencing or are waiting to be transferred to the state penitentary, and as the new county sherrif, Ross Teeple, mentions, “politics” drives a lot of the violence there. By “politics” he actually means racial tension, and none of it is helped when the inmates are on lockdown 23 hours per day, as the corrections staff often has to implement lockdowns when attacks flare up. In one example, we see two inmates go into the showers and hear the two of them fighting with each other.
As with the year before, the inmates know that cameras are being installed to document life in prison, but a week after they’re installed, the sherrif tells them what’s really going on: The doors will be opened in H block, and the corrections officers will step out. The inmates will govern themselves.
We get to know a couple of the inmates, like Ronald Dunmire, nicknamed “AO,” who is constantly put in solitary for being disrespectful to the COs. Elwood Murphy, known as “Woody,” thinks that pot gets him in more trouble than heroin. Ronald Stricklett, aka “Irish,” looks to be the example that everyone can follow regarding how to conduct themselves, despite the fact that he was accused of being a neo-Nazi.
Just like with Unlocked Season 1, we’re a little skeptical about whether the experiment that Sherrif Teeple has in store for his correctional facility is all his idea. He says he wants to use new methods and that sticking to the tried-and-true correctional protocols means that his county is falling behind. He also states that this experiment will help these inmates function better on the outside after they’re released, reducing recidivism.
There were positive outcomes in Season 1, and the ward where the experiment was carried out is still mostly run the same way today. But officials in Arkansas were concerned that filiming inside the jail was unethical, and a couple of the inmates complained about how they were portrayed.
We don’t think that any of that will change for Season 2, and that’s where what makes us take pause. Yes, the producers, Lucky 8, are veterans of the prison docuseries and are looking for moments of chaos as well as moments where dispirate groups come togheter. But in Season 2, the diversity of H Block seems to be a point of emphasis, and not in a good way. In other words, groups will be divided along racial lines and govern from relative positions of strength or weakness. That might make for compelling TV, but it doesn’t bode well for the experiment itself to work.
