It’s difficult to describe how excited my family was to watch the second season of Floor Is Lava. OK, wait, maybe I should be more honest. On an excitement scale of 1 to 5, my daughters, ages 12 and 8, would probably rate theirs at a 4. My wife’s level would be somewhere at a 3. My teenage son’s would be well below zero because, honestly, he’s a teenager, and I just can’t make sense of his priorities at the moment outside of eating incredible amounts of carbohydrates. And mine, well… mine was off the charts — well over excitement level 10 for this game show. So, maybe I should say that I was super excited to watch the second season of Floor Is Lava, while my daughters were pretty excited, and that was enough for us to have an epic evening together. 

To get to watch a show that I am super excited about with my two daughters... my goodness. That is an unusual and refreshing flip of our usual TV-viewing dynamic. 

We watched it on a Friday night, once the kids were finished with their homework. My daughters, Aspen and Norah, snuggled by my side as we sat on the sofa. It was the epitome of family time.We aren’t a sports family, we don’t have a team that we root for, so to see my daughters on the edge of their seats as a group of fully grown adults navigate a Floor Is Lava situation is absolutely hilarious. But it was also an amazing way to spend 40 minutes as a family. 

We laughed, we held on tight, we shouted suggestions through gritted teeth: “No, no, you need to climb the picture frames first!” “Are you kidding me? Don’t lean on the back of the recliner! It moves!” “Don’t jump on that box! You’ll fall inside it!” (As if we could so easily have navigated that haunted attic of slippery and sticky obstacles if we were on the show.) We discussed how awesome it would be to actually compete on Floor Is Lava, all three of us lost in our reveries of victory, climbing the new Season 2 volcano, holding up the championship lava lamp. (Netflix, if you’re listening, invite us to be on the next season!) But, most importantly, we did all this together, all of us, ranging from ages 8 to 39, shouting, debating, imagining together, deeply involved in the show as a family. 

The same thing happened with the show’s first season. And — full transparency — when my daughters suggested we watch Floor Is Lava Season 1 back in 2020, I was pretty lukewarm. On that excitement scale listed above, I would’ve rated mine at a 3. Maybe even 2.5. I mean, it sounded like a fun show. But it wasn’t until I watched my daughters on their feet yelling at the screen, inching to the edge of the sofa or jumping and crying out suggestions as if the contestants could actually hear them, that I absolutely fell in love with this high-stakes game show. 

I think that right there is the true magic of Floor Is Lava. Regardless of your age, it’s highly likely you’ve played a version of this game at least once in your life. You’ve won, you’ve lost and that simple universal appeal left me and my kiddos talking about the show long after we finished Season 2, gearing up for summer break by eyeing our furniture and planning out our strategy to never touch the living room floor for the next several months. Because as you all know, the floor is lava.

But what really made it a 5.5 on a scale of 5 is watching my daughters absolutely freak out as if they were a couple of lifelong Boston Red Sox fans watching their team finally break the Curse of the Bambino and win the World Series.

Honestly, I love watching my daughters watch the show. With each episode, I can’t help but smile at them and their excitement. I feel this warmth in my heart, a sense of connectedness with my kiddos that for me, as a father, is one of the best feelings. And this isn’t to say that Floor Is Lava isn’t an awesome show. It is. But what makes me love it so much is my daughters’ reaction to it, and for that reason alone, it has become one of my favorite series. So, this summer, we are probably going to watch Floor Is Lava Season 1 and 2 a number of times. And, yes, my furniture is going to feel the brunt of it — not only during the show but afterwards, as my children are inspired to practice their skills all over the living room, preparing for that magical day Netflix calls to offer us a spot on Season 3. And I can say with complete confidence that I will have no regrets.