The second season grew its timeslot audience, 10 p.m. on Monday, by 54 percent compared to the same weeks in the previous year and over the course of the season reached a total of 2.5 million viewers. In a review for "HuffPost Canada" Denette Wilford wrote: ""19-2" is not just your average procedural. It's a character-driven drama that follows two not-so-different men from very different worlds as they learn to work with one another. The acting is solid and organic, the pace is perfect, the writing is real and natural and believable, and the stories hit home." A.R. Wilson of Digital Journal also reviewed it positively saying, "Instead of depending on constant action sequences and endless doses of adrenaline, it spaces its major crimes out, patiently mining the aftermaths of these events for compelling storylines... It's realistically written, beautifully acted, and gorgeously shot in and around Montreal. Most of all, it's a keenly observed character drama that manages to make the cop show genre feel fresh by placing people over procedural." Phil Harrison and Gwilym Mumford for "The Guardian" said "This Canadian series, set in Montréal's Precinct 19, boasts all the tropes of post-"Shield" police dramas: antiheroes, mavericks, shaky verité camerawork. Yet what 19-2 lacks in originality it makes up for in action from the off". "The New York Times"s Neil Genzlinger described the series as "a slow burn" and stated, "There are tropes in "19-2" – the police genre is too crowded for there not to be – but the writing is sublime, turning each episode into a sort of tone poem, a slice of urban and police life carefully observed. The series is in the tradition of shows like "The Wire", portraying law enforcement less flashily and less noisily than others, and thus more accurately." Bill Brownstein of the "Montreal Gazette" said, ""19-2" works so effectively because it grasps the reality of both conflicted cops and citizens in this city. Nothing is black and white here. Characters come in a variety of shades. All of which makes the chemistry between partners Barron and Chartier so credible and so captivating." Conversely, "The Globe and Mail"s John Doyle was more critical of the series, feeling "the set-up is as plain as a poke in your eye", noting "The series flirts with grimness but points to the timidity of Canadian drama at the moment – its limitations and inability to challenge and horrify as well as entertain.