Solve almostIncreasingSequence (Codefights)

Question

Given a sequence of integers as an array, determine whether it is possible to obtain a strictly increasing sequence by removing no more than one element from the array.

Answer 1

With Python3, I started with something like this...

def almostIncreasingSequence(sequence):
    for i, x in enumerate(sequence):
        ret = False
        s = sequence[:i]+sequence[i+1:]
        for j, y in enumerate(s[1:]):
            if s[j+1] <= s[j]:
                ret = True
                break
            if ret:
                break
        if not ret:
            return True
    return False

But kept timing out on Check #29.

I kicked myself when I realized that this works, too, but still times out on #29. I have no idea how to speed it up.

def almostIncreasingSequence(sequence):
    for i, x in enumerate(sequence):    
        s = sequence[:i]
        s.extend(sequence[i+1:])
        if s == sorted(set(s)):
            return True
    return False