Review - Big Mouth Season 2

I remember reading somewhere online a while back (probably on the A.V. Club or Vice) that shock TV was dead and that South Park was the last remaining outpost of the kind of raw animation that really had the power to jar audiences out of their seats; Scott Tenorman Must Die springs to mind. And I agreed. Maybe they were right, maybe animated sitcoms had come to up to a point far beyond the trail set by The Simpsons and Family Guy. Even shows like the wonderfully charming Bob’s Burgers seem somewhat pedestrian in their take on middle America.

Then along comes a show like Big Mouth that reminds you that the medium can still make you sit up and go “How did they allow that on TV?” And that’s the thing; Big Mouth isn’t on mainstream TV. Hell, they wouldn’t allow it on mainstream TV. This is Netflix commissioning a show that really is pushing boundaries in many ways.

Big Mouth Cinema Scene

We pick up the second season with our characters still going through the carnage that is puberty in all its sticky bloody glory. Nick (Nick Kroll) is our main protagonist who lives at home with his new age parents and is haunted by the ghost of Duke Ellington (if you haven’t seen Season 1, this won’t make any sense yet). He and his friend Andrew (John Mulaney) try to survive their day-to-day lives in high school at the same time juggling the experience that is their own puberty all with the help.

Aiding them along the way are the grotesque cartoonish Hormone Monsters (Nick Kroll again and Maya Ruldoph), and we see them try to guide their chosen wards through the minefield of youth, sex, bubblegum fantasy, locker room musings and sleepover experimentation. Counterbalancing the Hormone Monsters’ vivacious need to hump is the physical embodiment of Shame, a new Voldomort-esque character that reigns in the characters’ sexual misadventures and reminds them to feel terrible about them. Alongside them is a wide cast of characters from their sexually inept gym coach, a snarky gay kid and an entire rainbow of well fleshed out high school inhabitants.

Back to what I was saying about the shock factor: if you’ve watched the first season, then you’ll probably know what I’m talking about. If not, (SPOILER ALERT) it involves a ladies sauna and questionable nudity. I’ve been careful to avoid the media reaction to this in order to not to cloud my review, but I’m expecting it will cause a great many debates on what is and what is not acceptable to animate.

More often than not, the pre-pubescent tale is one that is led via the male gaze; Adrian Mole, The Wonder Years, The Geeks from Freaks and Geeks, The In-Betweeners. Women are powerful otherworldly creatures, objectified through the lens of Clearasil and bad metal braces. Big Mouth refreshingly brings us into the inner female torments of adolescence. We see their aches, pains, longings and lustings just as much as we see our two male characters, even more so in this second season. The writers are telling us that girls are horny too and that we’ve got to live with that.

Special mentions have to go to the Planned Parenthood episodes which mastered that perfect balance between entertaining and educational. The voice cast is spot on and the gags and music numbers really make for laugh out loud moments. This show is currently sitting near the top of a lot of critics’ lists, including this one, so give it a look before it becomes too mainstream or spawns an overtly vocal fanbase like that of Rick and Morty.

Overall, it’s not the nudity and the sexual humour that make this show awkward to watch at times. It’s the horrific nostalgia of looking at the bra fumbling, pillow humping, leg grinding antics of our tween protagonists. Big Mouth Season 2 is a raw, poignant yet hilarious look at those years we can only look back at and think, “That was me”.

Big Mouth Season’s One and Two are on Netflix.