“Honest & Relatable”

Big Mouth: Season One

Network Netflix

Release Date 29 September 2017

Episodes 10

Binge Time 4 hrs 10 mins

Last week I wrote an Impressions review of the first episode of Netflix’s new animated show, Big Mouth, created by Nick Kroll which I recommend reading (here) if you want to understand what the show is all about. Because it was so good, and I enjoyed it so much, I thought I’d do a review of the season overall and give some insight into why Big Mouth really impressed me.

The series moves through all the different stages of puberty in ten episodes, looking at not only the human body and its wonders, but romance, friendships, school, family issues and even a sprinkling of religion. How it managed to cover so much, I don’t even know, but the clear driving force behind this series is an honest exploration doused in explicitness and relatability.

On the flip-side, Big Mouth contrasts all this real-talk with surreal characters and scenarios. For example, in Episode 6 “Pillow Talk,”  while Andrew and Nick have to deal with cool kids and cheating parents in NewYork City, their gross friend Jay engages in a full-blown relationship, including having a baby… with his pillow. It has to be one of the grottiest and weirdest storylines I’ve ever seen, but somehow it works wonderfully.

Which brings me to the crux of what makes this show so great; the balance of all the very different elements is done so well. The “Hormone Monsters”, Maury and Connie are creepy, lustful beasts (who play a far more significant role in the show than I thought they would initially and are probably my favourite characters as well as the funniest), are often in opposition to the awkward, hopeless children. And then those same characters then contrast to the questionable adults in the series.

Then there are the jokes, which so often are surreal or meta, (“A TV show about kids jerking off? Wouldn’t that just be child pornography? Maybe we could make it animated, then it’d be ok, right?”), but without the core, identifiable issues Big Mouth wouldn’t really stand out the way it does, and without those bizarre elements the show would probably just be a bit depressing.

Basically, silliness is balanced by familiar problems faced by the kids, and completely ridiculous scenarios are balanced by what are clearly autobiographical occurrences. The result is a well-rounded, gross, hilarious and crazy show. I loved it.