Review: Animals “Cats” Part One

Despite the fact that we’re knocking on the door for May, we are treated to an episode of Animals that takes place during Christmas.

Spoilers Below

Cats

A cat named Philly come to power for a mob family that was run by his brother Johnny before he was killed by a rival mob of Asian cats. We’re about to get down to the good stuff in terms of a real mob war but we’ll have to wait til next week to see it.

Owls

A Christmas-centric plot that involves one of the owls getting really expensive pants and the other owl getting a pellet with their name transcribed on the side with macaroni.

Our Take

Despite a rather convoluted plot, “Cats” was a pretty good take on the mob genre, clearly borrowing ideas from Gangs of New York, The Sopranos, The Godfather, etc but definitely doing their own take on it with the comedic qualities that make the series a good one. Fred Armisen’s “Alabaster” was probably my favorite character of the lot, and fans of the genre will note some familiar voices.

Owls were about as exciting as the shit pellets of which the episode revolved around, and not nearly as fruitful. The idea of inserting this lame bit, and then separating the “Cats” episode into two, is a ridiculous idea but it’s not the first time the producers of the series have gone this route for really no reason. Why the fuck do we have a Christmas episode in near-May anyway?

The conventions of story-telling clearly absent non-withstanding, “Cats” offered up enough to keep me interested to see the sequel, it’s just too bad that it was necessary to have a sequel, to begin with.