Review: The Jellies “Barry’s School Reunion”

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Overview (Spoilers Below)

Barry heads to his school reunion, which is pretty much just his fellow work employees and Jelly relocating to a different location and throwing a party. That’s because, as we eventually learn, everybody that graduated in this class is today a bunch of losers. Yes, there are some open conflicts that get resolved, but really, no one at this party has a grand story to tell about life. That said, we do learn that neither Barry nor Debbie wanted to have children, so the duo rekindled their relationship over that, just as some sets off a bomb among all of the parked cars.

Our Take

We still haven’t quite hit that level of insanity that prior episodes of The Jellies is known for, but we see flashes of it, and blowing up the parking lot is literally standing at the precipice of what I hope is the show’s trademark anarchy to come.

Also, by far and away, Barry is the character in this show that has the most layers of development. Typically, Barry’s the one that goes to bat for Cornell when the kid is down in the dumps about being adopted, Barry’s the one who is there to make sure his wife knows that she’s cared for despite her rabid drinking, and Barry at the office is almost a second show within a show that takes on more of a workplace comedy and that was exhibited really well here as we got to spend a lot of time with Barry’s co-workers/former classmates and really kind of dig in to their silliness than what’s been given to us the last two seasons. Quite frankly, I think they were pretty damn funny, and they had a more varied comedic punch than Cornell’s school friends.

The Jellies is slowly becoming a really solid show, distancing itself from its predecessor but not afraid to dip its toes back in the wrong part of Tyler Okonma’s mind. Carl Jones’ fingerprints on the show are evident, probably the reason why the franchise has been way more of a controlled and concise effort than the web series which was a bit more off the handle but didn’t have has much to sink your teeth into in terms of character development.

The other thing I’ve come to like about The Jellies is that it plays a great complement to Squidbillies. Both shows feature animal/human populaces that you wouldn’t expect and each is insane in its own way but cater to different audiences. Adult Swim appears to be possibly priming 2018 to do more of this, so it’ll be interesting to see what comes down the pipe the rest of the way from the network.