REVIEW: BRICKLEBERRY “DADDY ISSUES”

Mutilated goats are found all over the park, so Steve volunteers to investigate the carnage, which leads him to a cave where his father, a legendary Brickleberry ranger, is living.

Spoilers Below

After failing miserably at bringing home the winning run at the local softball game, Steve and the gang get tied up, strapped to a truck, and driven around the field while naked! Soon after,  Steve starts to blame the fact that he never had a father around to teach him the important things in life like fighting, baseball, and how to bail someone out of jail. After screwing over another customer, Woody hears that his park is dotted with mutilated goats that are all still alive, and as such causing disturbance to the park customers. Steve looks at this as an opportunity to track down the cougar responsible all the mean while going around killing the goats one by one with a sniper rifle. As luck would have it, Steve comes across a cave and a raggidy old man living in the cave of which Steve notices is his father, Jonah!

Jonah’s been out of the game for too long and as such takes on the animal instincts and personality of someone who has been living in the woods for a hell of a long time(think Encino Man). Steve vows to make sure his dad fits in but from the looks of it Jonah is just to far gone to being normal. Welp meet Ethel, turns out she is having a hard time looking for a man, so Connie uses this as an opportunity to see if they should take their friendship to the next level, instead Ethel falls for Jonah much to the chagrin of Steve.

Steve, Ethel, and Jonah are at family therapy clinic trying to hash things out but unfortunately for Steve his dad and co-worker’s relationship is pretty advanced at this stage. As a matter of fact, the new couple are already getting hitched! Connie finds out, and she decides to help Steve in getting his dad back. On the day of the ceremony, Steve is trying to keep a straight face but really he’s just buying time until Connie’s plan comes together of which he soon finds out includes sniping out Jonah. To try and stop the assassination attempt, Steve heads up to Connie’s nest to try and wrestle the gun away from her, but the rifle goes off and shoots Jonah which sends him to the hospital. The doctor comes out and tells Steve, that the hairy man wasn’t a man but rather a big brown bear. That’s right, Connie fucked a bear. But is Steve’s dad still alive??

This week’s episode of Brickleberry had one of the more original story lines, but I felt there were TOO many strains of other plots that kinda of got in the way. For one,  I thought Ethel having dude troubles was a bit sudden, and would’ve thought we would have had SOME sort of build up of that from prior episodes, but if this is the first of many ‘bad men’ episodes she has I’d be OK with that as that’s just another great use for her. That said, her dude troubles seemed a little sudden as compared to Connie’s long-time affection for her. There was also a bit of a side-story involving Malloy and Woody, and although funny, kinda felt thrown in there at the last minute but Malloy bad mouthing that kid, over what looks to be similar to XBOX Live, was hysterical. With the main plot involving Steve and his dad, some of it seemed a tad cliche, as we’ve seen numerous story lines in other shows of characters finding long lost relatives, but with Brickleberry’s setting and its brand of humor, it allows the writers to delve into jokes that other shows can’t do. Case and point, Jonah eating animals of which causes the search for Steve’s dad in the first place. Also, anywhere else Jonah actually being a bear the whole time would be weird, but at Brickleberry its allll relative. I am really looking forward to seeing more character development from Ethel, all the meanwhile watching as the writers continue to take advantage of its park surroundings.

(8.0 out of 10)