Season Review: The Blubburbs Season One

A twisted, nautical delight from the producers of Cyanide & Happiness.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS BELOW)

Explosm.net gave us very little idea of what to expect from its new series prior to making the entire first season available on go90 (international viewers can find it on Yahoo! View). Basically, it examines the daily lives of people from the same neighborhood, which happens to be a whale. As per the show’s extremely catchy theme song, there are “folk you’d associate with whales” such as Geppetto, Pinocchio, Jonah, and Ahab, in addition to a quirky cast of newly created characters.

Much like Explosm staple Cyanide & Happiness, the show’s greatest strength is its writing. In fact, The Blubburbs’ co-creator Michael Rousselet has been a prolific contributor to the former since 2016, and this influence quickly becomes apparent given the hilarious combination of absurd and dark comedy favored by both shows. For instance, the episode ‘Whale World’ manages to work in some scathing satire of aquatic theme parks’ mistreatment of their animals, as infamously revealed in the documentary Blackfish (which itself is directly namedropped and skewered). Yet instead of allowing the script to simply continue to take aim at these two subjects, the episode unexpectedly shifts to a series of astonishingly perfect Hollywood parodies, including (but not limited to) a laugh-out-loud funny Jeff Goldblum impression and a riff on Tom Hanks’ career that quickly turns grim.

Nevertheless, The Blubburbs manages to create its own identity, and in my opinion, improves upon Cyanide & Happiness by never forgetting to connect its stories to the central premise. I can only imagine how difficult it was to create nine plots relating to an idea this bizarre, and the ingenuity of the world the show creates can be seen in the breadth of subjects the writers manage to touch on, from gentrification to online dating, to an obligatory Free Willy parody. This keen sense of identity extends to each of the characters, and in one case, the show’s new take on a familiar face was one of my personal highlights of the season. That is, Pinocchio is literally just an inanimate block of wood with a painted smiley face in this universe. Aside from the twisted implications, this has with regards to Geppetto’s psyche, the occasional cuts to his “son” being given a task to do, such as scavenging for supplies in the whale’s mouth and lying motionlessly never failed to crack me up.

As alluded to above, by the second half of the season I clearly understood every character’s personality, which complemented the less-story driven direction that The Blubburbs takes from episode five onwards. Rather, at this point, the show more closely resembles a series of vignettes, with a few characters serving as the focus of each installment. The Captain Nemo showcase ‘20,000 Ways To Escape’ exemplifies this; the character is largely relegated to supporting appearances throughout the other episodes, but here our prior knowledge of his fervent desire for freedom, and alcoholism pay off brilliantly, with a fittingly bleak climax. Indeed, while there aren’t many jokes that explicitly rely on continuity, the show is perfect for binge-watching given how specific its world feels.

Meanwhile, the voice cast all give exaggerated performances perfectly suited for their wacky roles, particularly Dave McElfatrick as Ahab (his casting is perhaps the greatest consequence of the Cyanide & Happiness connection). Like other Explosm series, the animation uses Flash, but I think that The Blubburbs’ colorful flair actually makes it their best-looking show yet.

OUR TAKE

My one minor frustration with the show is its structure; since each of the first four episodes is longer than the entire second half of the season combined, later installments tend to feel more like initial proofs of concept. I’m sure that the varying runtimes are entirely due to budget constraints, and the writers pack an impressive amount of character work and world building into what are essentially single scene sketches. However, with its four full-length episodes alone The Blubburbs comes bursting out of the gate as a strong contender for my favorite new series of 2018. Once you’ve experienced this kind of quality, anything less doesn’t quite cut it.

To use a phrase that’s likely never been uttered by someone while eating whale: I hope that more people get into this, and I want more of it as soon as possible.