Review: Animals “Episode Twenty-One: Rats.”

RATS!RATS!RATS!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

We pick up three years after the events of Animals Season Two where a bomb was dropped on NYC wiping out humanity in the five boroughs (but somehow sparing New Jersey?) leaving just the animals to thrive. The event is celebrated every year as “Green Day” and as time has gone on our city critters have essentially set up a Game of Thrones like territorial split with the other animals and the premiere does a good job of initial intros for a slew of them including the “grab baggers” (former furry pets), reptiles, cats, and a whole lot more. Unfortunately, it’s only week one, and Phil and Mike already get the other rats pissed off and nearly get thrown out of town due to a video that went viral depicting an unruly encounter with a “Ruber” driver. Fortunately, Bob Balaban comes to the rescue and then sings us off.

Our Take

Animals kicks off their third season on a high note, clearly showcasing a maturation of the producers’ skill sets in writing, producing, even in live-action whereby they are doing an effective job of utilizing the latter as a strong complement to the animated hi-jinks as opposed to abusing the art form. Pop culture references are laden throughout the episode, and the guys even have fun at poking at other animated franchises like Futurama, BoJack Horseman, and Bob’s Burgers, but the funniest stuff is like, “Let’s get Bob Balaban to do a rap song” or “Let’s get Demi Moore to punch us in the balls”. Does the animation look better? No, but it doesn’t need to. Are some ideas (like the random song sequence at the climax of the episode) seem a bit forced? Probably. And clearly, some of the live-action dialogue doesn’t work as well as if it were perhaps animated where there’s more real estate to work with thereby having more time to have jokes breathe as opposed to the tornado of one-liners that the much shorter opening provides. But, so far, I like what I’m seeing, and more, it appears we’re shelving half/half episodes of different animals in favor of spending more time with a particular species per episode which I’m totally in favor of and can’t wait to see to come to fruition.