Review: Our Cartoon President “Party Unity”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

When Biden can’t get along with Bernie in being the face of the Democratic Party, Obama has to step in to calm things down, which just leads to him and Bernie sharing the spotlight for awhile before having their own fight, which Joe is able to unite, showing that he might have what it takes to unite the party after all. God, I hope this doesn’t backfire.

Also, the Trump brothers try curing coronavirus.

OUR TAKE

Trump was mostly absent from this week’s episode, aside from the cold open which showed some expected metaphorical and literal tearing up of the constitution, but luckily his voice actor Jeff Bergman also voices Joe Biden in this so I’m sure his paycheck is fine. Is him voicing both Biden AND Trump a commentary on how moderate democrats are now basically what the Republican party used to be like? You make the call! Though personally I wouldn’t money on it, since this show is not that clever. Or is it? I’m actually not sure sometimes because the use of this kind of subject matter in this way would probably be a lot funnier if we weren’t living in the other parts that wouldn’t make it to air because they can’t be condensed into an easy gag.

But in terms of character writing, I can see why they would want to give Cartoon Trump a break this week to focus on Biden a bit more. Last week was about establishing the new rivalry going into the election, so Trump had to be there to set up his…arc (?) moving forward, but the previous nine episodes were pretty split on multiple potential Democratic nominees since, at the time, there wasn’t a clear idea who would get the pick. Now that it is definitely Joe, we can put focus squarely on him and his own foibles, which naturally allows Obama to be more prominent and bring on Jill Biden as a supporting character. Though luckily it doesn’t rule out Bernie, who can be a dissenter because a lot of people still want him to be the nominee despite him being decidedly pushed out of the primary.

Which helps with making the gags at least have some variety, since Joe’s schtick looks to be the same as it was last week. “Nobody really wants you to be here, but you’re our last hope I guess! So we’re gonna say you’re the one we’re putting our chips in on while everyone else BUT you gets to hype you up, because let’s face it, you need all the help you can get”. Once again, this would probably be at least a bit funnier if there weren’t so much riding on this election, something that a comedic show like this really can’t encapsulate in the scope it has set out for itself. But hey, seven episodes left in the season to prove me wrong.