Review: The Casagrande’s “Don’t Zoo That; Maxed Out”

Overview

“Don’t Zoo That”

Adelaide, Carl, and CJ compete to win Junior Zookeeper badges, but their competitiveness might ruin both of their chances…


“Maxed Out”

Hector finds out that Vito has a huge tab at the Mercado and Vito offers to pay him back — no matter what…



Our Take

Much of the humor  from the first episode comes from the extremely competitive nature of Adelaide and Carl, with CJ simply being neutral and wanting to mostly take care of the animals but cares very little about status or winning. It was also refreshing to see Adelaide’s mother Becca (Melissa Joan Hart) make an appearance given that she’s a character who’s rarely seen within n the show, but near the end, everything seems to fall into place.

As for the 2nd episode,  a lot of conflict between two longtime friends stems from a strong sense of obligation as Vito finds out he supposedly owes One-thousand Dollars within Victor’s Mercado. And due to a series of cliche comedic blunders & miscommunications, as the proceedings lead towards a moment of self-reflection that makes him realize what’s more important, along with a funny twist at the end.

Overall, both were decent episodes that were well-paced, fun, and didn’t waste time with moving the plot forward. The Zoo episode showed that CJ is possibly the most sensible one when it came to the Zoo situations and was clever enough to think on his feet while pointing out how teamwork is what should matter more than a status symbol, while the other episode was mostly about the power of friendship and how one small miscalculation on Bobby’s end can almost fuck up a friendship, but at least I got a chuckle or two…