Review: Krapopolis “12 Angry Goat Herders”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Shlub is accused of eating the town’s goats, so Tyrannis invents the legal system to get him a fair trial. Meanwhile, Hippocampus introduces science to the Killassans to the chagrin of Deliria.
OUR TAKE
We are back with more Krapopolis and hey, after a couple weeks it’s actually kinda hard to tell but, last episode had Shlub bonding with Stupendous, stepchild he’s not related to, while this week’s episode has Deliria having a plot with the stepchild that SHE’S not related to. I wonder if they lined it up that way or it’s just a major coincidence, it seems we are slowly filling out the diagram of character combinations where certain characters interact with others. Which is sadly about all the real notable praise I can dump on this because this episode was pretty much just blah. We have a good sense of who these characters are now at least, but it’s nothing that’s really standing out at the moment. Again, want to make clear that I don’t think that animated sitcoms always start out the best, so the improvements may be coming in the next dozen or so episodes, but right now it’s very much not good. These opening batch is pretty much just getting to know the characters, exploring the general premise of the series while getting our feet wet with the whole mechanic of “inventing” a modern thing every episode and that being the joke.
In this week’s case, we have the invention of the legal system, with an abundance of tired court jokes and a guest appearance by Jane Lynch as a sphinx, which is oddly enough not connected to the cold open that focused on the family talking about Oedipus. And in the b-plot, it kinda feels like the animated sitcom equivalent of the subreddit for atheism. Point is, these first few episodes have not been the best to show in this series’ favor. Sure, we’re establishing the characters a bit better, but it has yet to really hit me in a notable way to keep me watching if I wasn’t just a regular viewer. Maybe the one moment that has really touched me is at the end between Shlub and Deliria, where the two are getting ready to sleep and it ends with a moment of genuine affection. More of that, please. We have a lot of expected cynicism and snark, much more rote than Dan Harmon characters tend to be, but I haven’t seen very much of what shows me how these characters can feel like people. But you know what they say, sixth times the charm?
