OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)Tyrannis and Hippocampus free Prometheus from his eternal punishment for giving humans fire, but quickly learn they shouldn’t meet their heroes. Meanwhile Shlub helps Stupendous find her cyclops father.OUR TAKERemember when this show was advertised as being heavily involved in blockchain and NFTs?Anyway, we’re a handful of episodes into the season now and we’ve finally hit one that doesn’t lean so heavily on the series’ gimmick and instead leans into the unorthodox family dynamic among the main cast. It actually hadn’t occurred to me fully until this episode, but the cast is essentially Tyrannis living with his parents and two of his half-siblings, with Hippocampus from Shlub and Stupendous from Deliria. Also that Shlub’s name definitely feels like it was a placeholder and that he is a “manitaur” or a hybrid of a manticore and a centaur, so I guess just getting it on with anything they like simply runs in the family blood. Anyway, speaking of Shlub, pairing him with Stupendous, who he has a very distant relation with by being essentially her step-dad, was actually pretty inspired, as it gives us a chance to see something that I think has been missing from this show thus far; sincere and genuine emotion. These Fox animated comedies are usually pretty big snark fests and Krapopolis is no exception, but this being a Dan Harmon production, I’m waiting for the other dramatic shoe to drop and see what context we are really supposed to see these character relationships in.However, while seeing Shlub essentially show himself to not just be the stepdad but the dad who stepped up, even killing Stupendous’ real dad accidentally, the a-plot following Tyrannis and Hippocampus meeting Prometheus ended up being the weakest part of the episode. Let’s start with the character design. This has hardly been the show’s strong suit, but he’s basically just a regular looking guy with a fire pin on his toga. Is that really all they could come up with? I realize that this show was originally meant to sell NFTs and those often had very generic designs, but was that the mindset going into making the characters too? On top of that, his motivations are rather confusing, with him being obsessed with people thinking he sacrificed for them (which he did, if his legendary punishment by eagle is anything to go by) but then goes and gives wheels to squirrels…to either replicate the punishment or just take credit for something else…I don’t know. The series continues to just be fine, and I will probably have to keep saying that for several weeks to come before I lose patience and drop scores that far.
