Season Review: Teenage Euthanasia Season Two

Overview:

The Euthanasia family and their Tender Endings funeral home return for another year of heightened corpse comedy and razor-sharp satire. The skewed family dynamics between Trophy and her daughter, Annie, reach new heights. The entire family grows closer, but only after getting pulled further apart in the most surreal circumstances. The Euthanasia family gradually finds a balance and a way to accept each other. The only problem is that Florida itself may not survive this emotional reckoning.

Our Take:

Teenage Euthanasia turned out a perfectly satisfying first season that helped it stand out as a distinct adult animated series on a programming block where the more generic series can truly slip through the cracks and fade into forgotten obscurity. There was already bold storytelling in this series, but these new episodes take even greater risks and Teenage Euthanasia feels more limitless as a result. It really proves itself and why it’s different from other Adult Swim series. Teenage Euthanasia presents a very unique point of view that makes sure that it’s always more than crude visual gags or stories that push the envelope purely for shock value. This has always been a PFFR production. However, this season really embraces that vintage PFFR attitude that marries together black comedy with social satire that was present in series like Wonder Showzen, Delocated, or Xavier: Renegade Angel. 

There are some excellent, irregular stories this year that combine the dark with the mundane that blur the lines between reality and fantasy. Teenage Euthanasia is set nebulously in the not-too-distant future, but so many of this season’s stories feel legitimately possible and like they’re only a year or two away. This is deeply depressing, but also a testament to the series’ poignancy and fearlessness when it comes to pushing certain societal buttons for the greater good. Season two is also three episodes longer than Teenage Euthanasia’s freshman year and these extra episodes don’t go to waste. These ten episodes cover a wide spectrum of societal norms and family values that range from grotesque to gracious. 

Teenage Euthanasia’s second season tells some excellent, unpredictable stories that include a Saw parody, a Frankenstein’s Monster story, a competitive baseball narrative, and some striking body horror that ranges from a foreskin redemption story and a talking teratoma coming of age tale. These episodes also figure out the right balance between “death power” and tech-driven stories so that neither type of tale ever feels repetitive or forced. On that note, these episodes are still heavily reduced to family stories with an emphasis on toxic mother-daughter plots. 

However, season two heavily explores new character dynamis and pairings that break free from these habits and find new strength through these exercises. There are several episodes where Trophy and Annie never even interact, which would have seemed impossible back in season one. Even the Tender Endings Goat receives some satisfying character development. Some of this season’s strongest entries are the ones that just allow characters like Pete or Baba to head down an unexpected tangent and see how it works. There’s also a considerably stronger selection of supporting characters that make return appearances, feel fleshed out, and hopefully come back if there’s a season three. As silly as it may sound, this season also really leans into Florida as a character. This was present in season one, but it’s much more precise this year. Many storylines are specifically a result of the show’s Florida locale. Similarly, this season makes much greater use of the Tender Endings mortuary setting. It’s no longer just an unusual environment, but a genuinely driving force in the storytelling. 

Teenage Euthanasia’s writing and sense of humor are sharper than ever, but this season also really accentuates the production’s gorgeous art design. One of the early selling points with Adult Swim animated series is that they all sported different, avant-garde animation styles and visuals. This can only be done so many times and it’s an element that’s been dropped from most Adult Swim productions. Teenage Euthanasia is still a cut above the rest of its Adult Swim animated peers due to its fun, freeing, vibrant visuals. The show is a delight to watch, purely on an animation level and this season conjures some more creative characters and creatures, as well as more varied models for its core cast.

Second seasons can occasionally be a guarantee at Adult Swim and on some level it’s felt like the last batch of original series like Birdgirl, YOLO: Crystal Fantasy, and Teenage Euthanasia were destined to get second years while the network figures out its voice during this transition period. Teenage Euthanasia’s first season didn’t seem to leave much of an impact or find commercial success, but this second season has really built upon its strong foundation and improved upon everything so that it’s an even better and more confident season of television. The series delivers some truly shocking jokes, some of which are even hidden in background details rather than explicitly verbalized, that wouldn’t be found in any other Adult Swim series. It’s one thing to be provocative, but Teenage Euthanasia’s writing and comedy is more surrealist nihilism that turns an apathy for society’s decline into heightened coming of age exercises. It’s a darkness that so purely PFFR and the type of show that’s needed now more than ever.

Many audiences may not have been remiss if Teenage Euthanasia’s first season didn’t get a follow-up year, but now it would be genuinely disappointing if this second season doesn’t get another year to go even further. These episodes leave the audience hungry for more in a way that was absent in season one. Teenage Euthanasia has never been more deserving of another season, especially after the big swings that it takes in its season finale. There’s a wild turn that puts the series in a much bigger context that would make it a suitable point to end the series or radically reboot it as a new bedtime story that sets out to once again use freaky Floridians as teaching tools. Teenage Euthanasia may star a dead character, but it’s never felt fresher or more alive.