Season Review: Little Demon Season One

Overview:

Chrissy Feinberg is ready to quietly take the seventh grade by storm, but her thirteenth birthday brings with it some unexpected changes with some cataclysmic complications. Chrissy learns that her mom’s past was wilder than she thought and that the absentee father in her life might not just be a jerk, but actually be Satan. The changes in Chrissy’s growing body give her the first opportunity to truly connect with her father. Chrissy cautiously learns more about both of her parents, while she also becomes better accustomed with her budding Antichrist powers, and the very real possibility that too much time with her father might trigger the End of All Things. So, you know, basic teenager stuff. 

Our Take:

The exploration of Satanic material in quirky ways, especially in the context of a mild-mannered family, has been overdone for well over a decade whether it’s in animation, television, or feature films. Lucy, Daughter of the Devil, Mr. Pickles, Ugly Americans, and Golan the Insatiable are just a fraction of recent animated series that break down similar subject matter and it leaves one wondering where else it can go? 

In a broader sense, there’s nothing about Little Demon’s premise that’s particularly unique. Many stories turn to a character reaching puberty as the catalyst for a dark coming-of-age, but Little Demon stands out from its predecessors with how far it’s willing to push its wild ideas. There’s a casual, effortless energy to Little Demon that makes it feel like the horror genre’s answer to Rick and Morty or Solar Opposites. Little Demon has supernatural slaughters, friendly house trolls, and geysers of gore in every episode. The series normalizes this exceptionally strange material through the universal idea that everyone thinks their parents are weird, regardless of whether they’re Satan or not.

As is the case with most television series, the pilot for Little Demon is the clunkiest of the season’s episodes, but it’s still more consistent and representative of the series that follows than most pilots are. It doesn’t take Little Demon long to figure out what it is and that definitely helps this first series pick up a lot of steam. The second episode is one of the season’s strongest and it takes something that’s as overblown as demonic possessions and makes it feel fresh with the escalating places it pushes the concept. It establishes a successful formula that routinely works for the first season, yet never feels predictable or repetitive. 

Chrissy grows up a tremendous amount in a short span of time in Little Demon. She finally takes agency over who she is in life and it’s inspiring to have this empowered perspective so early on in the show. It helps elevate Little Demon to a series that’s more than just bloody chaos. It’s exciting as Chrissy continues to embrace herself, but  there’s a needling sense of dread behind it all as these moments tend to also bring her closer to the likelihood of Maximus Dominus and its apocalyptic consequences.

It’d be easy for Little Demon to fall into regressive patterns with the stereotypical roles that it prescribes to Chrissy’s parents, but the show makes sure that they don’t just come across as one-dimensional parental obstacles. Chrissy’s mom might be the best character in the whole show. She’s like this hellscape-hopping Sarah Connor who knows how to perfectly navigate–and dominate–demonic realms.

There’s a highly entertaining Rube Goldberg-like nature to the storytelling in Little Demon. The series uses Satanism and dark magic like a problem-solving superpower in the same way that Solar Opposites or Rick and Morty use wild sci-fi tropes to reinvent sitcom staples. Little Demon is created by relative newcomers, Dary Fowler, Seth Kirschner, and Kieran Valla. Dan Harmon is only an executive producer on the program, but his style of comedy is very much present in the show’s writing and dialogue. Most installments turn to a bifurcated structure where Laura, Chrissy’s mom, learns more about herself and gets to grow as a person while her daughter experiences comparable development.

With a demonic apocalypse on the table, there are palpable stakes in Little Demon, but there’s a playful, disaffected nature to the universe’s tone. People get so caught up with their own garbage that a demonic wormhole is just another thing to get annoyed over on the way to work. At the same time, Little Demon finds the right balance when it comes to the amount of sentimentality that’s present in its family-forward stories. There’s a sweetness to the characters that’s essential to Little Demon’s success, but it understands to not force these emotions or make it a mandate for each installment. Dark arts still reign over sweethearts in Little Demon.

This is also a series where some of the funniest moments are reserved for non-sequitur asides from supporting and background players. There’s a scene in the first episode of Little Demon where a Satan-possessed cultist casually shoots himself in the head and when prompted with the question as to why, he responds with the glib answer, “Comedy.” He then proceeds to hop between a half-dozen people, making each of them shoot themselves in the crotch. That sequence of events is the perfect distillation of Little Demon’s sarcastic style of comedy. It’s very easy for this style of put-upon demeanor to wear thin or undercut the stakes of the series, but Little Demon understands when to properly trigger it so that it actively compliments the chaos at hand.

One of the larger advertising strategies around Little Demon has been to embrace its mature content. It might feel disingenuous if a show about Satan and Hell came across as toothless. Little Demon contains rampant acts of visceral violence, which can occasionally feel like it’s there just for shock value, but there’s usually more substance to it. The same is true for the full-frontal nudity and other aggressive forms of “mature” material that aren’t typically seen in animated series. The Satanic releases of horror in Little Demon are genuinely disturbing and feel like they’re from out of an animated series that’s based on The Thing or Hellraiser.

Aesthetically, Little Demon finds a unique look for its world and characters. The humans have the weakest designs in contrast to the myriad of hell beasts that show up, but there’s still originality in their look. Little Demon doesn’t feel like character models from other series have just been dropped into this world. When it comes to the series’ vocal talents, Little Demon’s core cast is exceptional. It’s fun to have Lucy DeVito and her father together in this show and there’s natural chemistry that’s present between this real-life father-and-daughter duo. The main characters are well cast, but Little Demon also has an extremely impressive murderer’s row of guest stars including Sam Richardson, William Jackson Harper, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Mel Brooks. Michael Shannon also shows up as a recurring character who has a very specific grudge to settle with Chrissy.

Little Demon uses its first season to build a strong foundation that’s left with some tantalizing opportunities in its future regarding whether Chrissy accepts her birthright, spends more time in Hell, or if the series even decides to bring Heaven into the mix. All of these directions are appealing for the future of Little Demon, but there’s also nothing wrong with a simpler version of this show that adopts an episodic agenda and doesn’t get lost in a five-year plan or what the endgame is for its characters. Little Demon strives for more even though it’s funny enough to not have to do so. It’s a fun distraction that pushes its bold ideas to even bolder places so that it makes its mark and proves its longevity. 

Little Demon is one of the funniest comedies of the year, animated or otherwise, but it also exudes creativity and ambition out of every gaping wound.The horror genre has been long overdue to have a playground of this size to experiment in and the first season of Little Demon does not hold back with the Satanic staples that it sarcastically satirizes. As Archer becomes increasingly long in the tooth, Little Demon feels like the fresh animated series that FXX should champion as the face of its future.

Season one of ‘Little Demon’ premieres August 25th at 10pm on FXX with back-to-back episodes, and next-day airing on Hulu