Review: Corner Gas Animated “Oedipus Hex”

Lacey may or may not be an actual witch.

Overview:

Lacey is throwing a bachelor auction to help raise money for Ike’s burned down barn.  A mysterious phone bid helps Brent to bring in a significant amount of money.  When Brent shows up to meet the mysterious woman, he is surprised to find he’s on a date with his mother.  Everyone begins to get curious about who the woman is after Brent admits that he has feelings for her.

Meanwhile, Hank has held his own secret auction to help raise money to hire a witch to lift the ‘curse’ off of Ike.  Wanda convinces him that Lacey is a witch so that they can take the money for their own fundraiser.  She puts on a show to help persuade him further, but when he believes it worked the town thinks she actually has magic powers.  When other people begin offering money for her powers, she uses it to her advantage.  That is until the town realizes she isn’t a witch and demand their money back.

 

Our Take:

This was a pretty strange story when it comes to Corner Gas standards.  Besides dealing with witchcraft and Lacey uncharacteristically using it as a scheme, it also features a son dating his mother.  Not what you would typically expect from this series, but still manages to be in line with the humour.  Despite witches curses and insinuated incest, it is still very much a Corner Gas episode.  In fact, it’s fun to see the show sprawl out a bit and take on some new themes.  Not that episodes about the local newspaper aren’t entertaining, just that something different is fun too.

Before we get too far ahead or ourselves, there was a significant cameo in this episode that is begging to be acknowledged.  The series promised many great cameos were coming into the second season.  Especially, celebrities that come from the Great White North.  Already we have seen the legendary Michael J. Fox in the season premiere, but we have been waiting patiently to see who else would make an appearance.  And, this episode delivered with the first Canadian to walk in space, Chris Hadfield.  His cameo may be small, but the impact is enormous, as the astronaut is a national treasure being the former commander of the space station and a highly impactful author.  He has many other accolades, but no time to discuss that here — just a pretty cool thing to happen for this show.

Back to the issue at hand, Brent’s dating his mom!  Which is comedy gold.  There was plenty of material there to make the first encounter awkward and entertaining.  But, that’s where Brent always goes a step further.  Only he would play his date with his mother as him having feelings for a “mystery date”.  He always takes the opportunity to mess with people, and we love him for it.  Did he really need to go for a few more dates?  Probably not, but that’s just where this show can subtlety add more than you expect.

The witch storyline was a lot of fun, and I should explain what I meant when I wrote that this was uncharacteristic for Lacey.  It would be expected from someone like Hank or Wanda to pretend to be a witch.  So, of course, it is those same two that are responsible for putting Lacey into the situation.  And, there is no way that she would follow through with it if she were not desperate.  The writers cover all the bases, and after the many years, they have written these characters, you can fall back and trust that they know what they are doing.  This plot, while unexpected, was masterfully handled and it’s fun to see Lacey’s character expand further than she could in the live-action series.

There was so much going on in this episode and so many layers, it deserves a rewatch.  That is not something I usually do or have said in any review that I have written before.  However, this was a well-scripted dynamic script.  I find it challenging to find the message or compare it to anything else.  It’s worth a rewatch because there is a uniqueness to this episode that hasn’t been drilled into your head through thousands of hours of media consumption.  It’s different.  Plus, Canadian hero Chris Hadfield is in it.

I’ve mentioned a lot of positive things, and I should say there are some flaws to the episode to account for not giving it a perfect “this is everything” score.  There is pacing that moves too quickly, probably because this should have been two dominant storylines.  Each could have been paired with a smaller B-plot.  And, it feels like the humour is held back, too afraid to push its own boundaries.  But, the audience would be receptive to the animated show testing the limits and this episode in particular begged for it.  I mean, Brent was dating his mom we could have seen a lot more than was given for laughs.

Anyone can watch this episode and enjoy it.  The difference that this season has become from the live-action series to the previous season to this is drastic.  Corner Gas Animated has come into itself and is its own show now.  It has standout episodes like this one, that I can honestly say are the funniest the franchise has ever gotten.