Review: Corner Gas Animated “One Flew Over My Dead Body”

Don’t forget to bring the hand sanitizer

Overview:

Hank has come down with a bad flu, of which Oscar and Emma chalk up to allergies.  With Lacey arguing that he is clearly sick, a wager is made.  Lacey challenges Oscar to spend the whole day shadowing Hank, while she is not allowed to use hand sanitizer for an entire shift at The Ruby.  The results of which ends with everybody getting sick.

Meanwhile, Karen and Davis have made a chilling discovery of a massacred mannequin in the woods.  In their search for its owner, the situation gets worse as they find a picture of Brent’s face taped to the mannequin’s head.  This doesn’t seem to faze the gas station owner as he and Wanda are distracted with their updated scanning cash register.

 

Our Take:

I should preface this review by acknowledging the fact that there were some gaps in my viewing of this episode.  Not at all the fault of the show or network at all, but my cable box decided that it should randomly start rebooting every 6-8 minutes or so.  Between the automatic shutdown, the reload, and changing back to the Comedy Network channel, there were an accumulative couple of minutes lost.  What I am sure is entertaining for all of you, this made watching the show a frustrating endeavor.  Nevertheless, as the phrase goes, the show must go on, or in this case, the review.

To add to the difficulties of a glitchy cable box, Corner Gas Animated has developed a new season that is non-stop and full of humour.  Where if this happened during the run of the original live-action series, it probably would have been okay.  At most, I would have lost a few strings of dialogue.  Even the first season of Corner Gas Animated imitated much of that pace, and the lost moments would have been nearly obsolete.  However, the first couple of episodes released this season have already shown a whole new ball game when it comes to the franchise.  And, the pace that those episodes set is continued with tonight’s back-to-back shows.

The basis of following a few humorous characters in the middle of rural Saskatchewan guaranteed that Corner Gas would always need to be a clever show for those patient enough not to need significant outlandish action and comedy.  Bringing this franchise to the world of adult animation was originally questionable, but they quickly knocked it out of the park.  Now, we have 22-minute episodes loaded with crossing storylines, clever plots, and great character moments.

This episode, in particular, took the simple plot of Hank having a cold and managed to pull two stories involving multiple characters.  Further, Hank ends up being a crucial part of other plots in the episode as well.  This is a big difference from last season where the A-plot and B-plot would hardly ever cross, and characters felt like they were being shoehorned in.  It is like black and white when you look at any episode from the previous season with the first three we have seen yet this year.

Besides all of that, they have even managed to be true to the individual characters.  Lacey is more the Lacey we remember from the original series than she was reaching the end of that show.  Brent has become less of a driving force and is allowed to settle back into the comedy relief that he is excellent for.  Even Hank and Wanda’s antics feel stronger than ever.  All in all, this animated spin-off is managing to outdo the source material.  Corner Gas has never been so good.  Which makes glitchy cable boxes even more frustrating.