Review: Duncanville “Classless Mother”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Mia convinces Duncan to run against her in the student elections so that she is not the only one running.  The plan to let her win backfires when Duncan makes unobtainable promises leaving him student body president.

The power goes to his head as he turns the school into every kid’s dream including ball pits, no classes, and a nacho bar.  However, the more he gives the more demands the students have of him.  He makes one more attempt to solidify himself as a great leader by bringing YouTube stars “Flossing Bears” to perform at the school.  When it inevitably goes bad, Mia is the only one that can save them.

Meanwhile, Kim is trying to sell cookies to win a trip to the amusement park with the popular girls. However, she doesn’t want to do any of the work especially as she sees the popular girls’ parents selling cookies for them.  She manages to manipulate Jack and Annie into doing the same, which they find out about after the work is done.  The parents must pull the ultimate prank to have her learn her lesson.

Our Take:

Duncanville officially wraps up its inaugural season with its eleventh episode.  This endearing show about a modern middle-class family has found its way into our hearts.  Thankfully, it will be returning for another round of episodes next year.

For now, let us dive into this season finale.

If there was anybody that you would expect to become student body president, it would not be Duncan. He lacks ambition, foresight, or enough interest to care about what happens at his high school.  Which makes the perfect formula for a storm of an episode.

Surprisingly, Duncan is the greatest president I have ever seen of anything.  He manages to turn Oakdale High school into the stuff campy 90s teen movies dream of.  It becomes a Shangri-La for anyone in high school who hated work and loved things like ball pits and nachos.  He somehow even makes BTS the new school janitors.  Beyond the simple pleasures, we actually see Duncan put stress and effort into making every one of his classmates happy.  Which makes for an amazing leader if you are asking me.  I don’t see Trump promising to find out who Wolf’s biological father is.

Of course, there is a more meaningful message to the episode.  The old quote “heavy is the head that wears the crown,” is even referenced within the show. Things get out of hand for Duncan and Kim causing them to regret their actions.  Though maybe this was meant as a message for those who wear the crown of Animation Domination.  Duncanville may be coming for The Simpsons.

The B-plot involving Kim and her parents is much more cliché than we have come to expect from this series. Though, the episode does do the strong thing of bringing both stories together by the conclusion.  Which is a much better pay-off than allowing both plots to resolve on their own?  Unfortunately, we did not get to see how Kim dealt with Duncan’s changes at school, or how Duncan deals with being excluded from this family endeavor.  This season has been full of the family dealing with things together, so it was a different path.

This was another substantial showing from Duncanville to wrap up the season.  With only eleven episodes in its lifespan, it feels like we have been on so many adventures with Duncan and crew.  The escapades keep getting more elaborate and the bar is high going into next year.  In animation, the second season tends to be better as the kinks get worked out, but it will be hard to top a final episode where Duncan becomes lord of his own school.