Review: HouseBroken “Who’s Married?” ; “Who’s Nocturnal?”

Overview

“Who’s Nocturnal?”

Honey stays up all night.

“Who’s Married?”

A new pet comes between Honey and Chief.

Our Take

Have we ever had a NASCAR delay actually BENEFIT the Animation Domination lineup? For years, NASCAR has a lot of the time been the catalyst for various series being canceled over the years due to overruns and such that caused the fluctuations of premiere scheduling thereby confusing various fan bases that have toppled the likes of King of the Hill, The Cleveland Show, and others. Much to our surprise when NASCAR gets canceled, in comes a surprise premiere of two brand-new episodes of HouseBroken which kicks off back-to-back episodes airing over the next several weeks that will include episodes from season two as well as episodes that were ordered for a potential third season.

This week’s dual premiere episodes featured Cynthia Erivo in a stunning guest spot as an owl attempting to take Diablo for various flights, and James McAvoy, a crazy ass bird. Both were excellent contributions, but I want to give a big shout out to the legendary Will Forte for contributing a number of different voices this week, not just that of “Shel” which is already an underrated performance.

Personally, this brand of HouseBroken I much prefer, and again I don’t know if it’s the excitement of watching NASCAR take a big “L” this weekend, but premises involving drugs, sex, and death is the more older-leaning type of stuff I want to see in a 9 pm ET slot that typically has the likes of Bob’s Burgers and Family Guy. Nat Faxon’s “Chief” has all of the classic bumbling idiot pathos that the likes of Homer and Peter have shown over the years and makes for so much randomity. Most of the HouseBroken dog cast seems a bit more on the upper echelon of high-brow humor and Chief’s job is to knock shit down a peg for FOX’s traditional ardent fanbase, likewise Jason Mantzoukas as “The Gray One” for the cats.

The mess of new characters were a lot of fun this week, between Flapjack, a litany of of joeys clinging to Chief, plus the aforementioned guest appearances of Ferris and Stan made for a number of new interactions that helped spice things up and make it fresh. Yes, it can be a bit overwhelming for HouseBroken’s huge cast of principle characters and keeping track of what everyone’s proclivities are given that we can’t really invest a lot of time in anybody outside of maybe Chief and Honey, but the new characters do make for a number of cute efforts of crazy that the mess of the cast is starting to become part of the charm. It’s almost a benefit NOT to invest in any of the main cast, and instead treat the show almost like Game of Thrones where you just appreciate the totality of the premise instead of accounting for everybody.