Review: The Freak Brothers “The Candidate”

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

When George Menendez, runs to be Mayor of San Francisco, his opponent, Dennis Chang, tries to buy the votes of everyone in San Fransisco. Phineas is skeptical and tries to figure out what is really going on. Later, when Menendez gets in hot water over an inappropriate photo, and drops out of the race, everyone seems to abandon him, except for Phineas.

Our Take

This episode had more direct parallels to our current political situation than any other episode, as it focuses on someone running for office who is for equal rights and affordable housing, with Franklin working on Menendez’s campaign, along with Harper who is the campaign manager, while Phineas refuses to vote because he believes that all politicians are liars and crooks. This is, in part, because he was pushed out of the way when Bernie Sanders appeared with name for their movement (democratic socialism) while he lost the name. Chang tries to buy people’s votes by giving everyone a phone with preloaded spending money.

Chuck and Charlie reappear as the resident high friends of Phineas, Franklin, Freddy, and Kitty. At the same time, the show emphasizes the importance of self-worth and self-acceptance when Kitty helps Freddy when he is down because he is overweight while he says he likes who he is. This is later exploited by a tech company, showing how these messages can easily be co-opted, leading them both to make money off it and try to enrich themselves after they go viral.

This episode has some interesting social commentary about the power of tech companies, as it collects personalized information on everyone, and records things when you aren’t looking. Chang is not evil in the usual way told in stories but is more cunning and able to outsmart other people, like Phineas. He uses a photo scandal to try and discredit his opponent, so he can win the election.

Interesting to see Franklin as the one who has the idea to run Freddy to beat Chang. He is a joke candidate, with someone else behind the scenes, pulling the strings. The show pokes at the idea that people care more about personality than substance, while Phineas is annoyed as the “ideas man” who is ignored. He even gets so sidelined that his message can be softened, that he gets fired from the campaign itself.

It was an interesting twist to see Phineas work with Harper to try and take down Freddy’s campaign. That was something I wasn’t expecting. They mess with the debate, Chang trying to take down Freddy for saying he’d use technology to pay for everything. Franklin was completely right to be angry at Phineas for doing this. The speech Phineas gives about being passionate instead of out of his mind is strange, as he is supporting a technocrat. They seem to forget this all to quickly after he wins.

The voice acting of this episode is strong as always, but like the last episode, not one person or animal is shown smoking pot, meaning that it is becoming less of a stoner comedy, and just a dramatic animated show. In fact, I didn’t even laugh at all when watching this episode. However, the show is still holdings its own in terms of animation, music, and drama. This may be improved in the episode next week, which is said to be about using Molly and time travel, from a sneak peek following the episode.

The series continues to be irreverent, with one of the focuses of this episode being so-called “cancel culture,” with Phineas standing with Menendez after a “photo scandal” is promoted to discredit him, and he is “cancelled.” This comes full circle at the end when Freddy is declared a “racist” for having “yellow face,” interpreted to be making fun of Chang, and is “cancelled.” This leads the third-party gun-toting libertarian, Pimco, who is almost a jerky version of Stephen Hawking, to become Mayor. This means that the show is taking sides in this culture war debate, seeming to say that “cancel culture” is bad and arbitrary, rather than trying to push for a nuanced understanding of the concept which emphasizes that people should face consequences for their words and actions.

While in some ways this episode was better than last week’s episode and was exciting, I don’t think it rises to the level of last week’s episode. The episode was enjoyable, but it is becoming less enjoyable to watch than when I started this series. I hope the episode next week will change my opinion, but I’m not confident that will happen.