Season Review: Cyanide & Happiness Season 4

After wandering across streaming service after streaming service, the Cyanide & Happiness series seems to have finally found a consistent home in the halls of VRV Select. After three seasons establishing a cavalcade of recurring jokes and characters, things reached a peak, forcing a reboot of sorts. With this fourth season, things allowed Explosm to have a reboot of sorts. A new era for the show to carve its own path. But did they manage this task?

Well, yes and no. You see, half of this season actually is focused on new acts and skits for the show to hopefully take into future seasons, assuming they get some. The OTHER half, in a surprising turn, actually gives rather satisfying sendoffs to many of the previously established characters that have become synonymous with the series. The pirate and the butt shark finally make amends and settle their differences. Chip Chapley pivots to a new career path with a talk show. Star-Spangled Bastard makes an honest eagle out of his sidekick and becomes president. Lunk the hero faces his greatest quest yet. And Mega Mom finally learns to let her baby fly free. And better yet, they serve as both rewarding for new viewers AND for longtime viewers who have stuck things out since the first episode.

And even the newer stuff they experiment with this season is fine! It can get a little bit weird for weird’s sake, such as “The Nine Ryans” where nine guys form into one regular guy, as well as “Strongbird” which emulates silent early cartoons such as Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry, so one can end up feeling more annoyed and potentially disturbed by those. However, a really notable standout is “The Animator’s Curse”, which is a novel take on stop-motion animation and a monkey’s paw wish. “The Good, the Butt and the Tumbling” is a bit of an in-between, being both quite strange but seemingly paving the way for a new recurring story. And then there’s the just plain lazy, “High, Robot”, which inexplicably capped off the season.

That aside, it’s good to know the show is still going strong after four full seasons, and hopefully, it will earn at least a few more. The webcomic it’s based on has been ongoing for over nearly fifteen years, so the passion to create is alive and well at Explosm. But please, no more stuff with the butts, guys. It’s too much.