The time has come. After all these years, it’s time for me to head back into the realms of the Netflix cartoon ”Big Mouth”.
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OH BOY, IT’S A GOOD THING NOBODY HAS ANY STRONG OPINIONS ABOUT THIS ONE.
Linkara references aside, yes, this will be the start of my coverage of every episode of “Big Mouth”, one of the most polarizing cartoons in recent memory. Sure, a good number of people are just indifferent to it, but aside from that, you either really love this show or find it one of the worst ever made. As such, this will be a fascinating journey no matter which end I fall on.
But before we dive into the episode proper…let’s discuss some things. Particularly, the show’s hatedom.
Now, I watched the show around the time it first came out, and I expressed positivity towards it. But after season 3, I basically stopped. It wasn’t because I thought the show went downhill or I lost interest. I’d always intended to go back to it. But what kept me away was the fact that…the hatedom just became too much for me.
See, there’s this trend that I noticed going on at the time. Any time someone expressed even a moderately positive opinion about the show, the most passionate detractors would not only insult that person, but also go so far as to spread accusations of pedophilia. It didn’t matter how you explained your reasons for enjoying the show, you would be met with a flood of comments accusing you of horrendous shit.
Now, I can totally understand not liking the show; there are plenty of legit reasons to not get into it. But I do not condone spreading allegations like that simply because they enjoy a show. It doesn’t matter if you find the show gross or whatever, save those kinds of claims for those who have actually done something wrong. The world is already bad enough without doing that kind of shit.
By this point, the hatedom does seem to have died down quite a lot. Whenever ”Big Mouth” does get renewed for another season, the most negativity I see about it is the idea that Netflix is still keeping it going. But I’m aware of how extreme the hate gets, and so I’m fully aware I’m stepping on a minefield by covering this show at all. There’s always a chance those kinds of people will crawl back up and start saying nasty stuff again.
So, this is a case where I have to make things 100% clear: no matter how I end up feeling about the show in retrospect, even if I end up hating it and criticizing it to hell and back, I don’t want to see any harassment in my comments. You can express your dislike for the show, of course, but harassing those who simply enjoy it and spreading pedophilia allegations will be punished. I’m going to be keeping an eye on the comments for these; if I see anyone posting something hateful or unnecessarily accusatory, they will be permanently banned from my account.
(deep inhale, sigh)
Now that I’ve got the show’s hatedom putting me on their hitlist, let’s finally talk about the first episode of “Big Mouth”, titled ‘Ejaculation’. No matter where you fall on the opinion spectrum with the series in general, I think everybody can agree that the first episode…isn’t exactly the best start.
The show’s main concept centers around puberty and the pains and struggles it comes with, and we follow a group of students as they enter that period in their lives and see how they deal with it. If you ask me, I’m actually all for this concept; an unflinching satire of puberty and getting to mock and relate to how uncomfortable it was to go through is a great idea. It would allow adult viewers from any walk of life to find someone to connect with and get to see themselves in.
The episode establishes how it’ll tackle it pretty well in its opening scene. The main characters are all in a sex ed class watching an instructional video about the female reproductive system, and from the way they all interact with each other, it’s clear that they have a limited grasp on how things like girls’ bodies and sex work. Nick and Andrew mix up what a vagina and uterus are, Jesse comments on how much puberty sucks for girls compared to boys, that kind of thing. During all this, we’re also introduced to the Hormone Monster, a visual representation of puberty itself, goading Andrew into going to the bathroom to jerk off.
As far as establishing the show’s central concept goes, that opening scene is very effective, as well as giving us a good taste of what all the mains are like. The rest is…decent, but not anything special. The main throughline involves Nick accidentally seeing Andrew’s privates during a sleepover and feeling inadequate due to how much bigger they are than his. While I can’t personally relate to that kind of thing, it‘s a fine premise for a first episode. Nick‘s insecurity is played off in a pretty humorous way(the hallucination involving walking penises does get a good laugh out of me), and the resolution of how the boys get even is pretty satisfying.
The problem is that the episode also tries to give time to all the other main leads, and it leads to the episode as a whole feeling a bit unfocused and meandering. Jesse doesn’t have much to her yet aside from what I mentioned about her in the opening scene, Jay does get some entertaining moments to showcase his confidence and borderline-psycho reactions to failure, and Matthew is the flamboyant gay kid with a love for spreading gossip and getting involved in drama. Later episodes would go on to flesh out all of them more, but aside from Jay, their introductions here aren’t anything that great.
There’s also Coach Steve, who is more or less a running joke character in the show. As far as this episode shows, he’s not particularly bright, and the rest of the faculty doesn’t really respect him at all, at least not enough to give him the Wi-Fi password. We’ll see how he develops later on, but I’m just gonna warn you now: If you weren’t entertained by him in this, you won’t like him at all in the future. I personally enjoy his off-kilter behavior, but I can see why others would just find him annoying.
But I also have to go into the Hormone Monster himself. Nick Kroll voices him as well as the main character Nick, and he plays the part spectacularly. Specifically speaking, he represents sexual desires, coaxing Andrew into masturbating or dance with a girl, and so to fit that kind of role, his voice is gravelly yet sensual as well. It’s the kind of voice that you could imagine making ASMR videos, for lack of a better description.
The episode starts off hinting at the fact that Andrew is the only one that can see, hear and interact with him, but by the end, Nick can also do so, implying that he’s started to hit puberty as well. It’s a nice touch that will allow the Monster to interact with others outside of Andrew, and his conversation with Nick at the end is a good sign of the kind of dynamic they’ll have.
While the episode isn’t anything to write home about, it’s a fine enough start to the series; there’s some decently funny comedy in there, the main plot is executed well enough to be generally satisfying, and it does showcase a good amount of promise for the series to come. It’s just pretty lacking even as a first episode.
Shut up, you fucking pedophilia apologist!