Review: Royal Crackers “Rachel”

Overview

Rachel is tasked with saving the company, but when she’s called to a meeting with her family, she has to decide if she wants to save the company or all of humanity.

Our Take

Remember when Solar Opposites gave us “The Wall” and all of a sudden we were forced to understand that the people behind the series we were watching were out of their minds but that was a good thing? That’s what “Rachel” is. It’s the episode that comes out at this point of the season to flip upside down pretty much everything you know about Royal Crackers up until this point.

Not only does that successfully happen in this week’s episode, but I wanted to give a special shout out to Stephanie Sheh who voices the role of the titular episode’s star. Stephanie is a long-time producer and has pretty much worked everywhere with anime being most of her speciality. For my money, this episode should be the start of what should be an Emmy-winning role for her because if “Rachel” isn’t a backdoor pilot then I don’t know what is. Stephanie is fantastic and the fact that she had the presence of mind to also cast the likes of Michaela Dietz (Steven Universe) and Tia Carrere (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) in guest roles who also delivered shows she’s the meaning of the phrase “multi-hyphenate”.

“Rachel” isn’t just an episode of Royal Crackers, it’s a tour-de-force presentation on the talented skill-sets everybody on this show has, from Jason Ruiz on down. Titmouse’s technical delivery continues to dazzle, everything from the character designs of our new species to the breath-taking shadows during the show’s climax. Royal Crackers is everything you want in an animated comedy in 2024. It’s smart, sophisticated, and it makes me hungry for crackers every time I watch it. Adult Swim needs to get it’s act together and order this fucker for another season because we have quite literally a cornerstone of a foundation in which this network can build on for years to come. I, quite frankly, haven’t felt this way about an animated series since early Rick and Morty and is the type of experience that I look for to remind myself why I even started a magazine about adult animation to begin with. Royal Crackers is one of the few cable animated series that have gone up in the ratings year over year and it certainly has nothing to do with all of the non-promotion the network has been doing.

FOX Network fucked up by not giving their Inkubator alumnus Jason Ruiz a series, or at least not showing the series that they ordered and promoted in the first place.