Season One Review: Mr. Pickles

Mr. Pickles continues a trend on Adult Swim that follows suit with Superjail! and King Star King. Let’s take the most over-the-top violent animated programming, and put them on one network! And it works every God damn time, but I think Mr. Pickles may be the most gruesome effort of them all.

The first few episodes of the season started out really great, if only to set the table. We got to see a young boy get breast implants, a mobster hiding as Bigfoot, and Mr. Pickles decapitating heads and dragging blood entrails all over the floor.Unfortunately, after a while the shock value wears off and you begin to look for plots and sometimes a lot of the same tropes that you see in other animated series’ begin to show up. Competitions, the family going on trips, all the setups show up. But then the last few episodes begin to air, and I think producers Dave Stewart and Will Carsola REALLY start to have fun.

And really the producers would plant seeds all season long. Leaving you in wonder what exactly is in Mr. Pickles’ underground lair. The finale shows us just this, but does that take away from the show? Would we want a season two knowing that the biggest deal of season one was getting into Pickles’ hell to which we really did? Perhaps. I guess I want to see Grandpa and Pickles continue to go at it, and whenever I get bored with plot lines, entertaining characters like The Boss, The Sheriff, and a mess of ancillary characters do enough to spice things up a bit. This might be Adult Swim’s best new series of the year. I think 30-minute episodes need to show up for season two.