Review: Cyanide & Happiness Show “The Pain Wars: Part 2”

Where the hell did this come from?

For those looking for a consistent continuation of the “Pain Wars” arc from the first five episodes of Cyanide & Happiness’ third season, you’re not gonna get a whole lot of it here. Yes, there are one or two episodes that sort of wrap up what went on during the course of the “Pain Wars” up until that point, but as the show’s finale appears to insinuate, that’s why we have REWIND! Yep, we got the Days of Future Past treatment to wrap up what will presumably be the show’s final run on Seeso as the streaming service stares at its death coming in January.

Fortunately, we get the trademark Cyanide & Happiness crazy shit that Explosm is known for BUT it’s not as much and everything’s a bit disorganized. “Now That’s What I Call A Musical” and “Now That’s Depressing” more or less stand on their own separated from what’s going in what is the REAL “Pain Wars” arc, that being the continuation of the “Paintech” company going nuts and trying to take over the world.

That said, both of the aforementioned episodes are actually very good. “Musical” is a super fun look at God and the Devil fucking and thereby giving us Planet Earth just told in a musical. “Depressing” has a bit more going on, in that the writers seemed to have thrown in some of the shittiest sad stories they could think of just have them depicted by Cyanide & Happiness. A three-legged dog that’s put down, an intertwining story about a dude with an alcoholic history getting into a drunk-driving accident with a pregnant lady leaving her husband the choice of either terminating his daughter or saving his life and the question of whether or not he made the right decision. HEAVY stuff, not sure if Cyanide & Happiness is the tool in which you can really convey those emotions, to be honest, I’m not sure. But I like the idea of the producers trying new things.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear more of the series is coming, and as a matter of fact, I think Explosm had about enough of the horseshit going on at Seeso and I’m getting the sense the split was a bad breakup. There was no sign of an official announcement for the sequel series, and there was nothing posted on the Facebook pages of Seeso or Cyanide & Happiness about “Part Two” being released, but maybe that’s what happens when you fire an Evan Shapiro who was definitely the heart of this network.

The uncertainty about the network and the future of the series I think showed in this “Part Two”. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a bunch of hilarious shit here, but overall it’s a bit of a mess that doesn’t quite find itself, not unlike what we got out of South Park’s 20th season.