Season Review: Mulligan Season One Part Two

Overview:

Welcome back to the end of the world! Mulligan’s “second term” is wackier than ever, but new stresses and responsibilities begin to sink in as America makes peace with its broken new normal. President Mulligan and his scrappy cabinet’s efforts to rebuild society finally gain some traction. Alliances are strained as a litany of obstacles and lessons invade this post-apocalyptic America. There’s a new Presidential monument to construct, assassination concerns, the virtues of healthy eating and the importance of vegetables, a Watergate-esque cover-up scheme, and  the hypocrisy and self-flagellating nature of religion and why it’s never a good idea to blindly follow doctrine – religious or otherwise. Unfortunately, the more that things change in Mulligan, the more that they stay the same.  

Oh, and there’s plenty of Moosie this season, y’all! Three cheers for Moosie!

Our Take:

Mulligan’s second season begins with a more disorganized energy, but it feels like it might finally be time for the country – and the world – to heal and embrace the future. Even if it’s one that lacks running water and a stable internet connection. A chaotic cruise ship, the Thirsty Princess, kicks off the season and makes Mulligan go all Triangle of Sadness for a while. It confines these dysfunctional players to their own self-destructive devices. It’s a welcome change of pace from the seemingly limitless nature of season one where characters could go anywhere and do whatever they want. That’s a fun place for a post-apocalyptic comedy to start, but it’s not as exciting as one would think. It’s actually oddly limiting and a relief that Mulligan doesn’t turn its cruise ship crisis into a season-long storyline. There’s just enough cruise ship content to prompt a land versus water – or rather land versus boat – civil war. It’s an interesting angle to start the season on that explores dissent in curious ways. This idea could have been even more effective if it carried through the season and wasn’t so quickly resolved. 

“Man versus boat” is a truly ridiculous division line that separates the country, albeit one that seems strangely fitting for a gonzo series like Mulligan. This season also deconstructs the different types of ways to lead a nation, such as if the United States were to briefly secede to the United Kingdom and what would come from the decision to rule the country as a monarchy. This is a fun way to disrupt Mulligan’s status quo that really gets to the core of what makes a country and the values of democracy. That being said, this still comes across as a fairly half-baked development that doesn’t fully commit to the idea or allow itself to go as far as it should. 

Mulligan spends a lot of time wallowing in its hallowed Earth scenario, but there’s also excitement that comes out of their meager attempts to restore the planet to how it once was, whether that’s what to do with limited amounts of electricity or the type of entertainment that’s created for the masses. Mulligan’s episodes continue to try to turn to American customs and values as a narrative structure while characters turn to the country’s past in order to learn lessons and repair this fractured future…all while blindly asserting that America is still the greatest country to every country. This isn’t a bad concept and it’s exactly the type of thing that a show like Mulligan should be doing. However, the series struggles to find the right balance so that these restorative lessons in Americana feel natural and not some convoluted climax that was reverse-engineered. Some episodes are more egregious than others in this department, but it quickly becomes a repetitive formula that makes Mulligan feel preachy during a time in America where blind patriotism can actually be dangerous.

Another issue with Mulligan is that it still feels like the cast is too big and that the series doesn’t know what to do with everyone, especially now that the basic premise is taken care of and in the show’s rearview mirror. There’s a lot of dead weight here, particularly Lucy, but the characters that do work continue to thrive. This season also introduces some entertaining standalone characters – like sentient meat – that are fun wild cards. Alternatively, Dr. Farrah and Axatrax really come into their own whenever they’re paired together for storylines, which is fortunately quite often this season. Mulligan understands that their contrasting ideologies are the perfect foils for each other. This facilitates an endearingly maternal bond between Farrah and her robotic abomination, TOD. The same is true when Senator LaMarr gets to engage in toxic daddy issues with Earth’s favorite extraterrestrial. 

One of the season’s most playful stories involves Axatrax indulging in superhero comics and learning that an alien can be Earth’s greatest protector, like Superman, and the inspirational journey, renewed sense of purpose, and planetary pride that it instills in him. This also becomes a valuable exercise in Mulligan emphasizing one of its core themes – that not all superheroes wear capes…or have thoraxes with exoskeletons –  and that true value comes from kindness, empathy, and understanding. Axatrax is the only character who explicitly learns this lesson, but it’s applicable to Mulligan’s whole cast by the season’s end.

Mulligan is impossibly silly, but some of the season’s most successful material comes from when it actually treats its cast like real characters and it isn’t afraid to get glum and serious. This is a series about a post-apocalyptic world. Yes, it’s a comedy, but it’s only reasonable that intense depression and malaise will occasionally bubble up to the surface. Mulligan is much stronger when it acknowledges and embraces this truth and is willing to steep its storytelling in melancholy ideas. This unpacks rewarding character development for everyone involved. Matty remains an eternal beacon of optimism, but even this leads to some interesting repressed territory for the character where he’s unable to acknowledge the rampant doom that’s put the rest of his cabinet in a severe funk. That’s not to say that Mulligan “heals” Matty and makes him a more stable version of himself – nor should it – but his shallow persona still gets marginally deeper for the better.

There’s still a looming threat that Axatrax’s Cardibean people will recalibrate and successfully accomplish world domination. Mulligan coyly argues that such a takeover may not even be a bad thing for Earth’s future and longevity. With how Mulligan moves, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine a third season where the Earth is under Cardibean rule as the comedy continues to change America’s ruling structure. Mulligan sets up many potentially rewarding ideas. The problem is that it doesn’t feel like the series will be able to follow through on most of them.

Mulligan’s new season maintains the fast-paced joke-a-second brand of comedy that Robert Carlock, Sam Means, and Tina Fey have made their trademark through series like 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Girls5Eva, the likes of which often feel like live-action cartoons. However, as an actual cartoon, Mulligan is able to take its gags and non-sequiturs to even more ridiculous places that would be impossible in another medium. This season pushes a more frantic and sillier sense of humor that includes Mole People digressions and an inspired Smash Mouth joke that’s as stupid as it is hilarious. Mulligan also pulls off the series’ funniest TOD-209 joke to date. Mulligan, more than anything else, is never afraid to get silly and throw absurd ideas at the wall that most comedies would balk at. This leads to a messy track record when it comes to the number of jokes that actually land and connect. However, the ones that do are fantastic. 

Mulligan is excellent, purely on a joke-writing level, and there are some really strong gags that will make audiences laugh, even if the show feels superfluous or doesn’t always come together as a whole. Mulligan’s disposable nature was present in its first season and this issue hasn’t been solved. It’s a series that’s fun if you just turn your brain off and passively enjoy it, but is that really enough? It doesn’t feel like Mulligan has half the shelf life of other Netflix animated comedies like BoJack Horseman, Big Mouth, or F is for Family. Mulligan is a big, broad, and ridiculous series, but it somehow doesn’t do enough to stand out and make itself feel important. It wouldn’t come as a shock if these were Mulligan’s final episodes and even those that are fans of the series will likely forget about it amidst Netflix’s endless avalanche of content. 

Both seasons of ‘Mulligan’ are now available to stream on Netflix