Season Review: Exploding Kittens Season One

Overview:

Life is full of pain, pleasure, and everything in between. Sometimes it’s such a challenge to get through the day that beleaguered mortals pray out to God for help or — at the least — just some marginal life preserver that makes life just a fraction easier. Well, what if this was all because God is a disaffected, self-interested sycophant whose days were finally numbered? God, in a drastic act of reconnecting with humanity that doubles as the ultimate display of fealty, is banished from Heaven and stuck on Earth in the lazy body of a chonky house cat. God begins to learn the hard way just what it means to be mortal and experience the sting of life. To make matters worse, the Devil himself goes through a similar transformative process that leaves these two unique felines as neighbors and all that stands between mankind’s salvation or damnation. That’s a whole lot of pressure for a fat cat who’d rather sleep and leap around than solve humanity’s problems.

Our Take:

Comedies, animated or otherwise, that tackle Heaven, Hell, and everything in between have always been controversial. That being said, the landscape has come a long way since the days of God, the Devil, and Bob and there have been an increasing number of animated series that playfully pit God and the Devil against each other in order to mine the full spectrum of the afterlife’s comedic potential. There have been some rewarding animated series that have recently explored this space, such as Little Demon, Disenchantment and Hazbin Hotel. However, Exploding Kittens sets itself apart from these saintly and Satanic silly series by its near-contempt for humanity. Think Good Omens, but animated…and with cats.

Exploding Kittens is co-created by Shane Kosakowski and Matthew Inman, who’s responsible for the original tabletop card game that the series draws from. Kosakowski has been involved with some lauded animated comedy series like Mike Judge’s The Goode Family and Beavis and Butt-Head, the final seasons of Archer, and acting as a crucial writer on You’re the Worst. This is a commendable resume, but Exploding Kittens is easily the least impressive of Kosakowski’s projects and it fails to tap into the same wit and intelligence of what’s otherwise been a sharp pedigree of comedies.

Exploding Kittens’ central comedy comes from the ironic premise that the universe’s most important beings are actually the most dysfunctional and flawed. This results in God’s banishment to Earth as he’s born again – literally – and attempts to ascertain what makes life worth living and the importance of existence in this extreme fish out of water story. Exploding Kittens, unsurprisingly, is also a series that finds cats to be endlessly entertaining and that these felines’ peculiar behavior is enough to sustain a season’s worth of jokes. There’s nothing wrong with finding the inherent humor in cats – there are certainly enough YouTube channels and viral videos that focus on exactly that – but it’s yet another example of Exploding Kittens playing to the lowest common denominator rather than doing anything that’s genuinely challenging with this material. Yes, it’s all very cute and fun, but there’s nothing in Exploding Kittens that makes it mandatory viewing. 

There’s also an oddly vitriolic depiction of geekdom, gamers, and “nerds” that’s weaponized with a scathing level of disdain that just feels cruel and out of place in a show like this. It feels like it’s laughing at the very audience that it’s trying to draw in. Exploding Kittens presents itself as mature and edgy, but this is a show that’s really going to resonate most with younger audiences who don’t expect as much from their comedies. Exploding Kittens is full of easy, lazy cutaway gags that say what doesn’t need to be said. It’s a comedy that woefully needs to understand how less can be more. This is a series where “billionaire Jefflon Bezmusk” is the level of biting parody that’s on display. That being said, there are still some fun ideas here, like God making a veritable Voltron out of brainwashed cats or how Heck and Hell are separate realms and that the former is a more sanitized version of the latter. Additionally, Exploding Kittens does occasionally scratch the surface of some more clever concepts that reflect the right degree of subversion, like an episode that revolves around the Westminster Human Show. Exploding Kittens might have worked if this were the vibe that it was consistently operating at, rather than it being the exception to the rule.

Beyond the ongoing battle between good and evil that’s instigated between Godcat and Devilcat’s perpetual rivalry, Exploding Kittens also leans into Godcat’s surrogate family and the repair of their frayed bonds. The most successful aspect of this is how Travis and Abbie, the children of the Higgins family, are separately championed by Godcat and Devilcat and become conduits for their feud. There are satisfying parallels between this sibling rivalry and the eternal conflict between good and evil. Exploding Kittens adopts a predictable formula where Godcat helps this family grow, repair themselves, and become marginally more functional. It’s not exactly a surprising trajectory for a show of this nature and it’s not anything that can’t be found in literally every other animated comedy that involves a dysfunctional family. However, it provides a valuable human center to a series that otherwise feels detached and too cool to care. Nevertheless, it’s still sweet to see Godcat help this family heal, even if it’s in spite of himself.

The art direction and animation in Exploding Kittens leaves a lot to be desired and while it’s not exactly ugly, it’s also hardly impressive or anything to get particularly excited over. This is no Midnight Gospel and the simplistic visual style may ward off curious viewers who would otherwise be interested in such a concept. Unfortunately, the sense of humor and storytelling isn’t groundbreaking or entertaining enough to excuse the series’ basic look. There’s a lot that’s fairly generic in Exploding Kittens, but if nothing else, the vocal performances don’t disappoint. Tom Ellis and Sasheer Zamata lead the pack as Godcat and Devilcat and they’re clearly having a lot of fun. The supporting cast (which includes Mark Proksch, Tom Kenny, Lucky Yates, and Ally Maki) is equally enjoyable and the cast at least puts their all into these broad caricatures even if the writing often falls short.

Exploding Kittens ends on a massive cliffhanger that definitely positions the series for a second season that would bring forward an exciting change of pace that speaks to how there’s still a lot more to do with this limitless premise, rules, and characters. It’s just a matter of whether Exploding Kittens actually deserves more runway after squandering such potential here. Exploding Kittens is an entertaining way to pass the time, but it’s hardly an animated breakthrough that’s set to redefine the streaming platform. 

There’s enough in Exploding Kittens that works. Unfortunately, it’s all rather forgettable with diminishing returns. It’s entirely possible that a second season could iron these wrinkles out, aim higher, and find a more effective formula for its exaggerated premise and universe, which isn’t without its charms. However, if Exploding Kittens continues down the same path then there will be nothing worthwhile to glean from more episodes. If idle hands are the Devil’s playthings then disinterested audiences will all be turned into demons by the end of these nine episodes.