Pride and Prejudice.
This is a mostly spoiler-free review for all 10 new episodes of Netflix's F is for Family, which lands on May 30th.
Things get even bleaker in the second season of Bill Burr's F is For Family - a raunchy, no-holds-barred animated series tasked with juggling ton of different tones and themes.
Firstly, it's a time portal that takes us back to a different, and more dangerous, era of child rearing, employment, and relationships. Secondly, it's a comedy -- albeit, one with an avalanche of anger at its core -- that seeks to enlighten while it parodies. On top of all this, it's social commentary mixed with a love story mixed with a handful of coming of age tales.
Plus, it occasionally dabbles in the type of absurdist humor you'd see on something like The Critic or Family Guy. So, at times, the show's spinning a lot of plates, but at the heart of it is the tale of a father and husband who never wound up making his dreams come true and now trudges through life unknowingly trying to crush everyone else's aspirations. And honestly, that's a theme that can resonate no matter the era. The poison that can spread through a family because of untreated and unaddressed depression and/or misery.
Adding to patriarch Frank Murphy's burdened psyche this season is the fact that he's out of work during a particularly low point in our country's economy. Picking up where Season 1 left off, where Frank got laid off on Christmas, the Murphys aren't doing so hot. It's hard to notice sometimes because their status quo isn't all the great either, and usually involves a steady course of screaming and swearing at all of life's indignities, from the parents on down to the youngest daughter, but Frank's fragile ego is put through the wringer this year as wife Sue is tasked with not only contributing more on the job front, but actually, at one point, becoming the sole full-time earner.
With Sue landing a J-O-B, F is for Family is able to take a harsh and vulgar look into the rampant, and accepted, chauvinism of the time for women in the workplace. Previously, Sue only had to suffer the sort of humiliation a husband back then would dish out, but now she finds herself in a whole new cringe-worthy crucible of crass, gross men out to stamp her down at every turn.
I think I'd say, out of everything addressed this season, the idea of men feeling absolutely threatened by women, to the point where a woman's success automatically implies their failure, is a very important topic, because this theme bleeds into the Murphys' marriage and almost destroys it. Sue is allowed to do anything she wants provided it's not anything better, or perceived to be better, than what Frank's doing.
This series might spend most of its time repeating the same screaming fits over and over, to the point where you, like the Murphy children, begin to tune out and accept it as background noise, but there's a formidable spine underneath. You know, when the volume's allowed to drop a little and the characters actually begin to find some internal clarity. It's basically this reason, this particular story, along with the flashbacks (that serve as reminders) to Frank and Sue's courtship and loving agreement to be a team, that this season is getting graded a few ticks above Season 1.
Because other than that, nothing's really changed or evolved within the series. It's the same stream of cuss-throwing, rough-housing, stereotype-spotlighting (because of 1974's institutionalized and accepted racism and sexism) sourpuss parade that it's always been. Moments of peace and rare reconciliation rest few and far between the cacophony of physical and emotional abuse everyone suffers on a daily basis. They do come, but there's not enough balance present. Thing are heavily weighted on the side of dysfunction and unhappiness and it can be a grind.
The entire voice cast returns as Burr and Laura Dern take us through Frank and Sue's tumultuous ride through economic hardships while Justin Long ushers us through Kevin's quest to A: become a prog-rock god (which is his idea of contributing the family), and B: get laid. Young Bill (Haley Reinhart) finds himself in a rather sad story as the constantly neglected, and oft-beat up, youngest son whose every effort to help out, get ahead, or do anything fun for himself is instantly ruined by innumerable obstacles - Number one being neighborhood bully Jimmy (Mo Collins). Yes, Jimmy is still a perpetual thorn this year.
There's almost a perverse joy involved with young Maureen's (Debi Derryberry) journey this season as one can almost predict that she's going to grow up and out of this quicksand and become the first person in her family to do something great. Despite the fact that Frank, in his unassumingly horrid way, constantly tells Maureen all the things girls "can't be" (sentiments that are even echoed by Sue at times), she persists. She's great at math and has an interest in computers and nothing her parents do or say is changing this. Guys, she just might be alright.
The Verdict
F is for Family returns with a second season filled with obscenities, indignities, rampant abuse, and harshness as only Bill Burr can deliver. As a comedy, it makes you cringe more than chuckle, and tonally it can turn sideways more than it should, but there's also some smart underlying messaging about the competition men always feel like they're in with women and how it can work to both destroy bonds and poison families.
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