From season 2 on, Big Mouth is one of the few things that came out after I started The Book of Rannells that I didn’t review right as they were released. After all, I’d had yet to post my write-ups for season 1’s episodes when season 2 first dropped, so while reviews for stuff like The Boys in the Band and Black Monday went up as soon as I saw them, these episodes have had to wait its turn. Coincidentally, season 4 was released just last week, so I’m gonna kick off the first post of season 2 as I watch the new stuff (spoilers for end-of-season-1 developments.)
We begin pretty quickly after the end of the first season. Most notably, Jessi and Jay have run away from home and the honeymoon phase is rapidly approaching its end – they don’t have much money, they’re in a scary motel, and Jay still has a lot of sexual feelings about pillows. Nick, having acquired his own less-than-desirable Hormone Monster (Rick – with multiple Hormone Monsters in play, I’d better name them) in last season’s finale, worries that he and his body aren’t doing puberty right. Andrew has the opposite problem, concerned about his latest growth spurt and getting more uncomfortable every time someone calls him “big man.”
I like that the title refers to all the main kids (for Missy, it’s a bit more tangential, but she does get in on it a bit.) As Andrew worries that he’s freakishly large, his Hormone Monster Maury is surprisingly-supportive for once. I wish Nick wasn’t saddled with the grossly-decrepit Rick, although “grinding pepper” is a great euphemism for masturbation (“Now pull your hands apart like you’re opening a telescope!”) I feel for both of them in feeling too-big and too-small; who can’t relate to feeling like there’s something wrong with you?
It’s interesting to see the relatively levelheaded Jessi doing something as extreme as running away, and I love the scene of her and her Hormone Monstress Connie wailing in the motel bathroom about how weird Jay is. As for Jay, he’s very definitely a comic-relief supporting character, but I appreciate that they’re keeping up the thread of how unloved and unnoticed he feels at home – also, his “jerk-off journal” features the entry, “I woke up with a boner that could cut glass…” Ha! (Plus, I love the running gag of his dog being self-aware and tortured about it.)
Not much Matthew in the season opener. He sticks to his commenting-from-the-sidelines role – literally in this case, since he and Missy tagteam as commentators for the school basketball team. As usual, he brings his trademark disdain to the proceedings and gets in some good one-liners. I love Andrew Rannells’s delivery on the fact the team is getting crushed by the other school’s team “with two Black kids – ooh,” and even though his screentime is limited here, Matthew continues to be the king of great Nick-is-short jokes.
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