Netflix’s Big Mouth returns for a third season, but it was not as impactful as the first two seasons.
After the events of “My Furry Valentine,” Andrew is ostracized for his meltdown at Lola’s party, and Matthew finds a guy he has connected with. Jay comes to terms that he’s bisexual, Nick becomes addicted to his smartphone and Missy, and Jessi continues with their struggles with puberty. And Andrew continues to act like a grotty little pervert because he falls for his cousin.
One of the best features of the first two seasons of Big Mouth was the likable characters. Nick, Andrew, and Jessi were good friends who supported each other, such as in episodes like “Everybody Bleeds” and “The Department of Puberty,” but they have degraded as the season progressed. In season 2, this was reasonable because Jessi was dealing with her parents’ divorce, and Nick and Andrew were influenced by their Hormone Monsters. However, in season three, Andrew and Nick get worst.
Andrew suffers the worst. In the first season was a good kid who’s Hormone Monster acted as the devil on his shoulder. In the second season, The Shame Wizard balanced out Andrew’s bad urges. But in this season, Andrew was unrestrained. In the episode “Girls Are Angry Too,” he starts to stream his toxic views about women because of his experience of rejection, leading him to meet some unsavory people. In the episode “Florida,” Andrew attempts to hook up with his cousin, and whilst she flirted with Andrew first, he didn’t have to reciprocate. Nor was it a case for Andrew that he hadn’t seen his cousin for a few years, so he changed a lot in the intervening years.
Nick’s big fault comes when he forms an unhealthy attachment to his sister’s phone. The phone acts like a Hormone Monster and corrupts him. One of Nick’s worst actions was recording an embarrassing video of his father and posting it online. When Nick got separated from his phone, he acts likes an addict trying to find her. Nick also grew jealous of Jay when his family takes him in. This was a continuation of the episode “I Survived Jessi’s Bat Mitzvah,” where Jay acted like the good son when Nick pushed his mother away.
The characters who grew the most in this season were Matthew and Nick. Matthew grew a bit in the second season, and the character continues to develop in this season. Outwardly Matthew is the sassy gay character who doesn’t let anything phase him, but due to his age, he has never had a boyfriend. Matthew was nervous around Aiden as he tries to get into a relationship: so standard teenage stuff. Matthew has the added complication that his dad is an army officer, and Matthew pretends to be straight for him.
In Jay’s case, he has to accept that he’s attracted to boys and girls and later outs himself to the school. Jay’s other storyline involved his family because he has a Home Alone situation, and he gets taken in by Nick’s family. Despite Jay trying to laugh off his family’s actions, he experiences being with a loving family when he stays the Birches and subconsciously doesn’t want to leave.
The best episode of the season was the ninth episode “ASSes.” In that episode, the students of Bridgeton Middle School have to undergo the standardized tests and the stresses that they cause. Jay finally gets medication for his ADHD, and he’s a business opportunity by selling his pills as study aids. But for the kids who take the pills, they suffer negative effects. Jessi gets to shine in this episode because her mother puts pressure on the girl to do well in the exams, and the stress and the pills lead to a relapse into depression. Jessi only snaps out of it because she has a heart-to-heart with her dad.
The weakest episode was “Duke,” where the ghost of Duke Ellington retells the story about how he lost his virginity and growing up in the early 20th Century. This episode was nothing more than a filler episode and felt like an outlier because it felt unconnected to the rest of the season.
Like the previous two seasons, the finale of season three was fantastical. In this finale, the students gain superpowers, and the characters find out some life-changing revelations. The best aspect of this episode was it showed the characters were graduating from the seventh grade, so it means the characters will age. The finale has a downbeat ending, so it will be interesting to see what happens next.
Fans of the previous two seasons will be satisfied with Big Mouth‘s third season, continuing the style of humor and the themes of the previous seasons. But the characters who I grew to like in the first season were starting to grate.
