Welcome back to our review of Frisky Dingo, the decade-old Adult Swim series from the creators of Archer for bingers on a TV diet. This week we jump into episodes fourteen-sixteen, the beginning of season two.
1. A New Style
Mining the conceit from classic SNL sketches, the films of Christopher Guest, and The Office, season two kicks off with a faux documentary style covering both the events that transpired immediately after the conclusion of season one and setting up the political premise of this season. It’s an ingenious creative decision that helps develop the characters as well as provide another level of comedy gold, juxtaposing the characters musings against how they actually act. The documentarian, who sounds like a relative of the dearly departed USC Film School grads Brent and Trent from season one, offers bemused reactions and comments to the dubious pronouncements of the main characters, and the shaky-cam lite effect applied to the non-interview portions adds another layer to the show’s limited animation style, making the proceedings a little less static than the previous season.
2. Baby Lamont
The mascot of Killface’s presidential campaign is a perfect distillation of American media in a tiny flightless bird package. When Killface’s Annihilatrix malfunction has the unintended consequence of pushing the earth three feet away from the sun and ending global warming (just go with it), Baby Lamont becomes the embodiment of news media superficiality. Never mind the seven billion people on the planet, for the love of God, someone save that poor penguin! As the documentary crew captures the banality of this bird’s existence within the Killface camp in these episodes, it coincides with the gradual erosion of veneer of the core of Killface’s campaign, his “cure” of global warming. It turns out that even saving mankind from extinction has a political shelf life.
3. Taqu’il for Vice President
Taqu’il is probably the most charismatic character in the series, and season two starts using that magnetism to better effect. Despite some creative missteps as a musician, like his global warming concept album but particularly his Ballocaust album which depicts him as an SS officer, Taqu’il is brought onboard as Killface’s running mate. It’s a strictly demographic decision, trading the 13% black voters for the 2% Jewish voters. It turns out Killface doesn’t relate well to black voters. Here Taqu’il is also presented as the person most interested in the issues and policies undergirding the campaign, flying in the face of campaign manager Dottie Bunch’s perception-based stratagems. As Killface wonders whether the country is ready for a black vice president, it’s interesting to note that Barack Obama would be elected the first African American president only two months after this episode aired.
4. Lollapawendell
Another character given more screen time in season two is Wendell Stamps. Moving from his position with the Department of Labor, probably under a cloud of scandal after the events of season one, Wendell is the Secret Service agent assigned to Killface’s campaign. As hapless and dimwitted as he is casually racist and violent, Wendell sexual predilections could give Xander Crews’s a run for their money. Stupefyingly overcoming his obvious physical and mental limitations to find himself in the position of guaranteeing people’s security, Wendell does show a real affinity for art by hand painting Killface’s campaign bus. It’s a shame he had to kill a guy to obtain it.
5. Xander Trump
Xander Crews’s reintroduction to the series in episode two finds him homeless and operating a community center out of Crews appliance cardboard boxes on the side of the road. We won’t go into the details of what he’s been up to for the last year, but the former tycoon has achieved a new low. Still sporting Ronnie’s “tattoos” from season one and a bandaged left ear—the result of his death match with Killface, Xander seems almost content with his existence. When he reveals that he still has the $20 billion check that represents his entire fortune, viewers are reminded just how clueless the character can be, and his move to enter the presidential campaign just to spite his old nemesis underscores his petulance. In other words, a year of homelessness has not made Crews a changed man. If anything, it might have eroded his faculties for empathy even further. Once he returns to his old office in episode three and starts trying to court Fred Dryer for vice president, an individual he knows for his NFL career and not his decade-long run as “TV’s Hunter,” Crews is back to his brazen playboy persona, and his callousness toward human life at the end of episode three is bolstered when he parachutes to safety from his campaign jet after Simon shoots it down with an RPG, leaving his press corps to certain death.
Whew! There’s a lot going on in these episodes, but as zany as the proceedings are, they feel like a natural extension to season one. By the end of these three episodes, the parallels between this campaign and the 2016 election should be pretty clear. Presciently depicting two candidates for whom a vote cast would carry serious reservations, the political affiliations of both candidates welcome a myriad of viewers’ own conclusions. Just check out the Crews campaign proposals to combat illegal immigration and reform education. ‘Nuff said.
Frisky Dingo season two also continues the ironic tradition of packing more pregnant pauses into each episode than shows twice the length. Join us next week as the Crews and Killface campaigns kick into high gear with episodes seventeen through nineteen.
