The Big Mouth team has moved out of the school and into the woods, trading imaginary hormone monsters for horny animals. Their latest adult animated series, Mating Season, graduates creators Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, and Jennifer Flackett from exploring adolescent development to exploring the current age of modern dating. Yes, it is as abrasively raunchy and weird as their previous series.
Besides being totally in sync with Big Mouth, Mating Season also plays like a blend of Friends, your favorite Nora Ephron movies, and Open Season—wrapped in a bizarre package stamped “for certified freaks.” It delivers exactly what its title promises: aggressively horny, neurotic, anthropomorphic animals navigating dating and companionship in their adult lives, while offering a charming perspective on contemporary dating culture.
The series follows a group of forest-dwelling single best friends. Josh (Zach Woods) is an anxiety-ridden bear whose longtime girlfriend dumps him, forcing him to move back in with his folks. Ray (Nick Kroll) is a wisecracking, sneaker-wearing, self-absorbed raccoon determined to hump everything in sight. Fawn (June Diane Raphael) is a sarcastic deer who’s like a Girls character personified as a deer. And Penelope (Sabrina Jalees) is an endearingly awkward, vest-wearing lesbian fox whose anxieties constantly get the better of her.
Together, they navigate the complexities of contemporary sexual and relationship dynamics within their suburban-like forest. Topics range from awkward lulls after a romantic date to envying friends with different domestic lifestyles, plus the value of solid platonic relationships. Throughout the season, the quartet endures rom-com-style situations that push them to their limits—often riddled with chaotic, gross-out jokes—and things frequently go wrong due to their own vices and insecurities, or someone else’s.
Mating Season continues Big Mouth‘s practice of providing solid LGBTQ+ representation, though here it’s one lesbian: Sabrina Jalees’ red fox Penelope, who is by far the show’s best character. The writing team gets maximum mileage from her self-discovery journey. Of everyone who clearly doesn’t have their shit together, she’s the most easiest to root for—funny, endearing, and arguably the most tragic. The episode “The Truth About Canada” is the season’s standout, featuring a unique, captivating lesbian twist on Disney’s The Fox and the Hound, with fellow queer actress Abbi Jacobson voicing a hound named Summer. Set in Canada (where Jalees is from), this episode establishes Penelope as a fully realized, complex character.
Jalees breathes so much life into Penelope: her anxious self-doubts, her gay panic, and her sweet supportiveness toward her pals. Serving as a creative consultant, she helps shape solid episode arcs. In one, Penelope tries to build a lesbian community with a mushroom foraging group (Big Mouth alum Lena Waithe is a guest star as a Alex, a boar) but gets envious when Fawn (who is just an ally) gets all the attention. Each arc develops Penelope’s ideals in her journey of self-discovery and healing.
Sometimes the dry, conversational humor feels entirely millennial-coded. Other times, it acknowledges the young adults who watched Big Mouth and are now approaching their thirties, offering them a show about navigating adulthood in pursuit of lasting love. Unless you’re HBO’s Industry, I do feel there’s a staleness in sexual representation across modern TV/Film. The Big Mouth team is one of the few normalizing everyone’s freaky nature—it’s just funny that they do it with cartoon drawings that curse.
Again, this is the Big Mouth team. I’ve grown ambivalent to their over-the-top crass humor because of the familiarity, yet they consistently engage me with their charm. Mating Season is strengthened by the ensemble’s friendships and the situations they face, despite the wild plotting. Beneath the chaotic, gross-out hyperbolic insanity, the show occasionally pierces with an uncomfortably realistic sting in how these characters handle impasses in their intimate relationships. Sometimes outrageously funny, other times genuinely chilling, it hits close to home.
If you enjoy Big Mouth, Mating Season shares a similar tone but shifts focus to adult romance and executes it with signature charm. I had a good time watching it and warmed up to these critters, who are in constant heat.
