Royal Crackers Season 2 Episodes 1 & 3 Review

Join Swimpedia as we review screeners of the first and third episodes of Royal Crackers Season 2 with minimal spoilers, and check out what's different about this season!

[MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD]

Royal Crackers was one of Adult Swim’s best shows last year, and much like its Max sibling Clone High, its new season is here quicker than one would expect for an animated show in the 2020s. The first season developed the Hornsby family, including brothers Stebe and Theo Jr., as well as Stebe’s wife Deb and their son Matt. The elderly patriarch, Theo Sr. is comatose in a wheelchair for most of the show, barring occasional flashbacks or other plot devices that get to show off how evil he was when he could talk. The fun of the first season was how it slowly immersed us in the world of the Hornsbys, exploring the family’s friends and rivals while also diving deep into their insecurities and what makes them tick. Getting to know characters on a deeper level like this is key to a great sitcom, and Royal Crackers filled that niche perfectly in season 1, and with their second season, starting February 29th on Adult Swim, we get to see these characters go even crazier.

Season 2 of Royal Crackers starts with the Hornsbys feuding with their archrivals, the WASP-y Dennison family, who runs the Dennison snacks empire, a much more successful snack food enterprise than the Hornsby’s titular Royal Crackers brand. This time, they’re fighting over the rights to be an addition to the school lunch, which quickly gets out of hand and spirals into bizarre kneeling rituals and over-the-top violence, including a shocking, surreal, and hilarious cliffhanger that calls to mind earlier Adult Swim gems like Aqua Teen Hunger Force. While Royal Crackers definitely scratches that same itch of a syndicated adult cartoon sitcom like American Dad!, this first episode of their sophomore season proves that, at its heart, this is still an Adult Swim show. The second season seems to be going for more surreal set pieces and jokes, with repeated, incessant audio used for comedic effect, which brings to mind classics like Space Ghost Coast to Coast or Sealab 2021, but the show never loses sight of its punchy humor or genuinely fun, lovable characters. The Hornsbys aren’t exactly good people, but they’re fun to watch, and everyone in the stellar cast brings something to the table, no character here feels like the weak character, comically speaking.

The first episode focuses squarely on Matt Hornsby, a character who was pretty irrelevant for the first half of the season, but truly began taking shape in the second half. Season 2 continues this trend, putting Matt front and center in the latest conflict between the Hornsbys and Dennisons. Stebe and Deb get plenty of chances to shine here too, it’s always fun to hear Stebe scream, and Deb is like a 20% more psychotic and insane Peggy Hill. Theo Jr. also gets a great subplot about going undercover in Matt’s high school, and per usual, gets the best lines of the episode.

The third episode focuses on Theo Jr.’s father issues, as after the eldest Hornsby pulls himself out of his permanent coma to briefly disparage a TainT song, Theo Jr. goes searching for a father figure with season 1’s Jeff Bezos parody, another recurring antagonist after the Dennisons. Episode three also features a fantastic subplot focusing on Deb getting involved with a Peloton cult. While a Peloton cult is definitely not a new plot for an adult animated sitcom, Deb is just so fun to watch that you forget about any previous lackluster Simpsons episodes with the same premise.

Overall, this is an extremely strong start to one of the best comedies on Adult Swim right now. If you were disappointed with season 1, believing it to be too basic of an adult animated sitcom to be an Adult Swim original, the second season ups the insanity and the subversive comedy native to Adult Swim, earning a place among the network’s staples. This sharply written show perfectly scratches the itch for anyone looking for more of Adult Swim’s bread and butter: wacky, shocking adult animated comedies with great writing, great voice acting, and endearing, fun to watch characters.

The first episode of Royal Crackers Season 2 premieres this Thursday night at midnight on Adult Swim, and next day on Max!