Smiling Friends Season 3 Episodes 1-3 Review

Join Swimpedia as we review screeners from the brand new season of Smiling Friends, and find out how the series continues to grow and evolve, while still delivering the same laughs and charm you’ve come to expect!

[MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD]

Smiling Friends is back for its third season on Adult Swim, and the show continues to evolve and change for the better, delivering some of its best episodes yet.

Critics were given the first three episodes of Season 3, and each episode provided a different type of experience, all of them unique and hilarious. The first episode is your standard Charlie and Pim help a client adventure, but with the added benefit that the client, Silly Samuel, is played by Adult Swim alum and alt comedy legend Conner O'Malley. Having Conner here is more than enough to make this episode great, but it’s elevated even further with a wacky B-plot about a building inspection, and a subtle reference to deep internet lore that only this show could deliver.

The second episode focuses on Mr. Frog and gives us an entirely different experience from anything this show has done before, in the craziest way possible. This episode is best experienced fresh so we’re not gonna go into the events, but make sure that you take time to go through the ending montage frame by frame, as it contains several jokes that we can’t believe made it on air. Out of these three, this is the episode that will definitely get people talking the most, for more reasons than you can imagine.

The third episode delivers an ensemble story with the entire gang in action, and this time they’re not directly trying to make someone smile. This episode really showcases how far this show has come, with everything from improved animation to a more complex story that gives everyone something to do. It feels like a culmination of everything so far, as if Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel are learning more and more each season how to make the show even better. Ultimately, this was probably our favorite episode of the bunch, as it delivers on the laughs, what makes Smiling Friends great already, and gives a look at how fresh this series is still.

All three of these episodes are fantastic, and it’s clear how far the show has come since its beginnings. The animation continues to get better and better, with a few genuinely cinematic sequences sprinkled in throughout. The humor is as fantastic as it ever was, bringing in some more topical and political humor, while still utilizing the Smiling Friends house style we know and love so well. The show even lets their guest stars riff, bringing their unique style of comedy to the show. Fans love the mixed-media aspect of the show, and that certainly hasn’t gone away here, with plenty of CGI and live action incorporated into all three episodes.

With Smiling Friends now three seasons deep, it can begin referencing itself in new and fun ways. Whether it’s a plotline about an obsessed fan who loves their “natural conversations,” or a surprise reappearance of a character from the pilot, the show isn’t afraid to get a little meta, without going overboard with it. Speaking of which, although each episode does play as its own distinct story, as you’d come to expect from the show, there is in fact a new strand of linearity. While previous episodes may have felt very self-contained or were one-off plots, other than potentially Mr. Frog, now all three episodes clearly felt like they were coming after the previous seasons in-universe. This is done very subtly, but definitely be on the lookout for these small touches that ultimately make the Smiling Friends world feel more real or established.

Overall, Smiling Friends Season 3 is a triumphant return for the show we all love, while continuing to expand the world and build something better. Just from these three episodes alone, we already saw the potential for this to be the best season of the show yet, featuring everything that already made the series great and taking those elements even further. These are some of the funniest, best-looking episodes of the show to date, and we’re so excited to see where the show will go next!

The first episode of Smiling Friends Season 3 premieres on Adult Swim on Sunday, October 5th at 11:30 PM, and next day on HBO Max!