Big Mouth, the raucous and raunchy animated comedy about the triumphs and tribulations of puberty, returned for a divisive fourth season on Netflix in 2020. While fans couldn’t wait to catch up with Andrew, Nick, Jessi, Missy, and of course, their Hormone Monsters, the disjointed nature of the season left them nonplussed as well.
While there were certainly high points, like Jay and Lola’s power coupling, Natalie’s introduction, and Missy discovering a new aspect of her identity, the increasingly gross-out humor, ambiguous themes, and rushed storylines dramatically changed the nature of the show. Lets find out if Season 4 was the best season yet, or a stand out for all the wrong reasons.
Loved: Jay & Lola
Season 4 continued the theme of finding first loves, a traditional crucible of adolescence, but added transparency and communication as components of forming a healthy relationship with them. Out of all their friends, the unlikely pairing of Jay and Lola emerged as the show’s true power couple, and not just because of their witty banter and larger-than-life personalities.
Jay and Lola had a surprisingly equitable relationship based on a foundation of respect and reciprocity. They not only tolerated each other’s uniqueness, but celebrated it, and ended up not reinforcing the toxic patterns of their friends (for the most part).
Missed The Mark: Jessi’s Story Arc
Despite doubting the stability of her home life, Jessi had always come across as self-confident in past seasons. In Season 4, unfortunately, a variety of traumatic events caused her to lose her sense of self; starting her period, attending a new school, and most unfortunate of all, correlating her self-worth with the attention from a much older boy.
Watching Jessi dumb herself down for a predator with no intention of respecting her was difficult, and it seemed like for the majority of the season, Jessi’s character lacked the growth of her peers. The character of the Gratitoad was poorly conceived, especially since he seemed to imply that getting over depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses was easy to control. After everything Jessi had been through in Season 2, the Gratitoad seemed to dismiss her problems and her efforts.
Loved: Nick Starr And The Bigger Picture
Season 4 stepped beyond the immediate problems of the young characters and projected their lives into the future. In the middle of the season, an entire episode was devoted to Nick Starr, Nick’s future self, who much like the teenage Nick, was a good guy that wanted what was best for people, but whose rampant insecurities turned him into an arrogant egomaniac.
The episode even tackled aspects of climate change, global warming, and topics that concern the rest of the world, not just Nick and his friends. The episode signified a departure for the series in many ways by representing the natural progression of adolescent ideologies; as teenagers mature, they go from thinking the world revolves around them to seeing the bigger picture.
Missed The Mark: All The Fourth Wall Jokes
In the first few seasons, it was amusing to have Maurice or Connie break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience. It made sense, especially since they were guides to their young hormonal wards and could therefore serve in the same capacity for viewers.
However, the fourth season amplified the use of fourth wall jokes to a degree that proved distracting. Soon most of the characters, from Coach Steve to Jay’s mom, knew they were in the show. At one point, Missy even referenced the fact that her voice actor had changed.
Loved: Matthew And Aiden
Brief though it was, Matthew and Aiden emerged as another couple that fans could root for. Matthew got a more complete character arc in this season as a son who didn’t want to risk the loving relationship he had with his mom in order to be his authentic self with his boyfriend.
The interaction between Matthew and his parents was realistic and believable, and was played for the right amount of seriousness and heart. If anything, Aiden could have been developed more, because his home life still remained a mystery by the season’s end.
Missed The Mark: Andrew
Andrew had his ups and downs as a character in other seasons, and fans turned on him when he broke Missy’s heart during the Valentine’s Day Special. In Season 4, Andrew wasn’t gaining any new fans with his behavior, which seemed to be even more disturbing and perverted than before.
Not only was Andrew part of some of the most graphic material (Poop Madness?), he made sexual jokes about everyone in the cast, including Jessi’s new boyfriend, and everyone laughed it off. He later got even more inappropriate at his grandfather’s funeral, which, while it made for a good excuse to include the Shame Wizard, came across as disturbing rather than funny.
Loved: Missy’s Identity Exploration
One of the biggest themes of the season was identity, and when Missy went to visit her extended family, she discovered that she wanted to explore her identity as a young Black woman. She didn’t appreciate that her parents never encouraged an open dialog about the intricacies of Black culture in their house, and promptly decided to do so on her own.
Prior to Season 4, racial identity hadn’t been brought up very much, but it took center stage in this season, and Missy was allowed to have a lot of character growth because of it. Hopefully she keeps it 98+2 from now on!
Missed The Mark: The Summer Camp Episodes
When Nick, Andrew, and Jessi went to summer camp before the start of eighth grade, it was a great opportunity to show the characters in a completely new environment dealing with all new trials and tribulations. Unfortunately, it wasn’t executed as well as fans hoped, which was unfair to new characters like Natalie.
It seemed like the sort of storyline that should have been reserved for a special like My Furry Valentine, rather than be included in the first three episodes of the season. It made the rest of the season seem disjointed and rushed.
Loved: Tito The Anxiety Mosquito
Every season seemed to introduce a new manifestation of the puberty process, from the Hormone Monsters of Season 1, to the Shame Wizard of Season 2, and the Depression Kitty of Season 3. Season 4 was no exception with Tito The Anxiety Mosquito, the perfect representation of something many teenagers feel.
Tito mostly terrorized Nick, who had mounting anxiety attacks as the season went on, but was also found around Jessi and the other characters to a lesser extent. The fact that Tito was annoying, intrusive, and constantly spouting manic lies only made the character a more apt depiction of what anxiety is really like for those who suffer from it.
Missed The Mark: Lacking Judd & The Rest Of The Birch Family
One of the standout ancillary characters of the series was Judd, Nick’s antisocial anarchist older brother who terrorized him in the first three seasons and provided the series with some of its most hilarious lines of irreverent and nihilistic dialogue. Judd was reduced to a cameo in Season 4, and it was all the lesser for it.
The same principle applied to Nick’s dad, Dr. Birch, who had such a healthy approach to how he navigated all of his children’s lives. Also, his relationship with his wife was both graphic and adorable.
