A review of Big Mouth season 5

Andrew and Nick reacting to Andrew’s hormone monster in Big Mouth Season 5. Netflix

Warning: spoilers

On Nov. 5, Netflix’s original animated sitcom, “Big Mouth” dropped its fifth season. As best friends Nick and Andrew continue their journeys navigating their way through middle school, we get a glimpse into their, along with all of their friends’, awkward encounters with each other and themselves.

If you get a kick out of dry, vulgar humor, “Big Mouth” is definitely the show for you, however, I would not advise watching it with your parents in the room due to the constant dirty jokes and blunt sexual references.

“I love ‘Big Mouth’, but in my opinion, this season was a little too much,” Brady Mullins said. “There are too many emotion creatures now and I feel like the writers are relying on sex too much to make the show funny now.”

While another avid “Big Mouth” viewer Siena Suder said, “I think Season 5 is the best season so far, to be honest.”

Season 5 takes place in the holiday season for the Bridgeton Middle School crew and, of course, all of them going through changes. The first episode of the season, “No Nut November,” jumps into Jay challenging the gang to participate in a month-long challenge with him in an attempt to distract himself from his ex-girlfriend, Lola.

After failing the challenge after one day, Nick, Andrew, Jessi, Missy and Jay all come to the conclusion that it was extremely unrealistic in the first place and accept themselves as hormonal preteens that have very little self-control.

“I like how they are all a little older in this season,” Suder said. “It really makes it a completely different show.”

As each character has their own personal monsters–Depression Kitty, Anxiety Mosquito, Grati-Toad, love bugs, hate worms and the variety of hormone monsters–the Shame Wizard makes an appearance in the second episode of Season 5.

The Shame Wizard has previously haunted each of the characters in previous seasons, and he returns this season in Nick and Andrew’s swim class to taunt the children about their bodily insecurities.

I admire the creator of “Big Mouth”, Nick Kroll’s vision in creating a monster for every pubescent emotion or sensation that nearly everyone has felt in their adolescence. It illustrates the idea that you were never alone in feeling all of those uncomfortable and irrational feelings you once felt way back when.

“I like how it is uncensored, exposing the reality of growing up during the pubescent stage of life,” student Adam Gough remarks. “It’s not at all sugar-coated, but it does it in a funny way.”

In Episode 3, we are introduced to the Love Bugs when Nick realizes he is in love with his best friend Jessi and when Jessi realizes that she might like girls and guys as she might be developing a crush on her new friend, Ali. Nick decides to act upon his lust rush and confesses his love to Jessi, but she rejects him as she strictly sees him as a friend.

Now, we are introduced to the Green-Eyed Monster as once referred to in Shakespeare’s “Othello”. The Green-Eyed Monster symbolizes jealousy which all of “Big Mouth’s” main characters experience in the fourth episode as unrequited love manifests itself into ruthless beasts.

Right in time for the holidays, the “Thanksgiving” episode is packed full of epiphanies, marijuana, rebellion, big news, traditions and talking turkeys. By the end of the episode, almost all of the characters are left either sad or ticked off except for Andrew, who shared his first-ever bonding moment with his rageful father.

Over the next two episodes, both Nick and Missy catch hate worms which cause them to despise everything about anything in their lives. These worms plague the show for the next few episodes as it was quite honestly difficult to watch Nick and Missy become entirely different individuals due to unjustifiable hatred.

As Jessi’s crush on Ali grows stronger, Matthew’s crush on Jay develops into something he can no longer control, and Andrew offers his new and unreciprocated nurturing personality to his friends, we are presented with new songs, “Best Friends Make the Best Lovers” and “I F**king Hate You.”

Classic holiday stories with naughty new twists are presented by Maury and Connie in various different graphics to truly capture the Christmas spirit in the eighth episode, “A Very Big Mouth Christmas.”

After Nick’s annual family ski trip where his sister loses her virginity and Andrew finds his dream girl that is later taken from him because of an avalanche caused by Nick’s anger, the final episode of the season depicts the kids’ New Year’s Eve.

The season closes on Nick following his hate worm into the portal of monsters and demands to speak to the one in charge of this whole mess. The big man in charge ends up really being older, real-life Nick, Nick Kroll. Kroll makes a personal appearance on the show to explain to his character, Nick, that all of the monsters that he encounters are really just different versions of himself.

“I really like the way the show humanizes emotions and creates characters out of them; it’s cool how the show shows us that we should humanize our emotions,” Mullins says.

Nick learns a powerful lesson when Kroll breaks the fourth wall to describe that all of him and his friends are on an entertainment television show and that all of the monsters inside their heads can actually be controlled by them, not the other way around.

This was an amazing topper to Season 5 as it truly encapsulates the essence that people have the capability to control their thoughts as well as their inner demons. It may be much more difficult in one’s adolescence, but it is simply a part of growing up to realize how to gain self-control.

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