‘Teenage Euthanasia’ Review: Adult Swim’s Dark Comedy Is a Warped Blast

The best of Adult Swim takes a clichéd premise and twists it until it’s barely recognizable. What are Space Ghost Coast to Coast or The Eric Andre Show other than a mockeries of late night talk shows? What’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force other than a deconstruction of the slacker comedy? When it comes to Teenage Euthanasia, a new animated comedy from Alyson Levy and Alissa Nutting, this series doesn’t just twist the dynamics of a healthy mother-daughter relationship. It twists every modern moral qualm imaginable from our perceptions of death to our co-dependency on social media. Few shows are as gleefully, proudly messed up as Teenage Euthanasia, and it’s oddly soothing to see how it embraces the darker sides of life.

Teenage Euthanasia centers around Euthanasia ‘Annie’ Fantasy (Jo Firestone). Abandoned by her mother Trophy (Maria Bamford) as a baby, Annie is reconnected with her mom when Trophy’s corpse is brought to the family morgue. But a tear from her daughter and some weird in-show magic brings Trophy back from the dead. As Trophy gets a second chance to connect with her daughter, Annie has to convince her mom she’s worth her time.

Just by examining its premise, you can understand Teenage Euthanasia‘s twisted yet accurate worldview. There have been countless books, movies, and shows about distant parents getting a second chance to connect with their kids, heartwarming sagas that revolve around these adults changing themselves in major ways for the greater good. Levy and Nutting’s show sees that dream and instead chooses reality. Trophy was a garbage Florida monster in life, a woman riddled with both speeding tickets and STDs. And she’s just as toxic and dismissive as a zombie mom. She often complains about her teenage pregnancy to Annie’s face, chooses spray tans over doing the right thing, and uses her army of crotch bugs to enact minor chaos. Trophy was and remains a terrible mom. Her only redeeming quality is the misguided hope Annie has placed on her rotting shoulders. As fantastical as it always is, Teenage Euthanasia never loses sight of the depressing fact that most people never change.

These truth bombs appear again and again, and, as is often the case with any world Nutting creates, they’re most prominently seen through technology. When Annie looks at herself in the mirror, a self-described “eavesdropping algorithm” tells her that she’s in a vulnerable emotional space and prompts her to buy a new line of makeup. Later, her Uncle Pete (Tim Robinson) encounters an elderly couple who has to renew their marriage every 24 hours via app. In another episode, Annie and three teenage delinquents are pitched to live in a luxurious group home with the caveat that staying there would require them to get pregnant.

All of these jokes are ridiculous to the point of being absurd, but they’re comforting in their accuracy. Even though the thought is uncomfortable and invasive, the algorithms that track us can likely determine our emotional states based on what we search. And if that’s the case, there’s a 100 percent chance they’ve used that information to better target ads. Almost anyone who’s been on a dating app will agree that these apps have made romantic relationships seem more disposable. Why no apply that idea to marriage? And even though we’re in 2021, women are still judged and policed based on their reproductive capabilities. Extending that obsession to a cult-like group home with a huge buy-in isn’t that far out there, especially considering the current abortion debates happening in Texas. The fact that these perceptive and cutting jokes can exist in a show where a Florida ID means flashing your boobs is just the icing on the cake.

Life is weird, hypocritical, and scary. People die, but before they do, they let you down. There’s an entire infrastructure of algorithms and marketing teams that exist solely to make you buy a certain kind of toilet paper. We live in a puritanical society that’s defined by the capitalist motto that sex sells. Teenage Euthanasia sees all this frustrating darkness and packages it into a bright, goofy bubble. It’s exactly the sort of grotesque middle finger Adult Swim has perfected.

New episodes of Teenage Euthanasia premiere on Adult Swim, Sundays at midnight ET.

Where to stream Teenage Euthanasia