Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Big Mouth’ Season 7 on Netflix, Another Go-Round For The Gross-Out Animated Smash

As someone who’s usually a massive fan of silly, raunchy humor and some of the most surreal situations ever put to the screen, Big Mouth should have appealed to me in a big way over the years. But between the terrifyingly unattractive character designs, repulsive sexual situations with children, and the other needless gross-out humor that’s shocking for the sake of being shocking, it should have gone the way of Allen Gregory years ago.

But for better or worse, Season 7 is here, and now it’s time for the kids Netflix subscribers grew up watching to head off to high school in the near future. It may have taken longer to watch them get there than to actually age into high schoolers, but here we are. But even though things have been changing in terms of who the characters are and what they’re up to, the premise remains the same. Puberty can be gross, and the kids are awkward. That’s basically what you’re always going to get with this show, and it delivers on its premise once more. So it’s there…if you have nothing else to watch.

BIG MOUTH – SEASON 7: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Shannon Glaser (Jessica Chaffin), Jessie Glaser’s (Jessi Klein) mother, wakes up in the night to find school mean girl Lola Skumpy (Nick Kroll) in her kitchen, eating boxes of Chinese food. Lola then proceeded to recap the events of season 6, breaking the fourth wall.

The Gist: The kids of Big Mouth are worried about how their first year in high school will be, and as a result questioning what to do with themselves and their personalities. With some of the kids going to different schools as well, that leads to questioning whether some friendships will survive, and what will happen to the others.

Nick (Nick Kroll) is going after an older girl to be with her, so he’ll be going to a private school instead of the same one everyone else. Andrew (John Mulaney) is trying to shed his creepy image by wearing a black baseball cap and going by “Drew.” Jessi is just pessimistic about the entire high school experience as a whole.

In the season opener, the class visits the high school to see what it might be like when they start attending, and it’s every bit as gross as you might assume. The opening episode is framed with Lola talking to Jessi’s mom about the last season and introducing the rest of what’s about to happen in subsequent episodes, which is somewhat clever, but the rest of the story doesn’t deliver.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? If you’ve watched any adult animated series over the past decade, you’ll feel at home here with Big Mouth. Think Brickleberry, the Big Mouth spinoff Human Resources, the short-lived Inside Job, F is for Family, and Hoops, all on Netflix. If you’ve seen one of those, you’ve seen them all, essentially.

Our Take: Ah, Big Mouth. All good things must come to an end. But this comedy, which has only ever felt like a cover for adults to watch and talk about children in adult situations, has never been good. We get it. Puberty is gross. Get over it. It’s never been clear why we need to see this demonstrated with cartoon 13-year-olds, but I digress.

It’s not always the subject matter, but just the way it’s delivered here with this series. There’s a joke about ejaculating, having sex, or puberty every single minute, with not a moment to catch your breath. It’s often at the expense of a satisfying storyline as well, but if you like this sort of thing, you’ll feel right at home.

For everyone else, you might be stuck wondering who has found these subjects excessively funny over the past few years. There’s nothing here to feel that way about, especially as the show nears its conclusion. Just hollow dick jokes and weird, uncomfortable comments about preteens having sex that should make anyone squicked out more than talk about bodily fluids.

Sex and Skin: You may as well ask what isn’t about sex and skin in this show.

Parting Shot: Lola wraps up her explanation of what happened in the episode so far to a horrified Shannon after apparently speaking to her for the entirety of the events of this season opener.

Sleeper Star: Andrew Rannells is consistently hilarious in everything he stars in, and he brings some fun and sass to Matthew. While I didn’t find anything Matthew said was funny, Rannells’ delivery was always on point.

Most Pilot-y Line: Matthew MacDell (Andrew Rannells) says on the way to check out the new high school, “Look, middle school is terrible, but high school could be a whole new world!” That’s basically the point of the entire season as everyone tries to figure out how they feel about making the transition.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Big Mouth Season 7 is still treading the same worn-out waters as it has across the rest of its runtime, and the only positive thing that can really be said here is that next season is its final set of episodes. If you like this show, you’re bound to keep liking it as it still calls 14-year-old girls “whores” and suggests they should be “drowning in dick” by high school. But if grew tired of that schtick long ago, you won’t find any new territory here, or any real content to laugh at unless you still think writing “80085” on a calculator is still the pinnacle of comedy.

Brittany Vincent (@MolotovCupcake) has been covering video games and tech for over a decade for publications like G4, Popular Science, Playboy, Variety, IGN, GamesRadar, Polygon, Kotaku, Maxim, GameSpot, and more. When she’s not writing or gaming, she’s collecting retro consoles and tech.