Netflix Review – Midnight Gospel: Adventure Time + Rick and Morty + Duncan Trussell

The creator of Adventure Time brings us a trippy and strangely brilliant series.

SUMMARY

Welcome to Midnight gospel, a vidcast produced by Clancy Gilroy (Duncan Trussell), where Clancy interviews people throughout his simulated multiverse voiced by Phil Hendrie. Clancy projects his consciousness into an avatar, then lands on a planet and typically conducts an interview on a topic that is almost completely separate from the events which are happening around him with topics including magic, mindfulness, religion, loss, and death. Interviewees include Dr. Drew Pinsky, Author Anne Lamott, and even Duncan Trussell’s mother. 

END SUMMARY

This show is an unbelievable combination of insane and brilliant, but I have no idea what the ratio is of each. I don’t know what to think of it and I binged it twice in two days. There’s something so brilliant about the juxtaposition of the audio and the images, because the audio is mostly repurposed interviews from Duncan Trussell’s podcast “The Duncan Trussell Family Hour,” while the animation is… beautiful madness. The first episode, for example, takes place during a zombie apocalypse and features an interview with Dr. Drew Pinsky as the president of this world discussing the legalization and use of opiates and hallucinogens. During a zombie apocalypse. The discussion is amazingly sincere, mostly due to Trussell’s interviewing style, but it constantly appears to be in conflict with the surroundings… until suddenly it isn’t in conflict at all and makes perfect sense. That’s how most of the episodes work. 

This isn’t a real follow-up to Adventure Time by creator Pendleton Ward that’s geared towards adults. This is an entirely different animal, aiming more towards trying to enlighten its audience in new and complex ways that eschew a lot of the traditional storytelling frameworks. Despite that, the show is a serial, with themes and ideas feeding into one another, leading up to a very interesting final episode that will leave you with a lot of questions and a bunch of answers that seem hard to handle. I am doubtful that this show will get renewed due to its very unusual nature, but I would love to see more of this. 

I will warn you that this show is pretty adult, not just because there are f-bombs and boobs, but because they don’t actually explain many of the terms or people referenced in the dialogue. You might have to do some homework, which can be off-putting for a cartoon audience. Still, I think it’s well-done and I would advise you to at least try the first episode. 

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

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