If you’ve sat through the whole of Season 1, then you’ll know that it ends on an insane cliffhanger. I mean, how else could you wrap up a monster series like that, when you think about it? For the benefit of those who haven’t seen the first season and are just reading this review because you’ve got some free time while you’re waiting for somebody to scrap you back, I’ll try avoid that particular plot point. But you’re all fools and should watch it immediately.

Suffice to say, by the time the opening credits of the first episode have gone by, enough has been provoked to rouse the grief, wrath or disbelief of all series fans. But there’s hope somewhere back there – I mean, they couldn’t, could they?! See, that they again – this is what happens when people don’t watch The Venture Bros and you have to avoid plot points while talking about it. However, after several twists, turns, trysts with disembodiment and necromantic conjuring, the cat finally comes out of the bag, and heart rates can go back to normal.

And then you’re right in the middle of another season of madness. There are just several things that elevate this above the rabble. For one thing, the writing is superlative – the gags are coming at you en masse. I mean, if you’re distracted even for a few seconds, chances are you’ve missed a couple of digs. A lot of the time, several jokes are going on parallel lines at the same time. You can tell the writers have so many ideas that they probably had to leave a huge bunch unused, simply because there wasn’t any space to put them in. Second, this isn’t pure character driven drama – it’s crazy characters thrown into the most absurd situations possible that propel the machine forward. They go from saving humanity from the brink of destruction to facing teenage perils on a double date, and it works, because the framework for the story as a whole is all so well laid out. Far fetched a lot of the time, but convinced enough in itself that it does a good job of convincing us.