PLOT: Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty spinoff follows President Andre Curtis and his eccentric staff as they deal with various crises that Rick Sanchez typically ignores.
REVIEW: During a sad and aggravating era when ramshackle birthday parties, unchecked power-grabs, and delusions of grandeur poison the fabric of governance, it’s oddly refreshing to watch a show about a competent leader getting his hands dirty for the good of a nation. Before I dig into my review of President Curtis, I have something to confess. I’ve never seen Rick and Morty. Not really. I’ve tried watching it on two separate occasions, attempting to quell a growing sense of FOMO, but found it unwatchable. While the adventures of Rick Sanchez and his grandson Morty aren’t my thing, I approached President Curtis with an open mind, ready and willing to embrace the comedy and relish in its absurdity. To my shock and delight, I fell hard for President Curtis, to the point of burning through all ten episodes of the first season like a dry pine forest in mid-July, leaving my entire weekend reduced to ash and fond memories.
Adult Swim‘s latest is an unhinged comedy that blends observational humor with whip-smart banter, guffaw-worthy one-liners, and multidimensional characters whose personalities extend beyond their stereotypes. President Curtis, voiced with playful authority by the legendary Keith David, is by far my favorite character in the series. He’s semi-serious, but also capable. He’s ready to lay it all on the line for the American people, but he’s going to do things his way. He takes no shit and looks great doing it. He’s the kind of leader you can depend on, even if his methods of getting the job done are unconventional and borderline insane.
Luckily, he’s got Special Agent O’Doyle, a buff half-Leprechaun with an itchy trigger finger and aura-sensing capabilities, and his Chief of Staff, Banks, a cyborg capable of downloading new skills and hacking her way out of almost any situation. Together, President Curtis, O’Doyle, and Banks keep America safe from all the things it’s best that it doesn’t know too much about. I’m talking about cryptids, supernatural threats, and cannibals the size of trees. They exist, and President Curtis is here to keep them all in line.
Jim Rash voices O’Doyle with a deadpan seriousness that’s the absolute antithesis of his iconic, chaotic turn as Dean Craig Pelton on Community. Rash’s performance is outrageously funny, with O’Doyle being a “wild card” character that somehow grounds the trio whenever they begin to spiral out of control. In contrast to O’Doyle is Banks, voiced by Brooklyn Nine-Nine royalty Stephanie Beatriz. Banks, believe it or not, is the sensible one in the group. She’s a bit of a narc, but watching her rewrite her own program to adjust to government life is a riot. She’s forever compromising, making her an ace in the hole for nearly any situation. When you put President Curtis, O’Doyle, and Banks together, they form an unwieldy yet unstoppable force that’s like a bull tip-toeing through a china shop. They might break a few things, but the damage is negligible, and who cares when taxpayers are footing the bill for their mistakes, right?
Have you ever read the Image Comics series The Department of Truth by James Tynion IV with art (mostly) by Martin Simmonds? President Curtis is a lot like that, in the way that it revolves around a shadowy section of the government, striving to keep the truth about supernatural activity to a minimum, lest reality cause a panic. I love the concept of cryptids and unexplained phenomena, like Mothman, aliens, and unruly ghosts lurking on the edges of our peripheral vision. While they’re making mischief, eating people, or flashing razor-sharp teeth in the face of polite society, President Curtis is bringing them to justice. Or, I don’t know, accidentally killing them with vigor and aplomb. What I’m getting at here is that President Curtis throws his whole ass into any situation so the rest of us can sleep at night. Leadership. What a concept.
While President Curtis, the show, not the guy, is often crude, it is never offensive. I’d call it out real quick if I thought it was punching below the belt, but the comedy is solid. This aspect of the show is subjective, of course, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t laughing along with President Curtis through every episode. The majority of the missions this season are bat shit crazy, and the homages to the action and sci-fi genres are top-notch. There’s even a moment when the show, I think, refers to Tool’s “Cesaro Summability,” a piercing intermission on my favorite album of all time, “Ænima.” I won’t spoil when it happens, but if you know, you know. If you catch it, let me know.
As someone who walked into President Curtis not being a Rick and Morty fan, I’m thrilled to say I couldn’t get enough of this new show. I was genuinely pissed when I ran out of episodes. It’s already been picked up for a second season, but dammit, now I’ve got to wait? Ugh! Still, I finally see the appeal of the Rick and Morty universe, and am game to give the original series another shot after loving President Curtis. If that’s not a glowing compliment, I don’t know what is. President Curtis is weird, squirrely, creative, and exactly the kind of escape from the second-hand embarrassment of the real world I could use right now. President Curtis has my vote.
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