Summary
A quartet of high schoolers’ misadventures continue as they try to find their place in society and school.
This review of the Amazon original series Fairfax season 2 does not contain spoilers.
Amazon has released the second season of the adult animated comedy series Fairfax. If you haven’t watched the first season, this series is created by Matt Hausfater, Aaron Buchsbaum and Teddy Riley and follows a quartet of middle schoolers Dale, Derica, Benny and Truman who are on a quest for popularity and individuality on Los Angeles’ Fairfax Avenue.
The animated comedy has an all-star voice cast that includes Guy Fieri, Billy Porter, Zoey Deutch, Camila Mendes, Annie Murphy, Ben Schwartz, Michael Rooker, and John Leguizamo, to name a few. They’re clearly throwing all they can at this second season in the hopes of securing a third.
Animation is not just for kids and there has been a big surge in the past years for adult animation shows, and they are getting more adult-only in their content. Adults love series such as Bob’s Burgers, Archer and F is for Family, and more recent and ruder series include Big Mouth and Human Resources. Fairfax is trying to fit into this genre, but with well known coming-of-age comedy stories and basic animation/graphics I didn’t feel like I was experiencing anything new or revolutionary. I also didn’t find myself connecting with any character which makes the series harder to watch. It felt like the series was trying too hard to be something different, and accomplished nothing. Whilst I can see and understand a second series I’ll be surprised if it gets a third.
In each episode there are so many cultural references it becomes annoying more than funny, as if they’re trying to cover everything to not leave anything out, and jokes and irony get lost. I struggle to think who and what this show is aimed at for entertainment, I can’t figure out who its target audience is. The swearing and some context suggest adults, but as a Millenial I didn’t find it funny and doubt anyone older than me would. Maybe they’re hoping we will laugh at the Gen Z antics, but really social media and the need for individuality just isn’t funny.
Whilst the series can be smart, weird, and funny, I don’t think it has the longevity of other animated series. It is something you can have on in the background as background noise, not something you would get seriously hooked into watching. With each episode being twenty to twenty-five minutes, you can easily binge-watch this series in one sitting. I’d recommend this series if you’re a fan of animations such as Big Mouth, Rick and Morty, F is for Family, Bob’s Burgers, Disenchantment, and Brickleberry, but maybe you’d rather go back and watch these instead.
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