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Season seven of “Big Mouth” unexpectedly released on Friday, Oct. 20 on Netflix. It was a traditional 10-episode season featuring many guest appearances, including Megan Thee Stallion, Lupita Nyong’o, Billy Porter, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and more. Along with a huge guest cast, the show managed to bring back the entire existing cast for this season. The main plot of this season was that the students of Bridgeton Middle School spend nine episodes preparing for high school and officially start on the tenth episode.
If you still haven’t seen the show, let me give you a recap. “Big Mouth” is an adult animation TV show that features middle school students dealing with the pressures of growing up, including puberty, dating, parents going through divorce, death, moving, and anything else that would mess with the life of a thirteen-year-old. The entire point of the show is for viewers to realize that they aren’t alone when these things are happening to them during their self discoveries, no matter how niche the problem. The show’s humor is appealing to everyone that has experienced growing up; there isn’t a situation in seven seasons that this show has not touched on.
Though all seven seasons of the show have been about middle school, they managed not to make it feel like it’s dragging on before the characters graduate. The show’s humor and self-realization have helped create this meta humor that has given us lines like Jessi telling the camera how bad middle school is and Caleb saying “Please do not break the fourth wall, we just had it repaired.”
The season began with the students touring their new high school and getting a feel for what the next four years of their life would be like. They quickly realize that it only gets more intense the older you become. We are later introduced to new characters like Timone and Pumbaa (the power couple of high school), Danni (Nick’s older crush) and Lulu (Jessi’s bully).
Episode 5 is the well-awaited graduation episode: the end of middle school and the opening to new beginnings. The episode plays into its nostalgia by including mini interview clips. Nick has to decide if he is going to be going to Bridgeton High School with the rest of his friends or to Cobblestone Academy, the private school where he meets his crush Danni. Missy and Elijah begin having relationship problems because Elijah finds out he is going to Catholic school. Unsure if they will be able to make it work, they decide they’ll write letters and see each other after school when they can. Andrew is voted ‘Grossest Human,’ and he runs around apologizing to anyone and everyone he has wronged.
Of course, they had to feature multiple musical numbers in this season, including one sung by Meghan Thee Stallion. It talked about bad hookups and explained that it’s okay to say no at any point during intimate activities. “Big Mouth” has always written songs about puberty in amusing ways to normalize it, such as the catchy ‘Law of Attraction,’ a song that I’m still singing the words to.
This hasn’t been one of my favorite seasons of “Big Mouth,” but it was still hilarious. The jokes are getting better and the plot is taking a new route by having them go to high school. A lot of the characters were going through the same struggle of getting ready and trying to reinvent themselves before the first day of high school. I understand this is the entire point of the season, but I wish we were able to see more plotlines. Currently, there are rumors that season eight will be the final season of “Big Mouth” so I am eager to see what their freshman year will be like: discovering high school bullies, sex, drugs and the dread of college.
Lauren Flynn-Miller is a third year Interdisciplinary Studies Major with minors in Journalism, Media & Culture, and Professional & Technical Writing.