Animation

By Stacey Harrison Here’s where the Goodes — Gerald and Helen anyway — separate themselves from the know-nothing do-gooders the show is making fun of. Sort of. When they see that their kids are fulfilling school-mandated public service requirements by dubious means, they step in to try to show them how to do something that matters. Bliss is content to join “Costa Rica-palooza,” which purports to be a humanitarian trip to the Central American country, but is instead an international boozefest. Ubuntu, meanwhile, is led to believe that his status as a football player automatically makes him a hero, and […]

By Stacey Harrison There’s a thin line between being a responsible recycler of resources, and just being a bum. Thanks to a new houseguest, the Goode family gets to see that line crossed like never before. In order to spice up their annual eco-friendly block party — and to show up that busybody Margo — the Goodes take in famed “freegan” Heinrich. Freegans are people who live entirely off the disposed products of others. They eat or wear nothing that someone else hasn’t thrown out.

By Stacey Harrison Through a handful of episodes, The Goode Family has already shown us some insufferable characters — the pretentious young filmmaker who champions anarchy while stocking shelves at a grocery store; the animal-rights activists whose methods include bullying and intimidation; the nosy gadfly who schemes her way into the good graces of the local liberal elite — but it may have found a new low with Jen and Sookie, the ultra-chic Manhattan lesbian couple who take up residence in Greenville. You learn everything you need to know about them by the jar of water on their mantle. It’s […]