Netflix’s Big Mouth manages to be as insightful and clever as it is bawdy and crass, which makes the prospect of the series dropping a surprise Valentine’s Day-themed special that much more exciting.
Rampant consumerism and commodification of love aside, Valentine’s Day is an especially weird moment of cultural performance, where kids take time out of their school days to participate in ritualized exchanges of candy and cards under the auspices of liking one another. If you’re an adult, you might think all that stuff’s cute, but do you remember the anxiety that came along with it? It gets even stranger the older you get, as you venture out into the world and take some of those ideas about love (that for some reason increasingly become intertwined with ideas about sex) and realize that there are people who really think that every kiss “begins with Kay” or that going out to dinner before going home with someone is somehow a good idea.
Those kinds of misguided assumptions are the sort of thing that one can avoid by having frank discussions about intimacy and comprehensive sex education, which Big Mouth understands. But it’s Big Mouth, so all of those positive messages are coming from anthropomorphized hormone monsters.
Big Mouth: My Furry Valentine hits Netflix on February 8.