Sausage Party: Foodtopia Season 2 TV Review: Seth Rogen’s latest satirical food fight could give you indigestion
Plot: Exiled from home, Frank, Barry, and Sammy soon find themselves in New Foodland, a shining utopia for food and humans alike. But beneath the city’s glossy fridges and cheery smiles lies a dark secret threatening the sentient food society.
Review: Sausage Party: Foodtopia is a deceptive serving of entertainment. On one hand, it’s raunchy, low-brow, and immature. On the other hand, it’s a subversive, clever, and winking satire that goes down like a steaming forkful of humble pie. It stands at a crossroads between “I’m so glad this exists” and “What the f**k am I watching?” You’re either prepared to buy the ticket and take the ride, or there’s no sense in attending the barbecue. The second season of Sausage Party: Foodtopia is a trail mix of quality, and like any other bag of this unruly snack, there are ingredients I’d like to pick out and throw in the trash.
I’m shocked by my reaction to Sausage Party: Foodtopia Season 2. For context, I enjoyed the first season a good deal. Foodtopia serves the concept of food as a substitute for humankind, along with our faults, depravity, and penchant for eating ourselves alive. We see one another in the sentient food, and identify with its struggle for survival and autonomy in a society that hardly functions. Conceptually, it’s smart. However, you’ve got to keep the laughs and allegories coming if you want the meal to be satisfying.
In Foodtopia Season 2, the utopia established in Season 1 is steadily spoiling. No one approves of Frank’s leadership, money holds no value, food rots with every fridgeless hour, and the plan to give everyone their fair share is falling apart. Meanwhile, Jack, a cannibal under the influence of bath salts with a big heart and a tiny brain, is hopelessly trying to fit into food society. After getting exiled from Foodtopia, the group discovers New Foodland, a bustling metropolis of equality, progress, and smiles. However, the group soon uncovers a disturbing secret about New Foodland that tips the scales toward a war between Frank’s old home and his new one.
It’s an excellent setup for a sequel, but I found it difficult to strap on a bib and dive in. The first episode sets the table for adventure. Still, the next few episodes are ill-paced, rarely laugh-out-loud funny, and uneventful considering the characters introduced and promise of s**t getting weird at any moment. To recap, this is a show about sentient food that, to puppet the few humans left on earth, inserts themselves into the human’s anal cavity to pilot them like fleshy Evangelion. Jack snorts lines of bath salts after frying up a pair of ears for a mid-day snack. Food is fornicating left and right, and our lead characters are a hot dog, a cocktail weenie, and a plain bagel. Foodtopia is as unserious as it gets, and it knows it. I should be choking on the absurdity of it all, but it’s giving me indigestion instead.
Seth Rogen, Michael Cera, Edward Norton, and Will Forte, as Frank, Barry, Sammy, and Jack, respectively, add flavor to the meal. Everyone gives the second helping of Foodtopia as much energy as previous franchise entries, with Cera giving his performance as Barry a little extra zip in the new season. Other standouts include newcomers to the series, Marion Cotillard as Dijon, a lethal jar of mustard, and Barry’s love interest, Jillian Bell as Trish, the walnut figurehead of New Foodland with a silver tongue and a hollow heart, and Patti Harrison as Jill, a human living in service of her food overlords in New Foodland. All three bring spice to their respective roles, with Cotillard’s Dijon getting some of the best camerawork to track her flashy combat moves.
Visually, Foodtopia looks great. I’ve been a fan of the Sausage Party aesthetic from the start, and I’m pleased to say its quality remains preserved. The character designs are fun and imaginative, and the animators never pass up an opportunity to pepper the series with food-related puns.
The satire is also delicious. Foodtopia is at its best when its story reflects human society and how we’ve managed to screw up so much in our short time on this planet. Where Season 1 explored everyday society, Season 2 depicts the crumbling of a democracy and shows what happens when leaders are willing to sacrifice the few if it means prosperity for the majority. These story elements are the parts I genuinely enjoy about Sausage Party. The show manages to couch real-world commentary in an ongoing food fight reflective of our inability to establish the one thing we need: tolerance.
Stepping off my soapbox, it would be cool if the show were more eventful throughout. As I’d said, episodes two through four are a slog. However, once a grim truth about New Foodland gets revealed, the show picks up the pace, adds elements of urgency, and the friendship drama gets real. Comedy is subjective, of course, so your mileage may vary on the parts where I got bored, but I assure you, there’s fun on the horizon.
Those of you who come to Sausage Party to goon at the sometimes sexy food products will find no judgement here. If apt food-related puns whet your appetite, you’ll gorge on many references to blockbuster movies, filmmakers, and actors (including a bottle of Top Gun Gin who’s a stand-in for Tom Cruise). There’s no shortage of industry-related Easter eggs (or Cadbury, for that matter) in Foodtopia Season 2, so fans of visual comedy won’t go hungry. I challenge you to not cringe at Sammy’s aspiring filmmaker plotline or fall asleep during his storytime segments. I also wonder if anyone likes Frank. He’s mostly a pig-headed jerk, a terrible friend, and displays zero accountability. Jack is a dim-witted teddy bear with a bowl cut, so he gets a pass from me, and Barry brings enough meat to the table for me to want to pull up a chair.
While I’m confident we’ll get a third season of Sausage Party: Foodtopia, I wonder when the concept will surpass its expiration date. The second season of Foodtopia barely squeaks by like a proper pile of Canadian cheese curds for a sizeable portion of the adventure before striking the right balance between absurdist comedy and cautionary tale. Foodtopia Season 2 is worth a taste if you’re an established franchise fan. However, if the idea of foul-mouthed food holding a mirror to some of the worst parts of humanity gives you a stomachache, don’t bother asking for a doggy bag.
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