If you’ve been missing Tom Ellis’ charming but oh-so-outrageous Lucifer, don’t worry: He’s back in a celestial role, playing God in Exploding Kittens. The Netflix series brings the much beloved and delightfully twisted card game to animated life, following God as he is sent back to Earth to reconnect with his creations. The only thing is, he’s transformed into an anthropomorphic cat, which matches God’s equal amounts of sass and derision for the human race perfectly.
So Godcat arrives rather unceremoniously on Earth and finds himself taking on the Higgins family, a bunch of hapless misfits with quirky but relatable #firstworldproblems. Abbie (Suzy Nakamura) is an ex-Navy SEAL turned mom working in animal control who’s fed up with the monotony of daily life and needs a thrill. Marv (Mark Proksch) is the hapless sitcom dad who works in a value superstore and is obsessed with tabletop games (making for a nice nod to the game’s history). Their kids Travis (Kenny Yates) and Greta (Ally Maki) are struggling through the awkward teenage years of trying to stand out. Godcat must try and bring this family together…in his own way.
Of course, there must be balance in the game of life, which means Beelzebub herself is also forced to come to Earth as a Devilcat (Sasheer Zamata) to see what all the fuss is about. Something worse than Armageddon is brewing but it seems Earth has way bigger problems. It turns out being human is a lot more complicated than Godcat and Devilcat first thought, allowing for plenty of hilarious miscommunications and observations.
The voice acting matches the outlandish nature of the show, with each cast member putting a huge dose of personality into their characters. Tom Ellis in particular is always entertaining and he’s clearly having a ball doing the voice of Godcat, while Sasheer Zamata is the perfect foil as Devilcat, bringing a playfulness to her character’s delight at being evil.
As Godcat and Devilcat learn more about the humanity they created, they learn more about themselves, slowly realizing they might have more in common than they first thought. And the humans in their lives have their own growing to do, leading the motley crew on a series of adventures, wrapping up some surprisingly touching life lessons within each wacky episode.
Exploding Kittens is a wild ride full of colorful animation and even more colorful characters, bringing all the wicked whimsy of the OG card game to the screen with extra panache. It even features tabletop games within the show, adding another meta layer that is really enjoyable. The series puts the pop in pop culture with an impressive amount of one-liners and cracks at everything wrong (or totally right) with the world. Much like the game, nothing and no one is safe from this team of writers and you’ll have a blast playing along.
Stream Exploding Kittens on Netflix.
