In Bird Town anthropomorphised plants and birds cohabitate sprawling apartment complexes. The subway trains are giant snakes. The lakes are made from jelly. And amidst all the absurdity, Tuca and Bertie remains one of the most poignant representations of womanhood in contemporary television. And not enough people have seen it.

The show began its life as a webcomic by Lisa Hanawalt. Following her work as a producer and production designer for the Netflix show Bojack Horseman, Netflix picked up Tuca and Bertie and the first season aired in May of 2019. It follows Tuca Toucan (Tiffany Haddish) and Roberta “Bertie” Songthrush (Ali Wong) and explores the complexities and tribulations of their life as they deal with the absurdity of adulthood and their interpersonal relationships.

The show was prematurely cancelled in July 2019 after just one season. Thankfully, Adult Swim picked it up in 2020, reviving it in 2021 for two more seasons. Unfortunately, the short and turbulent lifespan of the show has meant it did not garner as much attention as Bojack Horseman, despite receiving similar critical acclaim. However, I believe it deserves just as much consideration from audiences as the former.

Tuca and Bertie could be read as a spiritual successor to Bojack. They both balance darker themes relating to mental health and abuse with bright and surreal cartoon aesthetics. But Tuca and Bertie takes this dichotomy a step further. It has a lighter and more whimsical tone. The show embraces surrealism with open arms, never attempting to offer the viewer a logical reasoning for the events of Bird Town. Things just happen because they happen. The animation style is diverse, changing and adapting as much as the logic of the world of Bird Town does. The style of art is fluid and varying, and the landscape of Bird Town changes in relationship to what is happening in the protagonists’ heads.

In the season two episode ‘The Flood’, a flood envelops Bird Town as Tuca is increasingly overwhelmed by feelings of depression. Throughout the season Tuca has been avoiding her feelings by literally putting them in jars behind her toilet. But as the flood overwhelms the city the jars are brought to the surface. The jars are titled things such as ‘Sad Feelings 2017’ and ‘Weird Emotions About Mom’. The emotions of the characters and their relationship are so strong and integral to the show they literally manipulate and change the environment. And as Bertie helps Tuca experience her feelings, the flood clears, and the dawn arrives.

Despite the dark subject matter, the tone of the show is still light and comical. The visual humour is one of its biggest strengths. This arguably is due to the crux of the show being that of love and the intensity of love for the people around us. Leaving the show with a decidedly more optimistic feel than Bojack. And that although ‘Weird Emotions About Mom’ might not be capable of being ever neatly dealt with, the heart of the show is that of friendship which helps maintain the light air of the show.

However dark things get, Tuca and Bertie remind us that there is a fantastic beauty in our relationships to other people despite how confusing and surreal the world can be.

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