‘Exploding Kittens’ Might Be the Answer to Your Family’s Prayers

Even before COVID made a virtue of isolation, experts had already been describing loneliness as an epidemic for years. Now that even the most social among us have had loneliness imposed upon us as a matter of public policy, it seems to be an issue that’s top of mind for TV creators to process through their work. Baby Reindeer revolves around two lonely people who find communion, by chance, over Diet Coke in a neighborhood pub; the disastrous fallout comes later. The titular Mr. & Mrs. Smith find each other in part because they’ve built the kind of lives they can disappear from without causing alarm to friends or loved ones who’d miss them. Ripley’s eponymous protagonist is alone by necessity: the kinds of short cons he’s running for his livelihood depend on his remaining anonymous. 

Though loneliness isn’t generally a hilarious topic, it animates our current comedies, too: The Regime is about a dictator whose self-imposed quarantine deepens her strange ideas about disease transmission; Sunny suggests that morbidly lonely people could re-develop their social skills through contact with friendly robots. But of this year’s new comedies, Exploding Kittens is probably the most comedic on the subject of loneliness. Apparently, the key is incorporating omnipotent deities posing as household pets.

Exploding Kittens, which dropped all nine episodes of its premiere season on Netflix today, starts by introducing us to God (voice of Tom Ellis) as He’s being reprimanded by Heaven’s board of directors. The night before, God got drunk alone in His condo, fell asleep with a frozen pizza in the oven, and caused a fire that destroyed half the area — but, fortunately, didn’t compromise Heaven’s Margaritaville franchise. God’s inattention is also causing problems on Earth, ranging from natural disasters to a new Christmas album from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The board wants God to reconnect with His mission by going to live with a human family that needs His help — not in His “God bod,” but transformed into a cat, though one that still has His signature long white beard. 

When Godcat finds his way to meet the Higgins family, he quickly understands why he’s been tasked to help them. The mother Abbie (Suzy Nakamura), a retired Navy SEAL, is bored by domestic life; her husband Marv (Mark Proksch) can tell no one respects him or the tabletop strategy game he’s trying to develop; daughter Greta (Ally Maki) feels slighted that Abbie has no interest in her science fair project and thinks her time would be better spent working on her knife skills; and son Travis (Kenny Yates) has given up on earning his family’s approval, focusing instead on becoming internet-famous for something other than the embarrassing viral video he starred in as a preschool-aged child. 

Can Godcat possibly figure out how to get the Higginses to appreciate each other’s strengths and talents? Because to witness them, they’re all going to have to spend time together. Oh — and Godcat’s not just challenged by the Higgins family’s alienation from one another: He also has to avoid interference by Beelzebub/Devilcat (Sasheer Zamata), who’s also been sent to Earth by her board to prove she’s evil enough to run Hell, and not just riding the legacy of her late father, one of Hell’s most legendary Satans — he’s the guy who designed Trader Joe’s parking lots! The show was co-created by Shane Kosakowski (formerly a producer on You’re The Worst) and Matthew Inman (who co-created the Exploding Kittens card game the show is based on); executive producers include Mike Judge and Greg Daniels (who previously worked together on King of the Hill).

We’ve all lived through game-to-screen adaptations — some good, like Clue; some very bad, like Battleship; some still TBD, like the proposed Uno. What Exploding Kittens has over other attempts in the space is that there’s comedy in its DNA. Inman had created the webcomic The Oatmeal before he, Elan Lee (also an executive producer on the show) and Shane Small partnered on the Exploding Kittens card game. The result is that the series feels like its own project, not a turn-by-turn translation of the game; references on the show to games in the Exploding Kittens universe read to me — a player of the original game and none of its spin-offs or cousins — as fun Easter eggs for fans as opposed to key context for which I was an outsider.

Mostly, Exploding Kittens is about a family that’s getting by on routine, kind of like God was before he became Godcat. Abbie is faintly disappointed that parenting isn’t as thrilling as elite SEAL wetwork, but wine and QVC are reliable narcotics. Marv wishes he and his family had more in common, but he’s found community at the local game café. Travis hasn’t obliterated the viral moment he performed what he unfortunately called “the Horky Porky,” but at least he’s better off than his best friend Aidan, living completely unsupervised with two stepparents following a head-spinning sequence of relinquished custodial rights. And Greta may not have any friends among her peers, but she has comrades for life at Marv’s employer, Big Bulk, after organizing them to go on strike! The Higgins family’s not in crisis; it’s just not thriving. 

The family is doing just okay enough that the chaos these two warring, supernaturally powerful cats bring to their lives doesn’t feel too dangerous. In fact, since Devilcat is on Earth to learn to be more evil and Godcat is there to learn to be more empathetic, there are moments when they almost seem to be meeting in the middle. For instance, Godcat institutes a swear jar at the Higgins house (priming the pump by leaving out a Lego brick for Marv to step on with his bare foot); then Devilcat cancels out Godcat’s intention by coming through in the “Cuss Bus” and rewarding Marv for his bad language with a handful of jelly beans. The occasion of Travis’ half-birthday — he’s asked to celebrate then since his actual birthday is December 25th — teaches the cats the worst and best of humanity: Devilcat learns from nosy Higgins neighbor Karen how to ruin other people’s innocent fun out of pure spite; Godcat discovers that chain arcade Shane & Chugger’s is noisy and crass and also the home of Whac-a-Mole, the greatest game Godcat has ever played. 

When the cats spend time away from the Higgins family, they discover how much more they have in common than they probably would have assumed before they met. Case in point: Devilcat invites God to be her plus-one — in disguise, of course — to a cousin’s wedding in Hell, where He sees firsthand how she’s been disregarded by Hell’s elites. Though He’s an all-powerful entity, God does plenty of damage undermining Beelzebub’s frenemy socially (telling their table at the reception that she asked God to borrow money), such that actually destroying her permanently isn’t necessary. Similarly, when Devilcat is assigned a trip to SeaWorld to quell a rebellion — all the sea creatures imprisoned there are actually former evil humans serving out their eternal punishment at Earth’s worst chain of theme parks, and some of them have been fighting back against their human trainers — Devilcat is too tentative, and has to learn the art of intimidation from God. You may never see the climax of Free Willy the same way after watching how God uses a rogue orca as an object lesson to get the other marine animals in line.

Mike Judge’s last new show was In the Know, which premiered on Peacock in January. While Exploding Kittens does share with it the unfortunate tendency to make topical jokes that aren’t going to age well — the idea that one of the portals to Hell is an Imagine Dragons concert already feels antique — I’m pleased to report that this show departs from that one by taking full advantage of what animation can do: bringing Heaven and Hell to life; creating cherubs and demons and several quite memorable unicorns; letting Godcat and Devilcat face off in battle, perhaps most notably by augmenting their feline bodies with merchandise from Big Bulk’s meat and paper aisles. The Higgins family also gets to explore the animated space, from a trip to christen a blimp purchased by Marv’s Big Bulk boss to a trip through Devilcat’s Regret Portal into a day from Abbie’s SEAL past that she wishes she could do over again. 

Godcat sets the tone for the family’s adventure in the series premiere, when He shrinks them down to inch-height and challenges them to play the game Marv’s been creating. God also brings to life Marv’s obstructive game pieces: There are zombie cats, a screeching mer-cat, and in place of the dragon Marv hasn’t sculpted yet, God supplies a very real, very bloodthirsty mantis shrimp. Sure, the family’s only other option is to risk violent death, but still, the atomized members of the family each find something compelling about playing the game together. Travis puts the 10,000+ hours he’s spent on video games to use defeating real-life opponents. Greta uses her scientific observations to solve problems. Combat gives Abbie stimulation she’s been missing since her military days. And Marv is gratified to see his family taking his game seriously and participating more passionately in playing it than he ever could have hoped. 

The rest of the season builds on this early bonding moment to show how connections are formed between the characters, all thanks to a god-turned-cat who has His own lessons to learn. Watch the show — then throw a game night? It might be important that you do.