9.0/10. Not all families are happy ones. It’s an unfortunate truth. Orel’s certainly isn’t. His brother(s?) have behavioral problems that his parents ignore; his mother is clearly unhappy and unhelpful, and his father is a font of bad advice and neglect. And yet, through some mystery, the same type of mystery we are encouraged to embrace in our religious paths, Orel manages to have a happy family of his own despite his lack of a blueprint for one.
Moral Orel is a dark show, full of unrelenting looks at the way people have been failed and fail others and may thoughtlessly crush the spirits of someone as happy and bright as Orel. But the series finale doesn’t lean into that darkness; it embraces hope. It embraces possibility. It embraces the chance that Orel will one day marry Christina, be a better father to his kids, and enjoy the love that Clay never had or earned.
Clay is a horrible person, but also someone wounded, destined never to have the things he wants. That includes Coach Stopframe, who is aghast to see Clay making out with Miss Censordoll to prevent her from unseating him as mayor. Clay’s repressed homosexuality doesn’t exactly line up with the ways in which we’ve seen him act like a cad, but it’s an interesting look at the ways in which the repressiveness of Moralton have forced him to deny who he is, and lose someone he genuinely seems to love in exchange for a life he hates, one that brings him to cause pain and misery to a family he didn’t really want.
That’s why it’s hard for Orel to honor his father, as the bible commands. He can’t find what’s good about him. He turns to Coach Stopframe, who acts more like a father and is there for him on Christmas in a way his own parents have never been. Coach Stopframe tells him that the good thing Clay has done, the thing that makes him worthy of honor, is helping to make Orel, of producing someone with such kindness, such optimism, and such a good heart. Orel hears from someone who loves his Dad that he’s worth something, in the spirit of the season, a son who redeems. He sees that life can be something other than what’s within the walls of the Puppington household, and he gets to enjoy a Christmas where, for once, he feels at peace.
There’s little bits of peace parceled out throughout the finale. Rev. Putty and Stephanie are spending X-mas together, and Rev. Putty seems happier, or at least more content with his life. Orel enjoys the family activities with Coach Stopframe that his father never really engaged in. Even Blobberta is visibly excited at getting to sing with her family, something she was denied by her own mother. Clay doesn’t get peace though. He just gets the realization that it’s too late for him, too late to have the things he hoped for in this world and a measure of happiness. For someone who is this show’s greatest villain, there is a measure of pity and empathy offered him in that, the idea that he was not always such a wayward soul.
But the happiest thing about the finale is that Orel is able to break the cycle. He does not repeat the mistakes of his father or his mother. He has a Christmas filled with joy and love, something so sacred and missing from his childhood. Morel Orel is a decidedly strange series, one that started out with a series of formulaic, not especially subtle larks, that evolved into much darker, rawer, and profoundly weird material, but one that also had a strong emotion throughline from the beginning to the end of the series. It’s a story about Orel slowly but surely realizing that there’s a different path than the one that’s been instilled in him in Moralton, that he need not be what he’s been told to be in his father’s study so many times, that his father is not the source of wisdom and compassion he imagined, and that he too can find happiness outside the myopic strictures set by the Puppingtons and the community that spawned him. The fact that he gets out, the fact that he moves forward, is the greatest gift the series could give to him, and to us.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-10-09T16:47:43Z
9.0/10. Not all families are happy ones. It’s an unfortunate truth. Orel’s certainly isn’t. His brother(s?) have behavioral problems that his parents ignore; his mother is clearly unhappy and unhelpful, and his father is a font of bad advice and neglect. And yet, through some mystery, the same type of mystery we are encouraged to embrace in our religious paths, Orel manages to have a happy family of his own despite his lack of a blueprint for one.
Moral Orel is a dark show, full of unrelenting looks at the way people have been failed and fail others and may thoughtlessly crush the spirits of someone as happy and bright as Orel. But the series finale doesn’t lean into that darkness; it embraces hope. It embraces possibility. It embraces the chance that Orel will one day marry Christina, be a better father to his kids, and enjoy the love that Clay never had or earned.
Clay is a horrible person, but also someone wounded, destined never to have the things he wants. That includes Coach Stopframe, who is aghast to see Clay making out with Miss Censordoll to prevent her from unseating him as mayor. Clay’s repressed homosexuality doesn’t exactly line up with the ways in which we’ve seen him act like a cad, but it’s an interesting look at the ways in which the repressiveness of Moralton have forced him to deny who he is, and lose someone he genuinely seems to love in exchange for a life he hates, one that brings him to cause pain and misery to a family he didn’t really want.
That’s why it’s hard for Orel to honor his father, as the bible commands. He can’t find what’s good about him. He turns to Coach Stopframe, who acts more like a father and is there for him on Christmas in a way his own parents have never been. Coach Stopframe tells him that the good thing Clay has done, the thing that makes him worthy of honor, is helping to make Orel, of producing someone with such kindness, such optimism, and such a good heart. Orel hears from someone who loves his Dad that he’s worth something, in the spirit of the season, a son who redeems. He sees that life can be something other than what’s within the walls of the Puppington household, and he gets to enjoy a Christmas where, for once, he feels at peace.
There’s little bits of peace parceled out throughout the finale. Rev. Putty and Stephanie are spending X-mas together, and Rev. Putty seems happier, or at least more content with his life. Orel enjoys the family activities with Coach Stopframe that his father never really engaged in. Even Blobberta is visibly excited at getting to sing with her family, something she was denied by her own mother. Clay doesn’t get peace though. He just gets the realization that it’s too late for him, too late to have the things he hoped for in this world and a measure of happiness. For someone who is this show’s greatest villain, there is a measure of pity and empathy offered him in that, the idea that he was not always such a wayward soul.
But the happiest thing about the finale is that Orel is able to break the cycle. He does not repeat the mistakes of his father or his mother. He has a Christmas filled with joy and love, something so sacred and missing from his childhood. Morel Orel is a decidedly strange series, one that started out with a series of formulaic, not especially subtle larks, that evolved into much darker, rawer, and profoundly weird material, but one that also had a strong emotion throughline from the beginning to the end of the series. It’s a story about Orel slowly but surely realizing that there’s a different path than the one that’s been instilled in him in Moralton, that he need not be what he’s been told to be in his father’s study so many times, that his father is not the source of wisdom and compassion he imagined, and that he too can find happiness outside the myopic strictures set by the Puppingtons and the community that spawned him. The fact that he gets out, the fact that he moves forward, is the greatest gift the series could give to him, and to us.