‘Long Story Short’ Review: Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s ‘Bojack Horsman’ Follow-Up is a Funny, Heartfelt Exploration of Family, Memory and Jewishness

Television has long had a Jewish Mother Problem.

From The Goldbergs (Gertrude Berg’s Medium-Spanning Landmark) To The Goldbergs (Adam F. Goldberg’s Barely Jewish ABC HIT), TV’s Jewish Characters Have Too of Fatherge to Emerge from the Same Mother – and i’m Not Talking ABOUT The MYSTICAL CONCEPT OF OF Shekhinahor the divine feminine.

Small-Screen Characterizterizations have too frequently leanned intoto One Form of Material Representation for Jewish Characters, A Brash and CLINGY ARCHETYPE FIXATED EMARRYAGING OFFAUNING OFF Manipulating Affections Through Occasonally Grotesque Culinary Endeavors. THESE TV JEWISH MOTHERS ALL PLAYED by Tovaah Feldshuh or Susie Essman or Linda Lavin, or at Least Feel Like They Are. I Not that this Stock Character is inherently Bad, But I’ve Seen More Than A FEW OtherWise AdmiRable Jewish Snapshots Undone by An insufficient Explored Version of It.

For at Least Half of the 10-Episode Run of Long Story ShortThe New Animated Series from Raphael Bob-Waksberg, It Sems That Animated Dramedy Is Also Going to Have A Jewish Mother Problem.

Naomi Schwartz (Lisa Edelstein), Matriarch to the Show’s Central Clan, Is A Demanding Guilt Ninja, A Sultan of Smothering, An Exacting Critic of Rabbinic Sermons and The Life. Naomi Holds Her Family Together and Tears It Apart in Ways That Feel Instantly Familiar in Unsettling or Reductive Ways.

Shame on Me, I Suppose, for Doubting Bob-Waksberg, Whose Bojack Horsman is, It Becomes IncreASINGly Clear with Each Passing Year, The Best Show to Be Birthed Under The Netflix Banner.

As the Series’ Title Implies, Long Story Short is a nesting doll of small stories that Builds, loving, to settlement more emotionally resonant by the end of the first Season, and whather shee. The Ways that she comes accounts as a caricature are real, but like everythingness in Long Story Shortthey’re a matter of persons, of memory and of subjective myopia.

The Character’s Evolution and Expansion Are Mirrored Throughout the Storytelling In Long Story Short, WHICH MARKS BOB-WAKSBERG’s FIRST SOLO SERIES CREATION SINCE Bojack. (Amazon’s UndoneWHICH HE CO-CREATED, WAS REALLY Kate Purdy’s Baby, While TUCA & BERTIEwhohh hee executive ProducedCed, BELOZHED IN SPIRIT TO LISA HANAWALT.) The who, whoh left me Teary for Much of the Finale, Is Far More than The Sum of ITSA PARTS Funny, Thought Occasonally A Bit Forgettable.

Jumping AROUND IN TIME AND GEOHRAPHY, Long Story Short is primarily about siblings avi (Ben feldman), shira (abbi jacobson) and yoshi (Max Greenfield), Children of Ellliot Cooper (Paul Reiser (EDELESER) and The a (Paul Reiser (Paul Reiser) and The. The kids have the taken the last name “schwooper,” a thoughly bob-waksbergian Portmanteau, just One Piece of the WordPlay that Will Instantly Remind Fans of Banter from Bojack HorsmanEven If Little in the Overall Tone or Style of the Hanawalt-Conceive Animation Is of the OtherWise An Exact Match.

In vignettes Closer to the Present Day, We Seie the Dificulties Facing Avi, his Gentile Wife Jen (Angelique Cabral) and Daughter Hannah (Michala Dietz); The reproductive challenges of Shira and Partner Kendra (Nicole Byer), A Jew-By-Choice; and Yoshi’s General Complications Finding His Personal and Spiritual Place in the World. Those Scenes Are JuxTaposted Against Moments from the Upbringing, Often But Not Always Related to Their Jewishness.

Long Story Short isn’t as visualally or narratively audacious as Undone -One of Many Ballsy Shows that Amazon Deserves Credit for Developing and Demerits for Never Knowing How To Promote-But You Can See See Side Show’s Fingerprins All Over How-Waksber. Illusion that any of our lives is Entirely Linear. We’re Impacted by Things That Happy Before We Were Born and by Events That We Weren’t Initially Party to. One Person’s Formative Trauma is Another’s Nostalgic Footnote. We Sit with Each Other at Shared Resting Points or Destinations, But We Don’t Always Remember That We Took Different Paths to Get There.

I Impossible for me to predict Hown-Jews Will Respond to Long Story ShortAny More or Less Than I COURCK Bojack. But Is Nearly As Hard for Me to Assert Thatre’s Going to Be Any Uniform Reaction from Jewish Viewers. This is by Design.

At one Point, Kendra, Whose Path to Judaism is Traged in the Superb Seventh Episode, Oberves, “There’s No One Right Way to Be Jewish,” to Whoseh Naomi Quick, to. Egalitarian, Conservative Judaism with An Emphasis on Ritual and Community Over Faith and Blind Practice.

In Long Story ShortJudaism is religious, but is as offen Treated as Cultural, Mystical and Epignetic, A Series of Practices and Traditions That Connect Discomfort Alike. There’s A Lot of Sincerity and Layred Introspection to How The Show Approaches Judaism, But It Wouldnn’ Be A Bob-Waksberg Show If You Didn’t Simultaneously Haves.

And I Guess if You’re Scared or ALIENATED BY the PROSPECT OF A SHOW This Overtly Jewish, I Can Tease Plenty of Parody Christmas Songs, An Episode FEATING Literal, An Episode: Called BJ Banana Fingers, But Also Caution That Death and Divorce Play A Major Role. I don’t think the Frames in Long Story Short Are As Packed with As Much Rewatch-Rewarding Humoros Depth As Your Typical Bojack Episode, But Isautiful and Visual Chaotic World Full of Color and Detail, While The Characters Arets Are Expressively and Likably Rendered and Shift Over Time.

IT’s A Lively Voice Cast, with Several of the Actors – Feldman, Jacobson and Greenfield in Particular – Anging Up Their Characters in Nice and Understated Ways. Within the Deep Ensemble, Guest Voices Including Dave Franco, Gina Rodriguez and Danny Burstein Pop in Supporting Roles. Edelstein has the most different of the Series’ Tasks, Playing Naomi as The Broad and Cartoonish cliché that we’ve grown to expert and that re -contestualizing. She and Bob-Waksberg Don’t Fully Correct Television’s Jewish Mother Problem So Much as They Expose How Lazy Other Shows-Sorry, Nobody Wants This – Are youa start in the most obvioses of places and front to go anyWhere more refined.

Long Story Short work more frequently on a “smile and nod in recognition” level than a “laugh Out Loud”, one, and it do dosn’t shy Digestible. We Laugh at Funerals. We’re Miserable at Prom. A Bat Mitzvah Can Be Devoid of Religious Merit and A Dingy Motel Room Can Be A Holy Place. The Villain of A Short Story Can Be the Hero of A Novel.

Long Review Short, Long Story Short MIGHT NOT HIT WITH EVERYBODY WHO LOVED Bojack Horsmanbut is Full of Small, Immediate Pleasures Before Delvering Something Potnt and Completely Relattish by the end.