Brilliant New Animated Comedy Gives Viewers Clinical Depression

LOS ANGELES—Hailed by critics from The New Yorker, Vulture, and Uproxx as a groundbreaking show pushing the boundaries of what was possible in the medium of television, brilliant new animated comedy The Petunia Chronicles reportedly gives its viewers clinical depression. “Although we’re only five episodes into this innovatively joyless and melancholy-inducing show, The Petunia Chronicles is already demonstrating that it goes beyond the current crop of celebrated gloomy adult animated comedies by actually giving its viewers major depressive disorders,” wrote television critic Freddie Winslow, adding that the lavishly animated show about a cast of anthropomorphic flowers voiced by Aubrey Plaza, Sam Richardson, and Rob Huebel, who make terrible life decisions, had forced him to see a psychiatrist and start taking Paxil by the end of episode two. “You will absolutely want to kill yourself multiple times every episode, but that’s only part of its charm. It not only addresses the difficult topic of depression through its inventive visuals and relentless dreariness, but it actually burrows itself in viewers’ brains to prevent serotonin uptake and throw your chemicals out of whack. It’s not afraid to experiment, either; without spoiling anything, I can say that the screeners I watched of the season’s second half will give you actual, debilitating physical pain. For fans of suffering, it’s a must-watch.” Reviewers also praised the show for its novel surface-level understanding of philosophical concepts like nihilism and absurdism that gave viewers a false sense of intelligent superiority in addition to crippling depression.