Uhhh... That last season really took me for a ride.
Was anyone to blame for the whole mess?
Clay.
The themes expanded upon in the last season were running throughout the earlier ones. It just became blatant when they stopped hinting at it and just put it out there in the last. The reason it was like that is the network saw the last ep of the previous season, Clay taking Orel hunting, and went to them and said to make more like that. When they did just that and made the season more like that episode the network canceled the show saying it wasn't the same show it originally was. Even though it was they themselves that told them to go in that direction.
>>78520943
yep
so basically even the best network ever is still a network and networks are idiots and all executives need to be fired
>>78520809
>Over-indulging mother
>Abusive father
>learned to accept abuse as love
I would be inclined to say that, but Clay was as messed up as everyone else.
Despite being claymation, this was one of the most realistic shows ever, in that there's no bad guy, and even the good guy makes terrible mistakes. Everyone's just trying to get along.
>>78521034
But Clay was responsible for as much, if not more, himself.
At some point, you have to stand on your own two feet and make a conscious decision to break the cycle, which Clay ultimately decided not to do. At the end where lil' Clay promises to keep the tradition alive, then older Clay swaps Ol' Gunny for another random one, it's very telling. It's not totally his fault in how he got there, be it his childhood and his marriage and all, but it is within his power to control his own destiny and that of his family. He would rather find it at the bottom of a glassor for that matter, in the pages of a Biblethan his own soul.
That makes him the bad guy.
>>78521034
Orel also had shitty, abusive parents.
>>78521176
I agree to a point with that
but breaking the cycle is an impossibly hard thing to do
it takes a strong person to be able to break it and clay was not strong enough
Im not saying that makes everything okay or that hes the good guy
but it doesn't make him the bad guy either
its just makes him a weak man unable to break free
did you remember to watch beforel orel? it's great!
>>78521344
he was literally a rich white dude with a fucking walk in gun closet/hallway in his house, who was mayor of the town
everyone in town knew he shot his own kid and he had nothing to fear from them
he had an open gay lover, which the town knew about, and this was a supposedly fundamental christian town where everyone knew everyone
he had power
he had no excuse to not break the cycle
>>78520791
>blame
Why.
Every single time.
>>78521458
This. I mean, hell, even without all that, he had the power to be a better man. Actually give his kid some love and support, because lord knows he got it in spades from Orel, even after being shot (it was a very slow burn for him to start seeing Clay for what he really was.)
It would be a shitty thing to do, but even leaving the family might yield better results than staying to abuse them. Apparently Bloberta would have found real happiness with Officer Papermouth had the series continued.
>>78521458
>the mayorSpoilers, dude. Also, that reveal blew my mind when it came out.
>>78521487
Because OP's retarded, but in just shy of every cartoon puts the conflict as a good guy vs bad guy. Moral Orel and The Venture Bros are some of the few to break that down, in that hardly anyone is all bad or good
>pic related: exception: she's all good
>>78520791
Divorce is a hell of a drug, OP
So why did Clay switch ol'gunny when he handed it off to Orel? the whole thing kinda confused me. Was he trying to prevent Orel from making the same mistake he did, or was he just keeping the gun from Orel because it was special?
Plus I think Bloberta was the most despicable character in the show. Clay was a self contained damaged person before he met her, content with being sober and alone. Bloberta introduced him to the booze and trapped him in an empty relationship and cheated on him. I think she was the root for most of the troubles in the family.
>>78520791
Always Blame Clay
GOD.
Alcohol.
>>78521458
To be fair, when you come from abused parents and get power, it's quite common that the power an abused kid obtains as an adult, does the opposite.The power basically gives them the full-scale protection needed to continue/escalate the cycle of abuse and violence since they feel that now that they have power, they can use it to get even with the world and make their kids suffer like they suffered, because if they had to endure hell as a kid, then their own children will be forced to suffer too, especially since they ended up "better" for it.
That being said, you over-estimate Clay's actual power in the city. Censordoll was the real tyrant and one of the few scenes from Beforal Orel that didn't shit on the main series canon, basically showed that Censordoll never let Clay forget that she could destroy him any time she wanted.
>>78522113
I'll give Bloberta credit if only because she got used and manipulated by Coach Stopframe and the fact that she came from an evil worse abusive family.
Clay had a shit upbringing but he had a decent life before shit happened beyond his control. Bloberta lived in a poor hell with a cunt mom and two evil incarnate siblings that all routinely ganged up to never let Bloberta forget she was an unwanted child and treated like a pariah and shunned in everything the family did.
The only person in Bloberta's family that was remotely nice to her was her father, who the cunt mom basically had so completely and utterly destroyed in spirit, that he could do NOTHING to stand up for his daughter, to the point that even Bloberta knew and understood why her dad could never protect her.
Clay may have had a mom that spoiled him rotten and a dad who turned cold and abusive when the mom died, but at least they were not fully and completely pure 100% evil like Bloberta's mom and (to a lesser extent) her older sister and younger brother.
