Smiling Friends is an Adult Swim show created by Zach Hadel, a famous YouTube animator, and Michael Cusack, who has previously created the animated comedy YOLO. The show revolves around employees Pim (Micheal Cusack) and Charlie (Zach Hadel) going on crazy adventures, all to make people smile. The newest Smiling Friends season has come to an end, and it has been able to build off of the previous season by providing a greater emphasis on the plot while still keeping the charm of the show.

The animation of this season is a step up from the previous season, and the show manages to build off of the previous season’s art style direction to give us something that feels like it is still in the style of the show but is still unique. “we don’t really watch cartoons [ourselves], and that outsider perspective lets us break norms and keep it fresh.”-Michel Cusack on how they try to keep the art style unique.

Season 3 of the show also offers a lot more of a look into the lives of the supporting characters and the history behind the Smiling Friends organization. In this season it shows the creation of the organization and how two characters came to meet each other. This helped build the relationships of the show to make it feel like the main cast is more like a group of friends than just a workplace.

The show sticks with its usual dark comedy and does manage to build on the mold of what the show already established. This show is quite funny, and all of the jokes land really well and consist of meta commentary and realistic awkward dialogue. Also, the show this season has a lot more jokes surrounding the show’s community and fans compared to previous seasons, which helps keep the comedy a little bit fresh.

Another great thing about the show is the voice acting since each character featured in the show sounds so unique, and it feels like the voice actors got the most out of their voices. Examples like this can be seen in the main cast characters like Pim, who shares the same voice actor with Allan. It makes great use of the show’s very low budget.

For anyone that liked previous seasons of the show or liked previous pieces of media made by the creators, then they will love this season. However, for any newcomers, as long as they like dark comedies or other Adult Swim animated shows, they will most likely enjoy this as well. It is definitely worth a watch, and due to how short the episodes of the show are, it is easy to binge all the way to season 3.