Episode Title: “Night Mission: Stealing Friends Back”
Writers: Dave Jeser & Matt Silverstein
Director: Ben Jones
Episode Title: “Zombie Island… In Space”
Writers: Dave Jeser & Matt Silverstein
Director: Ben Jones
The comic book series “Axe Cop” is famous in part for the hilariously strange stories that sprang from the mind of five year old (at the time), Malachai Nicolle as translated to the page by his older brother, Ethan Nicolle. At times, the “Axe Cop” comic is like a child’s imagination unbound and the creators don’t care if the story makes sense or not. There’s a definite joy in the insanity that comes out of that approach.
The first two episodes of the “Axe Cop” TV series aren’t as easy to love. It keeps the comic’s manic sense of pace as it jumps from random elements to whatever comes next. But the jokes don’t seem to land very often. “Axe Cop” is usually amusing without actually being funny. Writers Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein had that same problem on “Drawn Together,” an animated series that should have been hilarious… but it was often not funny at all.
There’s something insincere about Jeser and Silverstein’s writing that held back the show from coming together. “Axe Cop” lacks the sharp comedic chops that have made “The Venture Bros.” and “Archer” into the most hilarious animated comedies on television… and some of the best TV comedies period. “Axe Cop” is nowhere near that level of quality.
One of the best aspects of “Axe Cop” is that Nick Offerman is the perfect choice to play the title character. Axe Cop is a bit of a narcissist (and a jerk) who is generally well meaning. Almost all of Axe Cop’s problems can be solved with swift and blinding violence… or a well placed chop of his axe. But Offerman’s vocal delivery captures the right comedic tone for Axe Cop himself and the show probably wouldn’t work at all without him.
Beyond Axe Cop, the breakout character may be Ken Marino’s Flute Cop, who seems to be the only one on the series who realizes some of the inherent insanity of the world they live in. Flute Cop also gets the funniest moments in “Zombie Island… In Space” when he complains about Axe Cop banishing poop from Earth.
The first episode, “Night Mission: Stealing Friends Back” is a superhero team up of sorts in which Axe Cop blows off Flute Cop’s invite to dinner to stalk crime at night. While on patrol, Axe Cop encounters the depressed Bat Warthog Man (Vincent Kartheiser), whose friends have been kidnapped by the King of All Bad Guys. I loved the touch of Axe Cop getting annoyed whenever anyone showed emotion. Here he simply tells Bat Warthog Man to stop crying because he doesn’t like it.
However, Axe Cop is sympathetic enough to Bat Warthog Man to make an impromptu plan to save his friends, picking up the superheroes, Gray Diamond (Rob Huebel) and Army Chihuahua (Giancarlo Esposito) along the way. One of the better running gags featured Axe Cop’s refusal to let Gray Diamond share his origin story, but it was perfectly fine for Army Chihuahua to immediately share his.
The eventual resolution to that plot involves dinosaurs being summoned through space (thanks to a rented dinosaur horn) to eat the brain of the King of All Bad Guys. Again, it’s amusing without being hilarious or laugh-inducing. But the closing gag of Axe Cop treating Flute Cop’s invite to dinner as a takeout restaurant order was very funny.
The second episode, “Zombie Island… In Space” was better than the first and it featured a villain I didn’t expect to see on TV outside of “South Park”: Doctor Doodoo, the world’s smartest piece of poop, whose evil plan included marrying the Queen of England and killing everyone on Earth by making them poop their pants to create his poop army.
Somehow, it seems right that Axe Cop not only doesn’t poop, but he uses his one wish from the Queen to banish poop forever. That’s a child’s wish if there ever was one. A few other humorous touches in the episode included Flute Cop fending off the advances of Isabella and the Queen of England instantly referring to Dr. Doodoo as “husband” after she was forced to marry him. I suppose the zombies with jetpacks and the giant zombie robot were also kind of cool. But the callback to Axe Cop’s potential new hairstyles in the closing credits was the real laugh out loud moment for the episode.
“Axe Cop” has amazing potential as a TV series and given enough time, it may even become a great one. But I’m not convinced that Jeser and Silverstein have what it takes to make that happen. I think the best bet would be to give the Nicolle brothers free reign on “Axe Cop” and let them proceed without the filter. Nobody understands “Axe Cop” better than they do.
