Critic Reviews

This isn’t a bait-and-switch situation; the comedy isn’t just a means to get to the drama. The two gel seamlessly as the characters develop and grow together. “Tuca & Bertie” connects on a deeper level than many cartoons, without devaluing the importance of joy, laughter, and good old fashioned fun.

In a series already bursting with beautiful sentiments, the stunning world-building immeasurably enhances the experience, helping to make “Tuca and Bertie” stand out in the animation realm, the TV world, and beyond.

I ended up liking it so much, I felt compelled to spread the gospel. All you Broad City and BoJack fans out there? Fly, don’t walk.

Tuca & Bertie takes some time to find its rhythm, but once it does, it soars. Guest stars like Nicole Byer (who is a repertory company unto herself), Laverne Cox, Isabella Rossellini, Reggie Watts, and Awkwafina (as the Time’s Up-chanting breast) make an indelible impression, but Haddish and Wong’s performance are just as singular and key to the show’s success as Hanawalt’s surreal flourishes.

It's not Bojack Horseman. It's a lighter, looser, more fanciful series, one in touch with a far wider emotional palette, one in which joy and emotional release are actually possible. ... But in short order, Tuca & Bertie has become another Netflix animated gem for adults, one that can be placed in a conversation with Bojack, Big Mouth and F Is for Family.

A rare treat of a show. ... Hanawalt finally gets to play in a sandbox entirely of her own making, and the results are as weird as they are wonderful. ... They’re animated birds that are nonetheless recognizably human, and it’s a joy to watch them mess up and around as so few women ever get to do onscreen.

Their introvert-extrovert dynamic is the most familiar aspect of the show, and early on “Tuca & Bertie” seems to want to cheerlead more than challenge its leads. But the characterization deepens as the 10-episode season moves on. ... What really distinguishes the show, though, is Hanawalt’s surreal vision, the anarchic fluidity of the landscape, the series’s whimsically bending laws of both nature and physics.

Especially in its early episodes, Tuca & Bertie feels like the manic lovechild of BoJack and Broad City. ... An ambitious mainstreaming of feminist art. Haddish embodies an archetype we’ve seen her as several times now (as well as a character whose tragic history is not dissimilar to the actress’s early years), but Tuca & Bertie allows her to fill in those outlines in fascinating new ways. Wong’s comedic persona is of a wild child too (if a reformed one), which makes the dramatic shadings of her performance a revelation.

Tuca and Bertie is similarly messy, weird, and loving [as Broad City]—and has the advantage of living in a world without rules. It’s a little terrifying—but full of possibility, too.

In its second season Tuca & Bertie is unafraid to get deep, and we’re all better for it.