What’s the name of the show? Quick Draw.  When does it premiere? All episodes of season two start streaming in the US on Wednesday, 7 August, on Hulu. Season one is already available on the streaming service.  What is this show? What happens when a Harvard-educated forensics expert becomes the sheriff of a town in the wild west? No, he doesn’t solve crimes. He serves as the buffoonish center of this improvised western parody.  What’s the show’s pedigree? The first season of Quick Draw, Hulu’s third original scripted program, didn’t make much of an impact when it landed last August. However in the year since it debuted the foundation has been laid for original programming on the internet to take off. The show was created by John Lehr (who also stars) and Nancy Hower, who both serve as writers for the show.  What happens in the premiere? We are reintroduced to John Henry Hoyle (Lehr) the smartypants sheriff of Great Bend, Kansas. When his arch-nemesis Cole Younger (Brian O’Connor) kills a man in front of the town and kidnaps Hoyle’s pretty but stupid deputy Eli (Nick Brown), Hoyle has to figure out how to get him back. He succeeds, but barely. There is dynamite and a bear attack involved. You should see it for yourself.  How faithful is the show to its 1875 time period? Not very, as a wonderful Hitler mustache joke in the first episode will attest.  So isn’t this exactly like the movie A Million Ways to Die in the West? Kind of, except people will actually see this. Zing!  Which characters will you love? Hoyle is in love with Honey (Allison Dunbar), the town madam, who is the practical and fiery foil that he needs. His best friend is Vernon (Cougar Town’s Bob Clendenin) who is embarrassingly and hilariously earnest. Oh, and drunk whore Wanda (Kate Frisbee, the role for whom literally is a drunk whore) is always the funniest thing in her scenes.  Which characters will you hate? Eli is sort of a drip and his wife Pearl (Alexia Dox) seems poorly defined. But they’re both very easy on on the eyes so what’s the harm?  Is this show any good? To say that Quick Draw is cartoonish sounds like an insult, but it is really what makes the show highly enjoyable. Like Huckleberry Hound or any of the other great Hanna Barbera cartoons, you have a hero who never changes who always seems to prevail despite himself. He has a woman that he’s in love with whom he never really attains, and a villain who he always thwarts but never captures. It’s such a familiar structure that it allows for these comedy veterans to improvise the hell out of each scene.  While many mainly-improvised comedies can feel like they’re going in a million different directions at once, Quick Draw has a wonderful cohesion that makes each episode a complete adventures packed full of unexpected jokes. Honey’s hilarious word for someone who is both her cousin and her aunt in the second episode, as well as the speech that follows, are the funniest things I’ve heard in a sitcom in a long time.  All of this makes Quick Draw a perfect show for Hulu, something that would probably be too niche for broadcast but will find a devoted and ardent fan base who know quality when they see it. This isn’t as absurd as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or as mean as South Park, it’s just a good-natured, slightly blue, occasionally random good time.  What’s the best thing about it? The women on the show are particularly strong and allowed to be funny and outrageous in a way that defies the ludicrous “Are women funny?” debate we seem to have every few years. Not only are they as good as the men, in most cases they’re even better.  What’s the worst thing about it? The show sort of vacillates between using the time period for laughs and using anachronistic punchlines (like the Hitler mustache) at the same time. It can’t decide if it really wants to be set in the past or not, which makes the historical humor (and there is a lot of it) a bit muddled.  So this is more like Blazing Saddles? Yes, in the best possible way.  Should you watch this show? Do you like westerns and like to laugh? Then yes. This is the sort of show that would flourish on Comedy Central, FX or IFC, cable channels that are known for experimenting with comedy. I don’t think we’ll still be laughing at this show in seven seasons, but it has a wonderful ensemble, a great rhythm, and jokes that come out of nowhere and hit their target surer than any lone gunman in a showdown. So yeah, check it out.
The second season of Hulu’s wild west sitcom finally finds its rhythm and some surprising and cartoonish charm