Tuca & Bertie Review: Leveling Up / The Pain Garden (Season 3 Episodes 1 and 2)
Tuca & Bertie Season 3 Episodes 1 and 2, “Leveling Up” and “The Pain Garden,” find our residents of Bird Town grappling with professional success and health issues with heart and humor. Of course, the flood essentially submerging the town in the Season 2 finale contributes significantly to this double-episode season opener as our protagonists try to move on from the terrifying natural disaster.
“Leveling Up” finds Tuca in a much better spot than when we last left her. She’s climbing the ladder, career-wise, and has a loving, wonderful partner. Speckles also hits the professional jackpot with his architectural pursuits. Meanwhile, Bertie flounders, struggling to keep SweetBeak, her bakery business, afloat.
BERTIE: Leveling up is scary, but it’s not as scary as never trying. Isn’t it better to take the leap?
Tuca & Bertie doesn’t shy away from Tuca’s penchant for self-sabotage. It’s a natural human inclination and a universally relatable one at that. Tuca’s hyper-vigilance keeps her lying in wait for the proverbial “other shoe” to drop, so she seizes control of her narrative by sabotaging her job.
Taking risks is challenging. Bertie’s hesitance to accept a potentially life-altering job offer because it means leaving her comfort zone is wholly relatable, especially if you have anxiety. In a way, Tuca’s tendency to self-sabotage stems from her anxiety and her fear of life running smoothly because that could mean danger lurks around the corner.
TUCA: I hate doctors. They just want to collect my urine and sell it. Piss is currency to them, Bertie!
The show handles Tuca and Bertie’s respective career-based (and life-based) anxieties with humor and poignancy. Episode two, “The Pain Garden,” addresses an all-too-common health experience for women across the globe: medical gaslighting.
Doctors dismiss Tuca’s chronic pain, which blooms during her period, as a “weight issue” or “anxiety.” While we don’t get an official diagnosis by the episode’s end, it sounds like Tuca has endometriosis.
We seldom get a comedy, let alone an animated series, that tackles something as blatantly unaddressed yet widespread as medical gaslighting. As usual, Tuca & Bertie addresses Tuca’s health issues gracefully and powerfully in a way that makes us all feel seen. We shouldn’t expect anything less from this surprisingly profound series.
TUCA: I have health insurance now. I can eat the glue.
The garden metaphor, or Tuca’s “pain garden,” is so beautifully evocative of the “blossoming” of menstruation and adulthood. This show’s stunning imagery and sometimes trippy visuals deliver its themes with an impactful punch.
“Leveling Up” and “The Pain Garden” are solid season openers for Tuca & Bertie, re-introducing us to the world of Bird Town and our favorite Odd Couple-esque eponymous pair. They lay the groundwork for what’s sure to be a punchy, humorous, and timely season. Here’s hoping we eventually take that trip to Horseville.
Stray Observations:
- Who knew massive inflatable duck boats could become sentient and sick? Here’s hoping everyone at that gala in “Leveling Up” got tested for bird flu.
- Tuca’s boyfriend Figgy takes “I wanna climb you like a tree” to a new level.
- The bit about Horseville in “The Pain Garden” is an excellent nod to BoJack Horseman since one of the characters sounds an awful lot like Will Arnett, a.k.a. BoJack himself.
- Tuca’s doctor, a bee, would be an “O-Bee-GYN” in this universe.
- Bertie and Speckles becoming smitten with Figgy is such a fun moment. Who wouldn’t fall in love with a fig tree voiced by Matthew Rhys?
What did you think of these episodes of Tuca & Bertie? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Tuca & Bertie airs Sundays at 12/11c on Adult Swim, with next-day streaming on HBO Max.
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Melody McCune
Melody loves TV. Maybe too much. Besides being a Senior Writer for Tell-Tale TV, she's the Managing Editor for Geek Girl Authority, an Independent Contractor for Sideshow Collectibles, and a Senior Writer for Eulalie Magazine. Additionally, she has bylines in Culturess, Widget, and inkMend on Medium. To top it all off, she's a critic for Rotten Tomatoes and CherryPicks.