President Curtis isn't a huge change from Rick And Morty, but you can believe it

Before these pieces click into place, though, the president’s staff are almost entirely defined by repetition of their vital statistics. Enlivened by a multifaceted performance by Harmon’s old Community pal Jim Rash, half-leprechaun Secret Service Agent Francis O’Doyle spends most of the season telling outrageous tales about his monstrous mother, which feel pretty thin and standard-issue Freudian until we actually meet said monstrous mother. (There’s a more entertaining game in O’Doyle’s steadfast honesty, a stubborn denial of the predisposition to trickery in his leprechaun DNA.) Greater surprises are in store from the third member of the show’s core trio, cybernetically enhanced chief of staff Banks (Stephanie Beatriz). And while each character occasionally feels like they’re little more than their quirks and gimmicks—in Banks’ case, it doesn’t help that her boss is obsessed with RoboCop—those quirks and gimmicks do make for a fun personification of the tensions between the scientific and the supernatural that drives President Curtis.

We’re reintroduced to the main character as he informs the White House press corps that he and his obsidian boomerang have ended Paul Bunyan’s cannibalistic reign over the nation’s wilderness—the show’s goofball hybrid of American myth-making, horror-comedy capering, and workplace plotting in a nutshell. The volley of questions that follows provides a glimpse of the first season’s prevailing mood: Curtis’ extra-office activities don’t have the unanimous approval of the American public, and it just might be that he’s committing himself so deeply to hunting monsters and fostering diplomatic relations with the denizens of Hollow Earth because he’s trying to fill the void left by the end of his marriage to the newly elected governor of Illinois.

Yes, President Curtis is yet another Adult Swim series where the wack hijinks and gross-out gags are laced with Major Adult Problems. Fortunately, they never threaten to drag the proceedings down or topple into Rick And Morty-style edgelord nihilism. It’s more of an attempt to make the characters in these unreal situations feel more real—to cut through the Oval Office bullshit and portray the insecurities that might inspire a presidential run in the first place. There’s humor and pathos to be found in a world where even the ghost of Abraham Lincoln isn’t immune to a desperate power grab, or where the sitting president needs connection so badly, he’ll seek it from his constituents in a Fortnite-esque battle royale game. (An activity he justifies as his equivalent of FDR’s fireside chats.) The raised-by-TV reflexiveness of the Harmon house style gets one of its first nods in Ryan Elder’s melancholy, Mike Post-homaging President Curtis theme song, but that tune is also an early indication of Curtis’ emotional default.

None of this works without David. His unmistakable bass grounds President Curtis‘ otherworldly action in a suitably presidential integrity—if he’s taking the quest to find Napoleon’s mummified penis this seriously, shouldn’t we, too? David’s commanding presence sets the tone for the adventuring and superheroics of the show (Curtis is frequently dinged for acting like he thinks he’s Batman), and the vulnerability he’s able to convey with just his voice brings it all back down to Earth.

It’s why the character works as a foil to Rick, and why President Curtis is able to stand up as its own series, despite inheriting Rick And Morty‘s art style, sense of humor, unrepentant self-awareness. Rick fancies himself a god, and it’s up to Morty and the rest of the show’s supporting cast to remind Rick of his humanity and temper the flippancy that comes with knowing so much and feeling so little. President Andre Curtis is just a man with a powerful title, surrounded by characters who are just trying to be people in spite of their extraordinary abilities and abnormal jobs. It’s a big part of what makes President Curtis ridiculous, relatable, and eminently watchable.