Created by Wendy Molyneux, Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin, and Minty Lewis, The Great North follows a bustling fishing family, led by single dad Beef Tobin (Nick Offerman), living in Lone Moose, Alaska. At the end of the show’s second episode, teenage siblings Judy (Jenny Slate) and Ham (Paul Rust) do a secret handshake. It’s an exacting, confounding, and hilarious ritual, equal parts dance and song, reminiscent in its bumpy rhythm of Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig’s improvised jingles as Garth and Kat on Saturday Night Live. Just before the credits roll, the siblings reach the part of the handshake that quotes Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
The Tolstoy line could be an acknowledgment of how much the Tobins recall the Belchers of Bob’s Burgers, for which the Molyneux sisters serve as writers and executive producers. (Bob’s Burgers creator Loren Bouchard is also a producer here.) The influence of the acclaimed Fox series is abundantly evident in The Great North, from the animation style to the spontaneous musical numbers to the presence of a young child devoted to a piece of animal-themed clothing. Louise has her bunny hat, and Moon (Aparna Nancherla) wears a bear onesie.
As it explores the idiosyncrasies of the Tobins and their environment, however, the series starts to display its own distinct charm. The family members narrate occasional oral-history flashbacks that contextualize the culture of Lone Moose, and in the process fuel some of the show’s funniest bits, including Leslie Jordan’s brief, madcap turn as Thomas Wintersbone, a misunderstood teacher from the town’s early days. The flashbacks also highlight The Great North’s commitment to empowering its characters. We learn why the residents of Lone Moose do things a certain way—like the local Sadie Hawkins dance—only for the Tobins to carve out their own paths, respecting history but not bowing down to it.
Throughout the series, events in the present often flesh out the Tobins’ blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth ethos. As Beef says during a breakfast toast, leaving his four children awestruck, “We are fighters, born to wrestle nature itself into submission, year after glorious year.” The Tobins see virtue in their frontier lifestyle and pity those who forsake it. When Beef’s brother, Brian (Rob Delaney), visits from Anchorage, Beef spots his chinos and asks why he’s wearing “wedding pants.” How could a native son of Lone Moose wear anything but blue jeans—or a bear onesie that pushes him closer to the animalistic?
Life beyond the town limits seems foreign to the Tobins, and tangential to their existence. They’re powered by some shared internal generator that rarely lets their folksy enthusiasm dip below 100%. At one point, eldest son Wolf (Will Forte) takes two bored German tourists (Mark McKinney and Rose Abdoo) on a sunset cruise on the family boat, and the pair’s dry detachment stands in delectable contrast to the zestiness of the Tobins. The sequence offers a droll corrective to the family’s relentless enthusiasm, momentarily painting it as near-cultish in a subtle nod to the oddness of their insularity. But one can’t help but envy the sheer, simple joy that suffuses the Tobins’ outlook—because who cares what unhappy tourists think, when the sunset’s beauty so reliably moves Wolf to blissful tears?
Judy, guided by her artistic dreams, displays the most interest in the broader world. Her balancing act between her creative aspirations and her loyalty to the family fishing business emerges as a central theme across the six episodes made available to press. Slate’s unpredictable line readings commandeer an episode in which Judy, a curling prodigy, coaches Beef’s rec team: The character fails to contain her borderline-demonic competitive streak and lashes out at Beef’s older friends with riotous undue vitriol.
Supporting characters and guest stars—such as Alanis Morissette, who materializes in the Northern Lights like a Canadian Mufasa to guide Judy through adolescence—infuse the series with similarly zany energy. And scene-stealing Alyson (Megan Mullally), manager of the photography studio where Judy gets a part-time job, is unmistakably Mullally—in the timber of her voice, her roguish charisma, and the thick sexual tension she shares with Beef.
Living with the Tobins is a newcomer to Lone Moose: Honeybee (Dulcé Sloan), Wolf’s fiancé. An extended and winsome flashback sequence chronicles her journey here, beginning with Honeybee and Wolf meeting on a message board for cineastes and culminating in her move from Fresno, California to Alaska. In an especially amusing arc, Ham and Beef plan an anniversary party for Honeybee and Wolf based on one of the couple’s favorite movies: Shrek. The prospect of a faithful interpretation of the film is doomed by the fact that Ham only saw a few minutes of it nearly a decade ago—“Shrek is dark gray and he loves the beach,” he tells Beef. The resulting celebration, like The Great North, trades familiarity for singularity by embracing the strangeness of life in its corner of the world.
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