Prime Video’s The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy Is an Intergalactic Adult Animation That Will Heal Your Funny Bone
Photo Courtesy of Prime Video
The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy, the new Prime Video animated sci-fi comedy created by Russian Doll and Big Mouth writer Cirocco Dunlap, immediately stands out from other shows in its genre in that there are no human characters. Futurama can always use Philip J. Fry as a sounding board for exposition regarding the wackier parts of its future, and Rick and Morty juxtaposes the out-there multiverse adventures with a familiar dysfunctional family sitcom set-up. In contrast, Second Best Hospital throws the viewer straight into its alien world without telling you the rules.
Doctors Klak (Keke Palmer) and Sleech (Stephanie Hsu) know their stuff when it comes to treating all sorts of species, designed with an underground cartoonist charm by Robin Eisenberg. Keeping up with all the barrage of creative and comedic medical emergencies the show throws their way is part of the fun. And when Klak and Sleech find themselves in a situation where they don’t know what they’re doing? Well, that’s where it gets really fun.
As different as these aliens’ physiologies are, their psychologies aren’t much different from our own. This is another adult cartoon centered heavily around mental health issues, reminiscent of the likes of BoJack Horseman and Tuca & Bertie. Would it shock you to learn that the writer of BoJack’s “The Face of Depression” episode wrote an episode of Second Best Hospital focusing on Klak being treated as “The Face of Anxiety?” This isn’t groundbreaking material at this point, but it’s meaningful nonetheless, and without any new Raphael Bob-Waksberg shows on the immediate horizon, Second Best Hospital fills a worthwhile niche with smart writing and compelling stories.
While each episode has its own unique medical cases for Klak and Sleech to solve, the show builds an ongoing plot around the discovery of a deadly parasite that feeds off of anxiety. For Klak, who’s been put through seemingly every treatment to no avail while her writer/talk show host mother (Tracee Ellis Ross) profited from publicizing her struggles, experimenting on this parasite to find a safe “cure” for anxiety is a tempting opportunity. But is such a cure even possible—and if it is, would it even be a good idea to use it?
Where Klak’s dealing with anxiety and family issues, Sleech is obsessive in her focus on advancing her career as a surgeon above all else. Lacking much understanding of emotions, Sleech gets into a lot of relationship drama. She has the hots for the go-with-the-flow himbo Matt (Andrew Dismukes), but is embarrassed to end up in a relationship with Plowp (Kieran Culkin), a bird-like doctor experiencing multiple middle-aged “puberties,” whose ever-shifting empathic abilities make for an unlikely contrast to Sleech. She is also not shy about voicing her attraction to Klak’s brother (Jay Ellis), and her distaste for Klak’s on-again-off-again lover Azel (Sam Smith, surprisingly good as a first-time voice actor).