Carol and The End of the World Review: Clever Heart-Touching Focus on Supposed Side Characters in a Doomed World

Carol and The End of the World Review: Touted as a limited series with 10 episodes over a season, the adult animated sci-fi apocalyptic drama title on Netflix stars Martha Kelly as the titular character, Beth Grant, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Mel Rodriguez, Michael Chernus, Lawrence Pressman and others as part of the voice cast.

The Dan Guterman creation finds comfort in the regularity of monotony and silence, and it’s aptly captured through the show’s choice of finding its main character in Carol Kohl, a middle-aged woman who has no plans of rejoicing in the liberation granted to the people in their last days on Earth as another mysterious planet hurtles towards it. With humanity’s extinction imminent, masses find their last piece of coping mechanism by giving into hedonism and promiscuity, but not Carol.

All episodes of the miniseries from the Rick and Morty writer have a runtime of 25-33 minutes. Releasing on Netflix on December 15, 2023, the show has been produced under the banner of Bardel Entertainment and Netflix Animation.

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-Carol and The End of the World Netflix Review Contains Mild Spoilers-

Carol and The End of the World Review

Overturning the vision and understanding of existentialism, Guterman’s latest miniseries goes against the common depictions of colossal pictures that inspire the audience with awe. Despite its premise setting the major “end of the world” crisis as the foreboding setting striking everyone with fear, this animated series goes the other way instead. Rather than opting for the usual choice of main characters focussing their energies on finding ways to save the world from going up in flames, here the entire attention is on the present aftermath of people having to come to terms with the limited time they have on Earth.

And so, these last few remaining months are spent by everyone finding their hedonistic passions, ultimately guised as coping mechanisms. In possibly one of the most interesting feats adopted by the series’ storytelling is the choice of characters it finds its central focus in. The titular character is a quiet middle-aged woman otherwise having no desires in her life. She’s someone who finds happiness and emotional gravity in the everyday nature of things and their routinal cyclicality, something that’s particularly brought to question under the common understanding of the purposelessness of humans as part of the absurdist ideology.

The first few episodes of the series especially draw us in with Carol being pulled back to the common comforts found at a deserted Applebee’s diner. The same essence of this mode of attraction later pulls her to tail a woman dressed up as an employee at a white-collared corporate organisation to the very building that eventually becomes a silent abode for all those people like her, who’d otherwise be rather pictured as side-characters in the stories of glorious heroes or protagonists ready to save the world.

This abode, known as “The Distraction”, then becomes a quiet working place, whose origin appears so eerie that even our very quiet and introverted protagonist, Carol, finds it disturbing, especially since no one answers the question of its presence and purpose in the midst of an apocalypse.

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Her affably pleasing and genuine personality eventually wins over two other people at this place, who’re compelled to speak to her as she makes the great efforts to find out everyone’s names and initiate conversation instead of viewing them as the originally situated passive cogs of the corporate machine. Ironically, the very place that’s otherwise deemed the cause of conventional absurdism, due to its perfect embodiment of the cyclic routine and exhausting work culture, ends up offering the much-needed solace to these people due to its orthodox banality. Moreover, Carol’s idea of a coping mechanism is starkly contrasted with the more popular ways of hedonism, as also adopted by her own parents.

On watching the trailer of the series, one may expect it to reflect the concept previously highlighted by the Steve Carell-Keira Knightley movie, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. However, Carol and The End of the World chooses for a different, a more profound path of discussion that finds its invisible main character in silence and the commonness of day-to-day life itself. Also countering the usual path of apocalyptic content, this series pays no heed to the grand scientific jargon of the world-ending phenomenon.

Certain characters come up with their own share of theories now and then, but that’s about it. The narration takes on a more personal sound, especially wherever Carol is at the focus because it almost seems like she’s reading out aloud her own journal to us in her calmly deadpan voice.

Carol and The End of the World Animated Series: Final Thought

The episodes and their chronology in the season don’t follow any sort of linearity, which may even leave the audience puzzled at times. Additionally, a certain another character’s subplot gets dragged in through his brief association with Carol, but it may not have the same profound impact on you. The slow-pacing in some cases may become a deterrent for the viewers too.

Nevertheless, episodes titled, “David”, “The Beetle Brooch”, “Sisters” and “The Investigation” all work hard to illustrate a strong case of human connections and their profundity, and are likely to become one’s favourites for the same reason. You should stick around for each of these episodes for they hold the power to win you over emotionally.

Another intriguing takeaway will be that despite the series portraying a stark contrast between the varying degrees of coping mechanisms adopted by the people, it never intends to slander either of them, rather simply highlights the presentness of these actions and how they keep the current survivors preoccupied in a world that’s done away with jobs and many other simple activities that make up our mundane lives. It’s a warmhearted watch that’s unlike any other mainstream apocalyptic series despite its familiar premise.

The Carol and The End of the World series is now streaming on Netflix.

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