The ‘Big Mouth’ Hormone Monsters, Ranked

Netflix

Big Mouth is, of course, very good. Netflix released the second season on October 5 and if it isn’t the funniest show of 2018 then I would sure like to see whatever beat it. (Really, I would. That show must be hilarious.) This season had everything from evil wizards to Bachelor parodies about forms of birth control to an exclamation of “Let’s go Mets” that will forever alter your perception of both sex and the New York Mets. Again, it’s a good show.

It also featured the introduction of two new Hormone Monsters and an expanded role for a third. This brings us to a total of five Hormone Monsters, not including the Shame Wizard or Depression Kitty, who should not be included because they are different beasts. Literally. They are literally different beasts. You are welcome for this play on words.

Point being: Five Hormone Monsters is enough to make this official. Let’s do it. Let’s rank the Hormone Monsters.

5. Gavin

Ugh. Uggghhh. Gavin was onscreen for maybe four minutes this season, total, all of them in the season finale, and I still hate him so much. All of the Hormone Monsters give their kids bad ideas and bad advice. It’s part of the gig. “Monster” is right there in the name. But the other ones we’ve seen, your Maurys and your Connies, have a sense of playfulness and protectiveness about them. They want the kids to do all this gross perverted stuff because they think it’ll help, in their own misguided way. And when they’re proven wrong (which they are, often almost immediately), there’s some level of remorse there. They feel bad that their plan of action failed. They truly, honestly, thought it would be fine, even if it never had a chance to be fine. There’s something charming about that.

But Gavin is all malicious testosterone. I would love to see the stats on the kids he mentors. I bet 70 percent of them are in prison. I bet 80 percent of them say their favorite show is Entourage. I bet 90 percent of them do curls in front of the mirror at home.

Gavin is the worst.

4. Tyler

Tyler might be a decent Hormone Monster someday, but that day is not today. No, not even close, not even a little. Tyler understands nothing and got duped by the Shame Wizard and inspires no confidence in the kids he is assigned to mentor. Tyler is a bad Hormone Monster.

But he’s also sweet and eager — so eager — and ambitious and I could see a world where he works out the kinks and low self-esteem and becomes decent at his job. He also, like, cares, which is more than you can say for Gavin. I see this as a kind of Dobby from Harry Potter situation. There are more than a few similarities. They’re both too excitable, they both smash themselves in the head when they screw up, they were both manipulated by an evil wizard, etc. I hated Dobby at first but then by the end of his arc I cried real salty tears. Wild world we got here. Anything could happen. Tyler could become a legend one day.

Not today, though.

3. Maury

The thing about Maury is that he’s secretly a big old sweetheart, which is a heck of a thing to say about a fictional beast who would cover the entire world with an inch-thick layer of semen if he could. Evidence: Early in season two, after Andrew’s father forcibly waxed the first sprouts poor boy’s puberty mustache, Maury shaved his entire body in solidarity. Was it horrifying to look at Yes. Did I refuse to screencap it for the picture at the top of this section because the sight of his hairless body haunts me and I didn’t want to put myself through that again Yes. But was it a solid gesture I mean, kind of That counts.

That’s Maury in a nutshell. He’s trying to support Andrew and guide him into adulthood but his ideas are almost all awful. Just terrible. The thing with the bathing suit will make me cringe forever. It doesn’t come from an evil place, though. He just can’t help himself.

2. Connie

Connie led Jessi down a dark path that included saying hurtful things to her mother and stealing from a pharmacy and I should probably give those factors more weight in my analysis but Connie is voiced by Maya Rudolph and that is wonderful. It’s the pronunciations, mostly. “Bubble bath” is now “bwubba bayyyyyyth.” “Pharmacy” is now “phwahhhhhmacy.” And then there are the songs. The songs! It’s the best single voiceover performance on television right now. I wish I could have been there for the recording. In fact, I think I would watch this entire season again with no animation, just a single steady shot of everyone recording their lines. Yes, I would watch that.

1. Rick

Rick is completely useless. He’s a hideous mess who leaks pus from his neck and has never had a good idea. He knows nothing about the human body or how to behave in public. He thinks masturbation involves the same twisting motion as grinding pepper. He urged Nick to “repeat the race comment” when flirting with Gina, his Latina crush. He has never once gotten a movie reference correct. Coach Steve is the way he is — a recklessly uninformed sex ed teacher who still sees a pediatrician — in large part because Rick was his Hormone Monster into his 40s.

And I don’t care. I love Rick. He so supportive and harmless and I feel like everyone could use at least one friend like that. Just a steady string of “You’re the man, baby” at 15-minute intervals and a “What are you gonna do” after every mistake. He can’t be your only source of information. That’s how you end up living in a trailer on a diaper barge. But he’s enough of a goof that you can ignore his bad ideas and internalize the never-flinching support and, really, given where the other kids ended up at times this season, that’s not the worst case scenario.

Rick is the greatest.