M.O.D.O.K. has his first weekend with the kids since the split, but his new digs aren’t exactly up to scratch. A surprise invite to a GRUMBL conference seems to give him the perfect out, but is it all that it seems, and can he manage to not make a mess of things?

M.O.D.O.K. and his wife Jodie are now officially separated and that means that it’s his turn to have the kids for the weekend while she does a book tour. Unfortunately, M.O.D.O.K. has not exactly landed on his feet, accommodation wise, and whereas his peculiar son Lou is enamoured by the place (‘Everything Murphy’s!’), Melissa is less than impressed.

A lifeline is seemingly thrown to him when he gets a reminder of an invite he’d missed to a GRUMBL leadership conference at a luxury resort, wherein he is to be the ‘Guest of Honour’. A perfect way to get his kids a fun weekend away and impress the Board of GRUMBL? There must be a catch.

Of course, there is, but it’s at that point that M.O.D.O.K. and his daughter find the most unexpected way of bonding, as she uses her years of Mean Girl powers and experience to help her father negotiate social situations in a way he’s never considered before. All is going very well until M.O.D.O.K. does something, well, M.O.D.O.K.-y, and before you know it there’s an alien portal and a bunch of hedonistic aliens who threaten to destroy everything on Earth.

What’s nice here is that the show isn’t just a collection of smutty jokes and swearing. There’s real depth to the characters here, from M.O.D.O.K.’s genuine attempts to bond with his kids and his desire to reunite his family to the increasingly sinister GRUMBL. There’s great storytelling here as well as humour, and honestly that wasn’t what I was expecting, going in.

Verdict: Fun, frenetic and surprisingly heartfelt. 9/10

Greg D. Smith