The series follows matriarch Naomi Schwartz (Lisa Edelstein), patriarch Elliott Cooper (Paul Reiser), and the Schwooper ancestry that they've built together. Avi Schwooper (Ben Feldman) is frequently positioned at the center of Long Story Short's plotlines, but the entire family gets their due and there are plenty of stories where Avi is kept on the sidelines and is just a fleeting presence instead of the episode's focus. Avi and Shira (Abbi Jacobson)'s brother-sister relationship is also a strong moral compass for the series' storytelling and one of Long Story Short's most satisfying and entertaining dynamics. There's a real sense of history there, much of which the audience gradually learns over time.
Yoshi (Max Greenfield) certainly has a Todd from BoJack quality to his hijinks, but he's far from a carbon copy. Yoshi is the stunted black sheep Schwooper sibling who struggles to spread his wings and fly, yet his episodes often hit the hardest and have the biggest payoff. Despite its large cast, no character is expendable in Long Story Short. Everyone receives at least one worthy showcase episode and they all continue to gain depth in rewarding ways as the season progresses. The entire cast provides strong vocal performances and nobody comes across as a one-dimensional caricature. They all sound very at home in Long Story Short's universe and like they're actually family, which is crucial.
The central "gimmick" to Long Story Short, if you can call it that, is that each episode chronicles different years of the Schwooper family's life for roughly three decades, between 1991 and 2022. This gives Long Story Short tremendous room to play around in with the parameters that it sets for itself. Long Story Short features a large cast of characters, which would be enough to keep track of on its own, but all this becomes considerably more skillful when Long Story Short also juggles stories that are told across multiple decades. Despite how these timelines follow many of the same characters, they sometimes come across as completely new individuals because of how much time has passed between storylines.
This really becomes a masterclass in plotting as simple ideas that are referenced from one year become the subject of entire storylines in other timelines from future episodes. There are so many plates spinning at any given time, even if the audience doesn't necessarily realize that these plot points will later become crucial. It's an ambitious, exhausting exercise in character development that forces the audience to fill in blanks and make presumptions that are later confirmed or crushingly subverted. It's a major risk that puts tremendous pressure in the success of these payoffs. Long Story Short is fortunate enough to stick the landing in this department, but it's also very careful to make sure that each episode still stands on its own and tells a complete story, even if it's still a piece of a much greater whole. It's a truly genius way to reflect cyclical habits and generational cycles that deconstruct characters on such a broad and expansive timeline.
Long Story Short makes this structural spectacle look simple and each episode is largely set during a singular year, while a prologue - and sometimes an end tag - takes place in different years to help thematically bookend the story. This is quite impressive in the sense that Long Story Short doesn't just juggle stories and character development that plays out across multiple years, but there's also a sprawling cast with ever-changing relationships to consider. Long Story Short leapfrogs between major life events. This initially feels a little chaotic, but it soon feels natural and gets the most out of this layered storytelling. There are certain story fragments that get lost in the shuffle and don't necessarily need to be present, but they all contribute to the greater Schwartz/Cooper/Schwooper tapestry. It highlights how family -- figuratively and literally -- lives on through legacy and traditions.
Long Story Short is beautiful, empathetic, and endlessly life-affirming. It's also devastating. Long Story Short is certainly less cynical than BoJack Horseman, but there's a melancholy atmosphere of abandoned dreams that are suffocated by fear and apathy. Long Story Short still hits the same unflinching emotional heights as Bob-Waksberg's previous classic. However, it lacks a silly, anthropomorphic filter that takes the edge off. Long Story Short hones and perfects these sensibilities to really cut into some gutting stories that prove that Bob-Waksberg is still the king of this style of black comedy and episodic storytelling. The fights that break out are so damn real, biting, and they go a little deeper than they should. Long Story Short isn't afraid to present its characters as flawed or push them to tragic places, but it always feels natural and a symptom of the storytelling instead of manipulative attempts to make the audience feel something.
It's the characters and storytelling in Long Story Short that leave the greatest impressions. That being said, the series' creative art design gives Long Story Short a real personality. It'd be easy for this team to copy the look of BoJack Horseman and Tuca & Bertie, but Long Story Short avoids this temptation. The series' animation style is deeply stylized and it has such a distinct energy that's the perfect look for this rough around the edges family. It has the look and aura of a comic strip that's been brought to life. Episodes feature such lush, vibrant colors that bleed together and give effusive light to everything. There are some really unique visual flourishes throughout the season that will hopefully become more pronounced and daring as Long Story Short continues.