So for two seasons, Moral Orel was a fairly typical Adult Swim show - irreverent, low quality, funny but non-essential. I mean it was much sharper and more biting and bitter than your standard high-as-a-kite stuff like Squidbillies or Sealab 2021 or whatever, but it was still a show designed to make you laugh at one in the morning or whatever.
Season 3 takes everything played for laughs in the first two seasons - Orel's crisis of faith, his mother's mundane life as a housewife, his father's alcoholism and abusive tendencies - and plays them dramatically. And it works magnificently! Suddenly these dumb little clay puppet idiots, you're no longer rooting for their own dumb prejudices to come back and bite them in the ass, instead you just feel bad for them.
At its core, too, it's worth mentioning, Moral Orel was never actually anti-religion. It never really suggests that God isn't real or worth believing in, or that faith is automatically a bad thing. Instead it lampoons the hypocrisy and institutional sadness of these Bible Belt families who twist and warp Christianity into whatever shape allows them to sin profusely and still feel morally superior to others.
It was a good show! A pleasant surprise, and a very strong third season that got dark as hell but still managed to end on an uplifting note.
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