Where the first season brought Cleveland to his home town of Stoolbend, Virginia and set up his new family life and his new group of friends, this season gives that cast a chance to spread its wings a bit. As mentioned in a few of the special features, the creators are able to get each episode moving faster, with more guest stars, and more musical numbers.
The season starts off strong with some great initial episodes. First, Cleveland realizes that the boy he went to high school with, Barry Obama, is now President Barack Obama, and Cleveland has a bit of a mid-life crisis as he realizes he hasn't accomplished nearly enough in his life. In order to make something of himself, he decides to help locally-famous rapper, Kenny West (Kanye West) make it big.
This episode is followed by one that is "broadcasted live." Here, the animated cast and crew attempt to put on a live show in front of not only a studio audience, but also the world. Of course, many of the perils that come with a live showing makes this an interesting experiment. Between having to deal with an angry Roberta who makes a scene because her storyline is cut, and random audience members shouting out, this is one of the more meta episodes of the show, but not the only one that breaks the fourth-wall.
Rallo gets a couple of new friends this season. Besides his posse voiced by Will.i.Am and T-Pain, Rallo also meets an old Jewish man in a nursing home. Murray, voiced by Carl Reiner, becomes fast friends with the five year-old and when they break out of the home, Rallo has to hide him for a while before they decide its best to bring him back so he can keep up with his medication. The older friend returns to help Rallo and his other two friends win a talent show. Murray writes a rap for the trio, but since its subject matter is about fiscal responsibility, it doesn't go over all that well.
While I enjoyed every episode of the season, the finale, "Hot Cocoa Bank Bang," is my favorite, primarily because it takes place at the San Diego Comic-Con and guest stars Robert Rodriguez as himself. When Cleveland decides to create his own comic, he drags the family to the convention. The only other person really excited about the trip is Cleveland Jr., but when the younger character discovers that it has been taken over by many shows and presentations that aren't right for the convention, he leads a nerd-revolt to take Comic-Con back. Meanwhile, Donna learns that an old Blaxsploitation film she made when she was young is going to be screened at the show. Her only chance is to convince Rodriguez to not show the film, but he is a wild, antagonistic movie-maker in this episode, and getting the screening stopped is easier said than done.
The Cleveland Show: The Complete Season Two's special features include some deleted scenes, a featurette about the many guest stars seen throughout the season and a bit of animation called "Cleveland Jr's Worry Journal" that is amusing, but not all that funny. The release also comes with a Life After Film School interview with Mike Henry, the voice of Cleveland and Rallo, but a majority of the extras relate to "Hot Cocoa Bang Bang."
Besides commentary for that episode and a trailer for the movie, the DVD set also contains the Cleveland Show panel from Comic-Con where the cast table reads an act from the episode. For the most part, the special features are worth watching and should be fun for fans.
Season Two of The Cleveland Show really lets the series show that it can stand on its own, and any fan of the other Seth McFarlane cartoons should enjoy where this season takes the spin-off.
