Clone High S3 Review
Last season, on a very special Clone High, the OG Clones got unfrozen and got into some crazy hijinks with the new batch of Clones. Joan started dating JFK until they broke up. Scudworth and Mr. B killed all the members of the Shadowy Board. Their new boss, Candide, destroyed Joan’s reputation by showing how she snapped and tried to leave everyone to get their minds wiped so she could get into a fake college. With the show’s future at stake, can Clone High have what it takes to survive in an age when teen dramas are on the rocks? Or will it end up in the dustbin of history once again? Hopefully not; Lord and Miller said they might bring back Gandhi if they get a fourth season!
Joan Back at Bottom
Picking up the summer after the Death Maze incident, the show wastes no time establishing the new status quo. The Board of Shadowy Figures now only consists of Candide. Abe and JFK are now best friends rather than enemies. Cleo’s dating Frida Kahlo, Harriet’s dating Confucius…and everyone hates Joan’s guts.
Despite my initial concerns that the season premiere would have Joan’s status quickly restored, it thankfully doesn’t. She goes through an arc over several episodes that sees her have to work to get her friends to forgive her. What makes this arc all the more impactful is that, in the show’s 2000s run, Joan wouldn’t have cared about any of this. She was a loner and liked it that way, not caring if anyone (besides Abe) didn’t want her. Joan herself lampshades how far she’s moved from her season oneself at one point.
And the show might be all the better for it.
Everyone acts Like Real People Now.
When it first premiered in 2003, Clone High was meant to parody the big teen dramas of the day. However, by the time it came back in 2023, teen dramas weren’t as popular anymore. So, it had to go from being a parody to a show that could stand on its own two feet. Sadly, the revival’s first season had a hard time trying to adjust to this new reality. The result was a season that proved inconsistent in focus and caused it to suffer. Case in point, the season finale wound up getting overshadowed by the episode that came before it.
Thankfully, Clone High’s junior year significantly improved over its sophomore year. The characters continue to evolve past being simple parodies as they undergo significant character development. The plot points are tighter-knit and more consistent with carrying across multiple episodes, like JFK finding religion and balancing that out with his womanizing ways. Or the love triangle between Harriet, Joan, and Confucius that develops. After taking a backseat in the last season, Abe gets more focus as he gets a new girlfriend. And it just gets crazier from there. Even Cleo and Frida, the most stable couple on the show, deal with some hiccups.
The best part of the season is the renewed focus on the show’s best characters.
Scudworth Finally Gets the Spotlight Again
A major issue I had with last season was that it should have utilized its two best characters, Principal Scudworth and Mr. Butlertron. As the avatars for Phil Lord and Chris Miller, you’d think they would get a lot of focus in the revival, only to get relegated mainly to the B-Plots. They only got one episode focusing primarily on them, which was a massive disappointment to some fans. Thankfully, not only does season three pull more focus on Scudworth and Mr. B, but they’re nuttier than ever.
With the Board of Shadowy Figures now reduced to Candide, Scudworth is more or less free to do whatever he wants. That leads to him renewing his focus on his ultimate goal of Cloney Island, the historical theme park staffed by all the Clones. And with three-foot-long hot dogs (he insists on that.) Scudworth thus spends most of the season coming up with schemes to get the money he needs for Cloney Island, only to have it blow up in his face.
- Make the school a religious institute to get out of taxes. Lady Godiva runs around naked.
- Get three hundred three burritos? Lose them when the evil Clones get locked with them in the freezer.
- Save money on a school trip with the cheapest bus and trip? Clones get snowed in, and Mr. B goes insane from claustrophobia.
Even when he does manage to get the money for Cloney Island, Scudworth still can’t win, with the season closing out on a cliffhanger that sees the island threatened with destruction.
And unless the show does well, we’ll never know what happens next.
Help Clone High Get Renewed and Save Gandhi
As of now, the future of Clone High is up in the air. Again. If the new season doesn’t do well on Max, it could get shelved. Again. This is a real shame because it feels like the show regained its footing after the mixed bag of season two. Given how the season ends with a callback to the infamous “To be continued…?!” card from the first finale, it would be a massive disappointment. That and it would mean fans would never see Gandhi again.
Clone High was canceled the first time because of the backlash that the Gandhi Clone prompted. Rather than deal with that again, Lord and Miller had him remain frozen, and most of the cast got their memory of him wiped. However, the duo said they were open to returning him if the show made it to Season Four. That should be an added incentive to ensure Clone High doesn’t end up on ice again!
