Abhiroop Das
Co-created by Jennifer Flackett, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, and Nick Kroll, Netflix’s ‘Mating Season’ is an animated dark comedy series that steps into the forest and chronicles the lives of four eccentric friends. Josh the bear finds his world turned upside down after hibernation when his partner, upset with his life choices, leaves him for a fresh start. Thus begins Josh’s desperate attempt to find a new mate to spend the next hibernation season with, even if it means bending and breaking the definition of love.
Josh’s friends, Ray the raccoon, Fawn the deer, and Penelope the fox, all have their share of romantic and sexual troubles in life, which come to the surface as they try to make new relationships and hopelessly preserve the existing ones. By the end of the first season, the friends are left with no choice but to reflect on their approach towards love, and perhaps revise it for good. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Mating Season Plot Recap
‘Mating Season’ begins with Josh the bear waking up from hibernation a couple of months too late, only to find that his partner, Olivia, has left him. Alarmed, Josh rushes down to his best friends, Ray the raccoon, Fawn the deer, and Penelope the fox, and learns that Olivia is now with a bigger, more powerful bear, whom Josh must beat in a fair fight. Ray, however, teaches him a few trick moves to make up for the strength difference, one of which is to bite the bear in his groin. What Ray doesn’t expect is for Josh to actually bite the rival bear’s groin clean off, resulting in enough blood loss to cause his death. At the same time, Fawn loses her mother and has to watch her father immediately get together with a young deer. When Fawn tries to retaliate by going out with an older deer herself, her father gets angry and fights the deer to the point of near death, prompting messy breakups all around.
With everyone in the friend group now single once again, a curious game of going on dates and trying to have sex begins. Ray, ever the charmer, hardly has trouble wooing other animals, but also seems just as averse to settling down, unlike his friends. Josh, on the other hand, appears to only attract increasingly eccentric animals who fancy how violent he got during his fight with the bear. Aghast, he temporarily gives up on the pursuit entirely and instead begins supporting Penelope on her journey to find love. The story then enters a flashback to reveal that both Fawn and Penelope had respective relationships at one point, with Fawn nearly settling down with a wolf named Dylan and Penelope finding love in the form of a hound named Summer. Both stories end in tragedy, however, leading to their first meeting and ensuing friendship.
After trying out and ditching dating apps, Josh joins Ray in participating in a large animal orgy, only to learn that the rules have changed, and animals now need to engage in non sexual activities for 30 days before they can join the orgies. It takes Ray little time to begin a sex revolution, but that fizzles out when all the animals end up leaving after the sexual high wears off. Ray even momentarily finds the love of his life in the form of a swan named Addy, but he ends up getting dumped because of his insecurities. To top it off, Dylan returns to Fawn’s life, revealing that he is getting married to an antelope named Cynthia. While Fawn and her friends are invited to the wedding, what she really desires is to confess her love and resume the relationship, not knowing what awaits.
Mating Season Ending: Will Penelope Choose Summer or Jojo?
‘Mating Season’ season 1 ends with a cliffhanger where Penelope, once starved for love, now has to choose between two people who have strong feelings for her. After falling in love with Jojo over the course of Dylan’s wedding, Penelope invites her over to the forest in the hopes of beginning a new relationship, only for Summer, her past lover, to arrive out of the blue. The duo was separated several seasons ago, when Summer hesitated to run away from her pack just as Penelope made the proverbial leap. This time, however, it appears that Summer has made the bold decision all by herself and is ready to resume things from where they abruptly left off. Penelope, however, is no longer her intensely lonely self, both on a romantic and platonic level, which makes the choice much more complicated.
While Summer eagerly reunites with Penelope in the hopes of resuming their love story, in doing so, she doesn’t quite process the possibility that Penelope has matured and found new connections in life. Summer’s plea, as such, is rooted in a vague sense of selfishness, where she comes to major conclusions without letting Penelope’s voice into the equation. This makes the sudden, hasty reunion a mere repeat of how Summer betrayed Penelope in the first place, except this time, things are more complicated, as Jojo is also at the scene. Initially, Penelope doesn’t give the complications of a love triangle much thought, but it’s only after looking at Jojo’s pensive expression that she realizes that she cannot exactly turn this into a throuple like the one she had earlier.
If Penelope’s throuple era is indicative of one thing, it is how difficult loving several people at once can be, and we see something similar pan out with Fawn’s love story. In both cases, Penelope herself advises that it’s much better to make a choice early and stick with it, which means that she might have to apply that principle to herself. Though we know just how much she cherishes her memory with Summer, that doesn’t discredit the bond she has developed with Jojo in this short span of time. The most likely outcome of this conundrum, then, is that Penelope will choose Jojo and the possibility of a fresh start in life. However, that means that Summer’s brave escape from her pack was all for nothing, and she might have to live here forever, or await extreme punishment after going back, neither of which is an easy choice for Penelope and company.
Does Cynthia Leave Dylan? What Happens to Him?
Penelope’s love story is not the only one that receives an ambiguous ending, as the finale also leaves Dylan running for his life after his exploits see the light of day. Though he has passionate sex with Fawn the night before his marriage, by the next morning, it becomes clear that all of that was just for his sexual gratification and didn’t mean anything emotionally. Instead, he seems more charged than ever to tie the knot with Cynthia, despite knowing that he is effectively ruining her life. The turning point comes through Fawn, as she now has the power to make the truth public and stop the marriage for good. Though she hesitates at first, that changes when Dylan begins his vows by repeating the same romantic lines that he told Fawn the night before.
In truth, Dylan doesn’t see his partners as anything other than a means for his sexual pleasure, which is where the superficiality of his romance comes from. When Fawn eventually does speak up, she is joined by several others from the audience, all of whom claim to have had sex with Dylan in the days and weeks before the marriage. With the truth out, Dylan drops the facade almost instantly, revealing that the attempts to tame him failed once again. Where he once manifested that resistance by peeing all over Fawn’s house or partying relentlessly with his friends, his supposed wildness now manifests as his not being faithful. In the end, Cynthia’s family chases him out using swords and other weapons, which leaves it up in the air whether Dylan will even make it out of the chaos in one piece.
Fawn and Cynthia’s rejection of Dylan doesn’t just come as a response to his true intentions, but also because it’s Cynthia’s only chance at righting some early wrongs. When she begins her vows, they are entirely centered on how Dylan seemingly fixed her life or has given her the ability to love herself. It is this idea that affects Fawn the most, as on some level, she cannot help but see an earlier version of herself in Cynthia. As such, Fawn rushes in to urge Cynthia to lead a life she is genuinely proud of, and not one that needs a man’s presence as an affirmation. In keeping with that, Fawn and possibly Cynthia are the first to outright reject the story’s main premise, using this mating season as an opportunity to learn more about themselves.
Will Josh Hibernate Alone? Will Ray Stay With Him?
Though Josh spends the entire season desperately trying to find someone who will go into a warm hibernation with him, that ultimately proves to be a failed pursuit. Instead, after narrowly missing his chance at finding love at the wedding, Josh decides to spend the winter alone. However, his friends have a different plan altogether, and instead decide to join him in the elaborate process, at least until he falls sound asleep. While the story starts with the characters looking for a mate to spend the winters with, Josh realizes his journey was flawed from the start. His real comfort is not in forcing his way into relationships, but in acknowledging and appreciating the genuine friendships he has cultivated throughout his life.
Funnily enough, while Fawn and Penelope slip out of bed the moment Josh begins snoring, Ray finds his hand stuck under Josh’s, with no chance of the latter even budging anytime soon. While this means that there is a slim chance of Ray being trapped by his best friend’s side all winter long, the more realistic outcome is that he will be pulled out sooner rather than later. On a symbolic level, however, the scene conveys that Josh’s friends might be the only constant factor he will ever need in life, as they have an ironclad pact to stay together no matter how tough the going gets. For Josh, however, this isn’t just a one-sided dynamic, and come next mating season, he will likely have to make a choice between wasting his energy yet again and doing for his friends what they do for him.
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