Carol and the End of the World (Season 1) [Blu-ray]

How would humanity react when faced with imminent extinction? Where would we find meaning? What consolation could we seek? These are important questions raised by the little gem of the animated series Carol and the End of the World. For a person like Carol, her world has been turned upside down with just over six months left before a rogue planet crashes into Earth. Her parents - liberated nudists living together - beg her to find a hobby; her neighbors, recently returned from Tibet, exhort her to seek spiritual enlightenment. Carol feels the need to live her days to the fullest, but all she wants is to find a sense of the predictable old world. She sees distraction in a stable office job. In the accounting office of a forgotten company, Carol meets other lonely souls. Nobody knows what kind of work this is, and no one wants to be interested in it. Carol soon discovers that what she needs most is the camaraderie that she has lacked for most of her life, and she is determined to make connections with the people around her. “Sometimes you just need an office,” says Donna, with whom Carol develops a tentative friendship based on banana bread and mutual calm. At times, the series (from the director of Rick and Morty, by the way) can seem deliberately slow and spare, with one episode dedicated to Carol's search for printer toner, another to her attempt to find out the names of her colleagues. But it's the small, often unspoken details that make this wonderful cartoon so much more three-dimensional than many live-action shows.