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This article contains spoilers for\u00a0<\/em>Long Story Short.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I was prepared to cry buckets. Like any medicated zillennial, I had worshipped at the altar of BoJack Horseman<\/em>, the Netflix hit about a washed-up sitcom actor who is also a horse. From 2014 through early 2020, the series redefined adult animation: It was surreal, structurally inventive, and a merciless satire of show business. I knew that creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg\u2019s next project<\/a> would bring an avalanche of wordplay\u2014and, sooner or later, tears.<\/p>\n What I didn\u2019t anticipate was how Long Story Short<\/em>, Bob-Waksberg\u2019s new Netflix series, would force me to sit with my own grief over the COVID-19 pandemic. The animated dramedy follows the Schwooper siblings\u2014Avi (Ben Feldman), Shira (Abbi Jacobson), and Yoshi (Max Greenfield)\u2014over decades, exploring how childhood experiences ripple into adulthood. The early episodes make no mention of the virus. Then, 16 minutes into Episode 4, Shira and her children appear in N95 masks at the grocery store. References accumulate: Shira bristles at an event without social distancing or masking precautions; Episode 6, the delightfully absurd \u201cWolves,\u201d hinges on literal wolves overrunning a middle school during lockdown. These moments are played for laughs, but they carry more weight once we learn that the Schwooper matriarch died from COVID-19.<\/p>\n