Apocalypse Goals

Apocalypse Goals is an apocalyptic surreal comedy series created by American comedians Sydney Heller and Olivia DeLaurentis. The first season premiered on July 10, 2019, and ended July 28. The series was picked up for a second season, which aired in mid-2020.
The series consists of short episodes, each five minutes in length, shot in portrait orientation (so as to be compatible with smartphone screens). It describes an alien apocalypse caused by then-President Donald Trump tweeting "crumpfintld;", a profanity in the aliens' language. The show follows two main characters, Syd and Olivia, who return to Los Angeles from a bachelorette party in Las Vegas, as they seek shelter from the aliens.
Plot.
Season 1.
Bridesmaids Syd (Sydney Heller) and Olivia (Olivia DeLaurentis) return from a bachelorette party held in Los Vegas and find out that their LA apartment is gone. They hear on the news that extraterrestrial life has come to Earth and started vaporizing everything, following a Tweet by Donald Trump reading "crumpfintld;", starting in Los Angeles and moving eastward. They start driving away from California in attempt to escape the aliens, but when their car is vaporized, they are left to walk their way through the desert and seek shelter.
They first stay with a strange man named Mork (Tom Clark), who lives with his dead mom's skeleton. When they settle in, Mork clarifies to them that they will be there forever. Olivia expresses her will to kill Mork and take over his house, but Syd experiences Stockholm syndrome and tries to persuade Olivia into staying. Olivia eventually defenestrates Mork and takes a map he had which leads to a safe house in Arizona. The house then gets vaporized, along with the girls' cars.
They walk into a supermarket and start looting. They then start walking towards the safe house, which is a four day walking distance from them. On the way there, they meet their exes Chazz (Peter Gilroy) and Diesel (Jacob Wysocki), who offer them shelter. After the exes, who are found to have severe mental issues, try to woo Syd and Olivia with serenades, Syd again wants to stay, but Olivia convinces her to leave. They steal a car and continue their route to Arizona alone. Accepting their inevitable death, they create a bucket list and try everything they wanted to do before they die. Olivia regrets that she never got to punch somebody in the face. Syd suggests she loosen up and have a wet t-shirt contest. She does so and wins. While the victory makes Olivia and consequently Syd happy again, they lose all their water in the process, and their car once again gets vaporized.
The two girls then go on a dating app in attempt to find somebody to stay with. They stay with a vlogger named Kelsey Rae Onion (Cheyenne Perez), who they quickly find out is very mentally unstable. They choose to stay with her because she has clean water but eventually choose to continue looking for the safe house. On their way out, Syd steals a water purifier.
Once again on the dating app, Syd "matches" with her estranged father Sid Sr. (Henry Dittman), who is hosting a party for women aged 18 to 25. He does not want to reconcile with his daughter, but pretends to care for her because he has no clean water. Syd and Olivia join the party, and Sid Sr. tells his daughter that he bought her the fuchsia Furby she always wanted before he abandoned her family and that he left it in a shed outside the house. When Syd leaves the house, Sid Sr. steals the water purifier and leaves the girls alone and without water.
They eventually reach the safe house after having walked a long distance on foot, suffering from severe heat stroke. The safe house is out of business, and the girls have an argument that leads them to part ways. When apart, they find out how co-dependent they are. Mork returns and chases Syd, before being confronted by Olivia, who saves Syd by punching Mork in the face, fulfilling her dream and making peace with Syd.
Season 2.
Three months into the future, the aliens have eliminated almost all human life. Syd and Olivia are seen still in their bridesmaid dresses, barging into a religious family's home and threatening to poison them with ill mice if they don't feed them. The family only has spiders for food, which the family's father reluctantly gives up, but the house gets vaporized along with the spiders.
An unnamed janitor (Jerry Trainor) takes over the news and announces that virtually everyone else is dead, leaving Syd and Olivia exasperated. They decide they need to change clothes and they walk into an abandoned Halloween costume shop. They take and wear two ketchup bottle costumes. They are encountered by a cult of cannibals, who let the girls go because of a rule that forbids eating someone in front of their friend. Syd and Olivia start looking for a cult to join. They run into Lynette (Caitlyn Knisely), a bridesmaid from the bachelorette party who's in bad relations with the girls. All cults end up rejecting them, and Olivia sets her intentions on becoming the President of the United Cults of America.
Syd theorizes that since everything around Syd and Olivia vaporized other than them (namely Mork, his house, their car, the family's house, etc.) they are "the chosen ones". Meanwhile, Olivia runs for President against the incumbent leader Mongo, who wins by a landslide. The girls then run into a small child and offer him to join a cult with them. The kid pretends to join them and leans in to hug Olivia before stabbing her with a knife. The girls take off their ketchup costumes, which are then stolen, and continue traveling completely naked. They raid a house that belonged to a family of furries, where they get clean clothes and once again run into Lynette, who confesses to them that she made the cults reject them. She explains that she did it because they are the ones responsible for the apocalypse. She shows them a video from the bachelorette party, which nobody seems to remember due to excessive consumption of alcohol, where the bridesmaids hacked into famous people's accounts and made them tweet things they found in their drafts.
Syd and Olivia join forces with Lynette. Together, they find a Ouija board and try to communicate with vaporized people. However, the board is rude to them and wishes them death. Olivia throws the board away, which prompts a sandstorm. The three women escape and enter a small house where couples speed-date and procreate to repopulate the earth. One of the speed-daters is Sid Jr, who does not recognize his daughter. He ends up getting along with Lynette, which sends Syd screaming at both of them. Syd and Olivia continue their journey without Lynette, who is then seen secretly watching the video from the bachelorette party, which proves that she is the one who sent the Tweet from Donald Trump's account, saying she would blame someone else if push comes to shove. She deletes the video.
Syd and Olivia watch the news, in which the janitor has no news to give. They decide that if the janitor is still able to enjoy himself, they should have a good day too. They try to find fun activities, but their day of fun is cut short when a stranger pelts them with fire ants. While attempting to get rid of the ants, they get hit by a beach chair, which has "apocalypse realtor" Jill Stein's (Lauren Pritchard) details on them. They are approached by Jill, who offers to find an apartment for them. Since most houses have been vaporized, the girls move into a basement. They run into three gay men who claim to be related, and convince them to make Olivia their cult leader. Syd takes on the role of cult prophet.
Having now broken up with Lynette, Sid Sr. gets chased by the cannibals, who decide not to eat him once Syd sees them. Lynette, meanwhile, is a guest on the janitor's news broadcast. She reveals to the people remaining on earth that Syd and Olivia caused the apocalypse, which sends everyone running after Syd and Olivia. After finally escaping the angry mob, Syd decides that they should confront the mob, suggesting that they attract the aliens' attention by writing "crumpfintld;" on the ground. When the aliens arrive, Syd attempts to talk to them to no avail. Eventually, she decides to sacrifice herself, leaving Olivia to take care of the world.
Characters.
Main characters.
Olivia (Olivia DeLaurentis) - Syd's best friend. Neurotic and obsessed with winning. Usually more rational than Syd. Her dream is to be President.
Syd (Sydney Heller) - Olivia's best friend. Impulsive, attracted to everyone and interested in a relationship with Olivia. Accidentally ran over Olivia in the past.
Recurring characters.
Sid Sr. (Henry Dittman) - Syd's estranged father. Abandoned her in her childhood after promising to buy her a Furby.
Lynette (Caitlyn Knisely; Season 2) - Annoying and uncool, hates everyone and hated by Syd and Olivia, was in a relationship with Sid Sr. Caused the apocalypse and blamed Syd and Olivia.
News Janitor (Jerry Trainor; Season 2) - An arsonist janitor who takes over the media. Serves as a narrator in the second season. Very loud and aggressive.
Mork (Tom Clark; Season 1) - A creepy man who lives with the skeleton of his mother. Gives Syd and Olivia shelter and intends to keep them forever as his wives.
Minor characters.
Diesel (Jacob Wysocki) - Olivia's ex-boyfriend. Blames her for things she has never done. Addicted to drugs.
Chazz (Peter Gilroy) - Syd's ex-boyfriend, who still wants to be with her. Plays the guitar. Has a criminal past.
Kelsey Rae Onion (Cheyenne Perez) - A YouTube vlogger. Has severe mental issues. Briefly houses Syd and Olivia.
Casey (Toshi Calderón) - Woman trying to survive the apocalypse. Accused of obsession with her dying uncle.
Jill Stein (Lauren Pritchard) - Apocalypse realtor. Very aggressive. Relation to real-life politician Jill Stein unclear.
Jeff (Neel Nanda) - Leader of the Cannibal's Cult. Moral and eloquent.
Production.
DeLaurentis and Heller met for the first time eight years before Apocalypse Goals, on the Agoura High after-school "Comedysportz" team for improv comedy. According to Heller, they "never got put on the same team because [their] coaches [said] 'If you guys are in the same scene, nobody else will ever be able to talk'". After the two graduated high school, Heller went to UCLA and DeLaurentis focused on her filmmaking career. Eventually, Heller contacted DeLaurentis and suggested they form a comedy duo. In 2015, they founded "Barely Legal Comedy", a company through which they produced their independent sketches and their 2017 mini-series "Sugar Babies".
The second season of the show was completed in early 2020, around the same time the COVID-19 pandemic started. Being a series about the end of the world (as well as mentioning "the plague"), Apocalypse Goals coincidentally became one of the first works of fiction to refer to the timely hardships of 2020 in real time.
Reception.
The series was met with critical acclaim. Following the release of the show's first season, Ron Purtee of iHeartRadio described DeLaurentis and Heller as "two of the funniest women on the planet. Hands down." On IMDb, the series holds an average user score of 7.6.
As of April 2021, the series has 312,000 followers on its official channel.
Creators.
Olivia C. DeLaurentis (born 23 April 1996) is an actress, comedian, writer and director. She is the daughter of actress Diane Franklin and The Fairly OddParents writer Ray De Laurentis. Her brother, Nick DeLaurentis, is a singer. She is in a relationship with singer-songwriter Jake Hays, whose music videos are directed and produced by DeLaurentis. She is of Italian descent.
Sydney "Syd" Heller (born 1995/6) is an actress, writer, singer and playwright based in Los Angeles. She graduated from UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television in 2017. She wrote for Amy Poehler's "Smart Girls" and has won multiple awards for her writing, alongside DeLaurentis. She is an ethnic Romanian Jew.
Both actresses are represented by Omnipop and own TikTok channel @sydandolivia, which as of April 2021 has 286.6K followers, making them the 3,907th most followed TikTok account according to SocialBlade.
Future.
Following a positive reaction to the series, Snapchat asked DeLaurentis and Heller to produce a separate show specifically about the ongoing pandemic. The series, titled "Stir Crazy", was released in mid-to-late-2020. It bears many similarities to Apocalypse Goals, and serves as a loosely-based spin-off.
Fans have asked Snapchat and the creators for a third season, but no plans to make one are known.