The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Shippening

"Ship on sweet electronic creatures."

So "The Shippening" is a bit difficult to evaluate. It's an episode designed to be pandering, stemming from Ben asking fans to come up with odd pairings to incorporate into the show, and to the show's credit, the pandering gets pulled off pretty effortlessly. It never felt like an episode made out of the writers' obligation, and if anything, in terms of sheer entertainment value, it's one of the most fun and charismatic episodes in quite a while.

But they don't call me Mr. Wet Blanket for nothing. Or they used to, so now I have to conform to the label a bit. And that's not to say it's bad, because it's certainly not, but with Gumball being the only show that would come anywhere close to executing the idea with legitimate dedication, there's some ways that it comes up a bit short.

Ultimately, the most important message I got out of "The Shippening" was that they know. This a show pulling out all of the aimless pairings you'd think they were completely unaware of, incorporating existent OCs into the show, giving a shout-out to the mess that is Carball, and throwing around an abbreviated plate of word charcuterie with concerning poise. (I'm very much looking forward to the expected "[expletive] THEY CALL THIS A KID'S SHOW, THEIR THIRD EYE IS WIDE AS [expletive]" tweet.) There's no denying that Gumball is game to mess around, but at the same time, it never truly mingles with what it takes jabs at. It's an episode that feels like it's from the outside looking in, and while no doubt a love-letter, the show never really inhibits the subject.

It's very difficult to explain, but this is a show that has almost always been able to get a firm grasp on whatever it's trying to mimic: instead of poking fun at horror movie tropes, "The Joy" is a legitimate thriller, and for "The Detective," the show actually slowed down the show's pacing to sync up with the beats of a mumbly Southern detective drama. "The Shippening" is affectionate, but... undisciplined, for a lack of a better term.

Fanfiction is just one of those things that's really difficult to make fun of. There's a lot of hyperspecificity that can't be replicated easily, like watching someone try to make something intentionally bad; it's a high-risk, high-reward sort of deal, and "The Shippening" falls somewhere in the middle. It just never feels particularly advantageous. It knows that the outcome will be good no matter what because of the novelty of its premise, so it plays things mostly by the books.

This is really another standard episode of the show with a little bit of twiddling around. The tone is as wry as always, the writing is as you'd hope, and the episode, more than less, stays on-track. And that's sort of the issue. I was expecting a bit more stylistic mimicry—something we got with the visuals (that gradient effect on Carball was egregious but true-to-form) but not the writing. There was an emphasis on hectic wordplay, and that led to a lot of great moments, but the prose felt very broad and straightforward. Maybe a bit more decadence would've helped; the writing oriented the visuals, but it was a mere aid more than strong independent of it.

But that's not to say nothing worked, because to reiterate, "The Shippening" is unbridled fun. It's a breakneck little adventure that shells out visual after visual. In that respect, it certainly rose to the occasion, chalked full of vibrance and creativity. "The Shippening" knows it's a good episode, and it owns it. It just comes at the cost of the episode wanting to push any further. At the very least, though, it's fun to see the writers having an absolute blast working on the show. That's all I could really ask for.

Notes and Quotes:
-I never addressed it, but it was nice seeing Gumball and Darwin take the shift from doing commentary to actively intervening in the episode, and Sarah, though always a difficult character to implement, worked quite well in her little niche.
-The assortment of Awesome Store paraphernalia-related gags at the beginning was a nice creative exercise, and having the final object being glasses that just... serve their purpose was particularly fun.
-"I would say it looks like Cupid needs to lay off the ambrosia for a while."
-"I'm your cousin, Zacharia Lopez Kirby! I have a hyper mood, and I like paragliding and ducks! I hate arguments and itchy hats."
-"And I'm Zacharia's girlfriend, Bexi. It's short for Albexandra. Backstory: I was raised by my uncle Timutet and his twin dogs Rahmir and Castro. Catchphrase: 'This bird is out of control!'"
-"What did you do this time?" "Nothing, I swear! I was just writing some non-canon AT and AR ships, the odd one out here and there, and a bit of OOC, some OC drawings of course, but mostly OTP squees and fan service."
-"It's like a commercial for male deodorant out there!"
-The reference to Yuki x Nicole slash, I'm sure, made a lot of people very happy in many regions of their body.
-Stop staring at that image.

FINAL GRADE: B. I pretty much explained my position well enough, but let it be know that a "B" is not inherently bad. Sure, it can stand in for an episode that doesn't fully realize what it's doing, but in the case of "The Shippening," it's a game of expectations. There's no shortage of things that it succeeds at, and Gumball certainly didn't fumble its one shot, but it could've been a bit tighter with a little more commitment to the source material. But insofar as you want some entertainment, you'll walk away with everything you could've possibly desired.

For the last Gumball review of "The Neighbor," CLICK HERE.