The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Drama

"Oh, it's funny 'cuz we're dead." "Darn it, he's right, it is funny for that reason."

Isn't it weird to think that, across the last 52 episodes, Gumball has barely done anything to address the fact that Darwin and Carrie are in a romantic relationship? No, like, seriously. The only times it's really been acknowledged are in brief moments where the joke can be made (like "The Deal" and "The Best"), but not in any meaningful way beyond light implication.

Because of that, there's a lot of pressure on "The Drama." More than just being an enjoyable episode, it has to face those near-insurmountable expectations, or else risk being completely ineffective and difficult to believe in its sincerity. Ultimately, it falls somewhere in between, a fun albeit long overdue episode that wants to reaffirm Darwin and Carrie's relationship more than further illustrate it.

There's nothing wrong with simply showing that their relationship is on the show's mind somewhat, but instead of trying to find any particularly incisive angles, "The Drama" examines the perception of their relationship and Gumball's increasing doubt in their well-being (which is, to be fair, incredibly true to the show considering how little anyone has seen of it). That pretty much enables Darwin and Carrie to be at the center of the episode, but they never motivate it in their antics; rather, they present material for Gumball to riff concernedly off of. Because of that, the episode doesn't really go anywhere until Gumball decides he's had enough, even though the events of "The Drama" can barely count as evidence in support of his worldview, cynicism aside.

It should be said, at least, that the episode does look at Darwin and Carrie's relationship very sweetly. Everything about them abides by the general principle that opposites attract, and "The Drama" has a lot of fun just looking at how different various components of their lives and personalities are—Darwin listens to music by The Lollypuppies while Carrie enjoys The Profanities ("The lyrics sound like someone with no head is shouting Swedish furniture names directly from their windpipe!"), and a nice, windy day for Darwin is seen as a haunted burial ground through Carrie's eyes—but each scene serves as a vignette that simply demonstrates their chemistry in spite of the odds. Gumball, of course, for the sake of the story, only examines the odds, though the episode ultimately wants to get us on his side of the situation through the introduction of Carrie's ghostly ex-boyfriend and Hieronymous Bosch painting resident, Azrael.

His use here, though, feels entirely like a convenience to push the plot along, giving Gumball's vision substance as to allow him to directly interfere with how "The Drama" progresses. Sure, he's a somewhat fun character, and I appreciate he has some dimension instead of being the stereotypical ex-boyfriend, but his entire presence feels shoehorned as a means to an end, and with the episode already feeling unadventurous, the blatancy of his use here feels a bit much.

That ultimately serves as Gumball's call to arms, taking Darwin with him to prove that Carrie and Azrael are not to be trusted by themselves. The sequence that follows takes on another form of animation entirely (indebted to character designer Jérémy Pires) as Gumball drags Darwin across town to get to them, with sketchy outlines and neon colors. It's a fun sequence to watch, but at the same time, it feels immediately out of place. When the show takes advantage of shifts in its aesthetics, it's usually driven by some reason relevant to the story. In "The Fury," it's the culmination of a feud that spirals out of control, for instance, and in "The Transformation," it's the medium through which Gumball is able to tell his increasingly absurd story. Here, it doesn't really exist for any exact reason, and it's not triggered by any specific events that would warrant the palette-swap, so while it's colorful and eye-catching, it feels more like a way for the episode to cover up a relatively weaker stretch and make it more memorable, all without really accommodating for the tonal differences those sequences traditionally possess.

After all of that, it turns out that there was nothing for Gumball to worry about. There's no new information presented, but it's at least a nice way to close everything out. The end result, though, is an episode that deserves to exist, but never really takes the opportunity by storm, playing it safe and getting by due to what it delivers, but not the meaningfulness of that final product.

Notes and Quotes:
-"The Drama" reveals that Carrie is canonically a '90s kid. As in a 1690's kid. She's 321 years old. I don't think Romeo and Juliet laws really work out.
-I liked that the egg guy Colin has glasses with a prescription strong enough to see to the edge of the universe. It's just a perfect little one-off joke.
-"Picture it this way: he was like a roaring sports car, and you're more like a shopping cart. Sure, the convertible looks cool, sounds cool, and everyone wants one, but the shopping cart is filled with all the stuff you love."
-"Oh no! They see the world differently! Their relationship is gonna fall apart like a 40 year-old divorcee... that caught leprosy and is bouncing on a pogo stick."
-When I saw the ad for this stretch of episode, I was hoping the scene where Gumball gets his leg stuck in the wall would be from an episode dedicated to animation errors in a similar vein to "The Signal," though I'll gladly accept the episode's fourth wall break with Gumball accidentally knocking against the glass of my television/computer.

FINAL GRADE: B-. While I expect nothing but unceremonious praise from a lot of corners of the Internet in regards to "The Drama," at its core, it's a fairly weak episode that doesn't find anything interesting to do, and with this being the last season of the show, it doesn't give me much hope that we'll see Darwin and Carrie's relationship elaborated on any further. Other than that, it also continues the frustrating trend of using Darwin merely as a pawn for Gumball to react off of and ultimately control how the episode pans out. At the end of the day, "The Drama," while not damage control, feels like Gumball throwing a bone, finding some interesting beats along the way but not creating an interesting journey to sustain them.

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