A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part IX: 24-16

This is Part IX of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part VIII, CLICK HERE.

For Your Consideration: Joe Pera Talks With You Season 2 (So Far)

"I've never been bored, not once in my life."

--

Even though I've only expounded upon my love of Joe Pera Talks With You on one other occasion that nobody read, my adoration of the show is a rather open secret. There are few shows that I've walked into not knowing what to expect only to be completely floored (which seems to be something Adult Swim has done an increasingly great job at), but Talks With You accomplished that with complete ease.

While I do consider myself a critic, there's something intrinsically hard to assess about Talks With You because it's so original and true to itself. It doesn't trudge in the footsteps of obvious predecessors; it's a one-of-a-kind product that walks to the beat of its own drum and never doubts itself. That's what made Season 1 so amazing to me: the dreamy quality it possesses in waxing on the simplest things in life with earnest. Some people find the show boring for that very reason because there's no dramatic conflict, and arguably very little happens, but that's what makes everything work.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part VIII: 49-25

This is Part VIII of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part VII, CLICK HERE.

Just a quick thing before we start up again: sorry for the list coming to a screeching halt over the past two months! I've been busy with college and this blog is a one-man operation, let alone one that I haven't made a cent off of. Hopefully the list will be complete before 2020, but I don't want to make any promises I can't 100% keep.

Now let's keep this enterprise rollin'.

For Your Consideration: Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal (Episodes 1-5)

"..."

--

(Note: this review is almost entirely spoiler-free in regards to plot developments.)

I'll admit that Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal, the latest addition to Adult Swim's line-up, almost flew under my radar entirely. I was well aware of the show leading up to its release and liked what I saw from the trailer, but it never really jumped out to me as a must-watch. At best, I assumed, it was just another experimental show for Adult Swim's roster, and my lack of a history watching Tartakovsky's other works (Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack) meant I didn't really have any frame of reference for what sort of show Primal would even be. It was by a stroke of good luck, then, that I decided to check out the first episode to fill a little bit of spare time, because within 22 minutes, I was utterly blown away.

It's rare to see a television show of any variety, cartoon or not, that gives off an aura of knowing exactly what it wants to be doing by its first episode, but within minutes, it's clear that Primal has fully recognized its ambitions. With such a straightforward premise, too—the miniseries is centered around the unlikely camaraderie between a dinosaur, Fang, on the edge of extinction and a caveman, Spear, at the dawn of evolution—it's astonishing how unique Primal is able to feel, for which Tartakovsky deserves all the credit in the world.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part VII: 74-50

This is Part VII of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part VI, CLICK HERE.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part VI: 99-75

This is Part VI of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part V, CLICK HERE.

Final Space: The Sixth Key

"There's no turning back now. We're going in."

Season 2 has been an interesting beast. Whereas Season 1 was an exclusively linear straight-shot with one character's story arc in mind (Gary's), this season's been intent on branching everything out, incorporating a larger cast with more varied backgrounds and working to do justice to each and every one of them, all with a more episodic format. It's admittedly been more of a mixed bag, creating some of the strongest and weakest entries in the series so far, but with "The Sixth Key" tying everything together, I'm happy to consider the past season to be, by and large, a triumph.

Last season's finale was the peak of Season 1's tragedy, a massive downer that picked through the show's cast and left them, at least by (incorrect) assumption, for dead. With Season 2 being a more optimistic season overall, though, it makes sense that it would end on a more hopeful note. It's a pleasant surprise, and while no doubt filled with some heart-wrenching moments, it's never too cruel; there's a sense of progress, and of all of the past twelve episodes' work gelling into one concentrated effort.

Final Space Review: The Descent Into Darkness

"Mom, maybe we... we try therapy. Just a few visits just to explore things."

Not unlike last season's penultimate episode, there's a resounding sense that "The Descent Into Darkness" is one final victory, as clear-cut as Final Space allows for, before we plunge into the abyss. It's far from lighthearted, but Gary and the crew come out of everything on top, even if it's only a matter of time—a week, to be exact—before things come crashing back down.

The most curious thing about "The Descent Into Darkness" is that it acknowledges that there are multiple sides to every story. We've seen whiffs of it across the season, most notably in Todd H. Watson (who also returns here), but there was largely a sense of black and white, and that Gary and his team were the good guys squaring off against a cruel universe. Of all of the series' new characters, though, few have been as much of a slow burner as Sheryl. Her debut episode set her up as a strictly antagonistic force that exists to reverse Gary's progress, but every subsequent use has slowly given her more humanity, and more of an angle: she might be flawed and heinous, but she's human.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part V: 124-100

This is Part V of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part IV, CLICK HERE.

Final Space Review: The Set Up

"Go to sleep, my electronic princess."

While Season 2 has been far more episodic in its content than Season 1, this week's episode was a reminder that sometimes, you just have to get down to business. It's not an episode seeking to do anything conceptually high-wire nor overly-dramatic, existing as the last big push before we descend into the final leg of the season. There's nothing wrong with that, and its contributions are incredibly significant, but much of it doesn't register as a shock so much as a palatable dive back into the nitty-gritty.

The bulk of what "The Set Up" wants to surprise us with is Clarence's betrayal through giving Gary a false lead, deactivating A.V.A., and secretly departing the Crimson Light with the crew's Dimensional Keys en route to Sheryl. If anyone was going to betray the group, it was most definitely Clarence, though to the episode's credit, it's not as if he was preparing a revenge plot the entire time so much as acting off of an impulse reaction due to his narcissism not being fed on Carnivolo, a fake holiday he invented as a vehicle for others to give him lavish praise. I like that serving as the catalyst for what happens; it gives more spontaneity to how everything plays out rather than simply feeling like an idea that was carefully telegraphed into the narrative. There's an implication that Sheryl's been trying to court him for a while, well aware of his infatuation with her, and he's succumbed to his breaking point at the worst possible time.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part IV: 149-125

This is Part IV of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part III, CLICK HERE.

Final Space Review: The Lost Spy

"Why must you damage property every time I accidentally poison a step-mother?"

Hot off of the most intense episode of the series, it would be unfair to judge "The Lost Spy" too harshly for being a far more low-key affair. A cool-down episode was necessary, offering Final Space a chance to reflect on its previous events and return to form, which it largely succeeds at, but sadly, I don't think it's anywhere near the series at its finest. For all the good things it manages to accomplish, it can be frustrating in equal amounts.

A lot of that comes down to how "The Lost Spy" allocates its time. There's three different plots going on: Gary tries to find Lil Cato, who has left the Crimson Light following the events of last episode, Clarence attempts to pull off another con with the help of Ash and Fox, and last but certainly not least, Todd captures Sheryl in an attempt to track down Gary. If you're thinking that two of those three are going to make up the meat of the episode, you're wrong—while Gary and Sheryl's arcs are far heavier, a surprising amount of time is invested in Clarence's scheme, and it seriously throws "The Lost Spy" off its balance.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part III: 179-150

This is Part III of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part II, CLICK HERE.

Final Space Review: The Closer You Get

"You shouldn't have come here. I tried to warn you."

Alright, Final Space, damn.

When I was writing my last review, I was very torn about whether or not I should simply scrap what I had and make a double-feature review for it and "The Closer You Get"; it's billed as a two-parter, after all. But I decided to simply put my thoughts down there to encapsulate that moment in time, and I stressed heavily that its merit rested largely on this. "The Remembered" had a lot to justify in my mind, but perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm an idiot for underestimating Final Space.

Spoiler warning! Like, seriously, this is a monumental episode and I don't want this ruined for you. Alright.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part II: 209-180

This is Part II of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part I, and an explanation of what any of this is, CLICK HERE.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part I: The Introduction + 240-210

Yes. I did it. I ranked all 240 episodes of The Amazing World of Gumball, from May 3rd, 2011 to June 24th, 2019.

(IF YOU WANT TO SKIP TO THE START OF THE LIST, SCROLL DOWN A LITTLE!)

I expect this to be sent to every person you know with the caption, "The fucking madman actually did it," regardless of if they know who I am, or if they've seen the show, or if they respond with "We haven't talked in a year, and I feel like we've been further apart than we used to, yet however much that initially hurt me, however much I had to step away from everything and learn to grow on my own... I'd like to keep it that way. Please delete my number." This is important.

Enough of the dramatics, though. I've been a fan of Gumball for several years now, and it's a very important, personal show to me. Since 2016, I've been writing about the series, episode to episode, meeting like-minded people and discovering things about myself. It's taught me almost everything I know about comedy; it even set forth my career trajectory and my aspirations of becoming a comedy writer, which I can only really liken to an enthusiastic but moderately-flammable ship. Basically, it's no understatement to say that a lot of my life decisions are indebted to the show.

With that all said, I decided that the best way to reaffirm my love for the show was this... I don't know either. But I wrote it! Since January, I've rewatched the entire series and carefully assembled my definitive ranking of every single episode of the show, from worst to best. But before we get started, here's a few things to keep in mind:

Final Space Review: The Remembered

"This is so serious."

Well, I feel like some parts of my last review didn't age too well. I knew that something particularly shocking was coming up, and the fact that Olan considers "The Remembered" to be the first piece of a two-parter means that we're only halfway across the journey... but what an interesting ride. (Massive spoilers here, by the way, So keep that in mind, and watch the episode before reading this if you haven't already.)

Final Space Review: The First Times They Met

"Here. It. Comes."

--

There's been a fair amount of hype surrounding this episode; after all, it's a network favorite, and an episode that Olan himself has sung his praises of in as vague a way as one can manage. It's always hard to predict what could come next from Final Space, a show always ready to nail you with a curveball without a moment's notice, and "The First Times They Met" does exactly that, allocating half of its time to one of the series' silliest subplots yet and the other half to one of its most intimate narratives yet, a delightful and heart-breaking showcase for Nightfall.

Season 2 has been a mixed bag in regards to its subplots, but this episode manages to find a great sweet spot between adrenaline-packed drama and lovable insanity in the form of a K.V.N. uprising. Apparently, Clarence, being the unscrupulous businessman he is, bought a surplus of K.V.N.s on discount because they had a derangement virus, and deeming them collector's items, locked them in the Crimson Light for decades, and once our K.V.N. breaks them out, they all conspire to murder Clarence and take over the ship. It's a hay-wire idea that turns its portion of the episode into a thriller of ungodly proportions.

Final Space Review: The Arachnitects

"Okay, this part is cool. I will give you that."

There's a lot going on in "The Arachnitects," pursuing three distinct ideas across its 22-minute timespan: Tribor's departure from the Combo Pack to rebuild the resistance, everyone else's journey to activate a Dimensional Key after Mooncake gets mysteriously taken hostage in another dimension, and the offering of a heavy dose of world-building mythology. It's a surprising change of pace for the season, presenting itself as a detour through and through, but an incredibly important one, and against all odds, it's probably the most crucial piece of the puzzle to Season 2's elaborate narrative yet.

Of everything about "The Arachnitects" that needs to be tackled, perhaps the best place to start (as the episode does) is by discussing Tribor. Ever since being rescued in "The Happy Place," there's been a sense that he was destined for something else, with his limited contributions to the episodes that followed leaving the series' intentions of having him involved fairly dubious. The reveal that he chooses to leave the crew and forge his own path, in that sense, checks out, and it seems to promise that he'll offer a more exciting presence. Unfortunately, though, not much of that really shows here.

Final Space Review: The Notorious Mrs. Goodspeed

"Ready, kid?" "I was born ready." "Actually, you were born during the rinse cycle of a hovercarwash." "I was? Oh, well that would explain a lot actually."

It was interesting, over the first season and into the second, that Gary's mom has never really been acknowledged; though Gary idolizes his father, it always felt like his relationship with his mother, Sheryl Goodspeed, was in a sore spot considering her general absence from the series' flashbacks. "The Notorious Mrs. Goodspeed" fills us in on their tenuous relationship with a series of interesting revelations, and even if it didn't shake me at my core in the same sense as the episode preceding it, it's an important stepping stone for the season that'll no doubt impact Final Space's narrative as it progresses in interesting ways.

Perhaps the most interesting thing "The Notorious Mrs. Goodspeed" reveals is that Sheryl's a notorious criminal; she disappeared out of Gary's life shortly after the death of his father and ultimately ended up on Prison planet Sorbo, considered one of the most dangerous criminals in the star system, now facing public execution. Gary wants to see her again as a means of attaining closure for himself—he despises her and decides it's his turn to "say a lot and abandon her" for strictly retributive purposes—but as soon as he's actually put in front of her, he can't help himself but be won over by her presence.

Amphibia Review: Reunion

"Spranne against the world."

--

This the moment we've all been waiting for, and it was worth the journey. More than just being the pinnacle of everything that happened over the past month, "Reunion" is Amphibia showing its dramatic potential, an entry that looks to prove the series' worth amidst its contemporaries, and in that respect, it's a massive success. This is a show demonstrating that it knows what it's doing, and demonstrating that its narrative has been building up to this point while adding new, daring elements that seek to change the game that Amphibia's worked so hard to establish, and that combination of acknowledging the old while compounding the scope and vision of the show ensures that "Reunion" is a milestone.

A lot of its success is indebted to Sasha. We've only seen her in one episode prior, though she made such a strong impression that she feels fully-realized from the start. I made her out to be nothing but an antagonistic force back then keen on manipulating her friends, but "Reunion" reveals her to be a character with a lot more dimensions than simply being exploitative: as its beginning flashback reveals, she actually does value and look after what she perceives as Anne's best interests.

Amphibia Weekly Round-up Review (feat. "Cursed!," "Fiddle Me This," "Anne of the Year," and more!)

"I'm not sure if all this was a blessing, or a curse." "It was literally a curse, Anne."

Since tomorrow's episode, "Reunion," is something that'll undoubtedly be major, I'll reserve an individual slot for it considering that I assume that there will be a lot to say about it. In the meantime, though, there's six episodes to cover, so let's just dive on in, because there's lots to discuss.

In its final stretch of episodes, Amphibia's getting more ambitious, though its occasional adherence to its own norms tends to play out to its own harm. When Amphibia tries to fiddle with new, engaging ideas, it's almost always a success, getting to demonstrate the strength of its writing, but at this point in time, it can regularly get bogged down by its own sense of regularity.

Case in point: cliffhanger ending aside, I wasn't too swung by the season's penultimate episode, "Anne of the Year." It's an episode aiming to be the culmination of Anne's time in Wartwood: she's gone from a local freak of nature to Frog of the Year, voted upon by its citizens as the resident who best exemplifies selflessness and Wartwood's values. Naturally, Mayor Toadstool disagrees and prepares for disaster in the form of the massive party that the FOTY has to plan for Wartwood, and even more naturally, Anne goes crazy over it.

Final Space Review: The Other Side

"Yeah. It's about time."

While the first three episodes of the past season have been alright, they've suffered from issues of being somewhat scattershot, unable to balance the season's cast in fulfilling ways that leave them feeling a touch sub-par. A lot of those issues, I felt, stemmed partially from the series taking a few steps back from the straight-shooting serialization of its last season, with the extra breathing room provided this time around meaning that episodes tend to feel a lot more loose and, occasionally, most of their events can seem inconsequential. But that's changing now.

 "The Other Side" is Final Space proving that, even with the more episodic nature of its second season, it can still create a work of emotional magnitude. Even if, by its end, there's a feeling that nothing too paradigm-shifting happened, and that its narrative was a mere pit stop in Gary's quest to collect the Dimensional Keys, it works by means of its intrinsic significance as a heart-wrenching tale of loneliness, isolation, and grief. This isn't an episode that has to exist, but I'm glad that it does.

Amphibia Weekly Round-up Review (feat. "Croak and Punishment," "Snow Day," "Wally and Anne," and more!)

"Wow, you've gone from Town Beast to Town Protector! Big fan of that narrative."

(Because of Disney's ridiculous "eight-episodes-a-week" scheduling, I'm trying a new way to write about the show. Hopefully it works out.)

Amphibia is clearly aware of how ambitious its narrative will ultimately become, but at the moment, it's embracing a more episodic nature, with hints of its progression occasionally coming to the forefront with some level of influence. It's a sound formula, and one that allows the writing to occupy a very specific and valuable time and place: it allows its characters to establish themselves, and gives time to flesh out the universe of the show. It's just a matter of, at this point, what more the series really needs to elaborate upon, and while this past string of episodes has been consistently fun, it feels like Amphibia tends to coasts along by virtue of its own goodwill and inherent strengths, occasionally (but not always) bringing something new to the table.

Perhaps most noticeable is how many of the past few episodes have used Sprig as a catalyst for conflict, to varied effect. Entries like "Trip to the Archives" and "Family Fishing Trip" feel somewhat on auto-pilot by taking advantage of his ability to behave poorly, and even if they're just another means of him learning some valuable lesson along the way, it's a lesson he's learned enough times that the repetitive nature of his use feels sort of disruptive. There's certainly an interesting kernel to their premises, with "Trip to the Archives" being a field trip to the town archives to ready Anne for her journey and "Family Fishing Trip" showing how Hop Pop's new relationship with Sylvia affects Sprig, but they just take advantage of his ability to be petty, which feels unflattering.

Final Space Review: The Grand Surrender

"What's the plan?" "I didn't think that far ahead! That's not good at all!"

In my last review, I wrote a lot about the struggles with Final Space's massive cast, and while "The Grand Surrender" manages to solidify them a lot more while telling a tighter, more focused narrative, a lot of those issues still persist. With seven characters filling out the episode's A-plot, and the remaining three taking care of the B-plot, there's a lot more of a happy balance reached in the weight of what each party handles, but no matter how fulfilling the episode's narrative is on a lot of fronts, the underutilization of a large slice of its ensemble leaves a bit of a frustrating aftertaste.

On the plus side, "The Grand Surrender" gives us a new name for our current rotation of heroes: they're the Combo Pack. It's an apt descriptor, too: what we've got is an assemblage of fries, and onion rings, and dipping sauces, and yes, unfortunately, napkins. It makes for an interesting, and I should hope, relevant little bit of allegorical criticism, so let's just break this one down. It'll be fun, right? Right.

Amphibia Review: Civil Wart / Hop-Popular

"Ah, theater night. The one night a month we come together, watch our stories, and forget all our horrible, horrible troubles."

Okay, I just want to get this out of the way: it's obviously Team Alastair. His eyes sparkle like stars and the dude slays with the panflutes. I'm not falling for some phony Schwarzenegger-ass lumbersexual.

Slightly less importantly, "Civil Wart" was a great episode. While the last set of episodes left me skeptical of the show's sense of ambition when not pursuing more serious parts of its narrative, "Civil Wart" immediately assuaged me of my concerns, leaping into a particularly crazy idea with full force. In this case, after Anne shows "Love Choice," a movie where two dudes compete for the love of a girl named Constance, the town gets split into two aggressive factions rallying behind each male lead, both spearheaded by the Plantar kids—Sprig is on Team Alastair, and Polly is pro-Hunter.

Sure, it's inherently funny to watch how dramatically the feud plays out, with Wartwood devolving into a warzone with a line straight down the middle of town, and the snippets of "Love Choice" we get shown are appreciably weird in how they spoof Twilight-esque movies, but the best part of the episode is just how it illustrates Sprig and Polly's brother-sister relationship. I've consistently struggled with Polly's role in the show because I feel like she never feels genuine as a character (instead dishing out mocking commentary whenever she can), but she tends to do well when she's actually in the spotlight, and "Civil Wart" is no different, allowing her to participate in some pretty nice character work.

Amphibia Review: Grubhog Day / Hop Pop and Lock

"Don't stare into the abyss, Anne. After all, it stares back."

Following yesterday's spoils, perhaps there's some disappointment to be felt in "Grubhog Day" and "Hop Pop and Lock," two episodes that very well could've happened far earlier. They don't acknowledge the changes that "Toad Tax" afforded Anne in her place in the community, most noticeably, even though it's not a necessary factor into the episodes themselves, but that still leaves room to feel somewhat disappointed by the gesture that the show was seeming to make. Either way, today's batch isn't bad—just pleasant, if unremarkable.

"Grubhog Day" is definitely the more conventional episode, and probably one of the most straightforward yet: Hop Pop makes Sprig watch over the Grubhog, Amphibia's warped take on Groundhog Day's groundhog. In traditional fashion, though, Anne convinces Sprig of a middle ground, with them taking the creature out of its cage and celebrating a day at the fairgrounds with it. Naturally, this backfires as badly as you would expect, with the Grubhog being captured by a bird and flown away.

Amphibia Review: Toad Tax / Prison Break

"Now, who wants pill bug pancakes?" "Oh, my favorite! I've been here too long."

With Amphibia at its halfway point, I was anticipating some more legitimate development in the show's narrative; most episodes in the past, after all, have been more focused on building up the show's cast of characters through more episodic, conventional subjects without taking any bold steps towards anything greater. Luckily, today's episodes delivers on every front, bringing about a sense of real change, aiming to shift the status quo and ready the second half for some exciting changes.

"Toad Tax" will tragically go somewhat underappreciated by virtue of the episode it's paired with, though both feel incredibly seminal in their own ways. Here, the show finally tackles the townsfolk's perception of Anne in a meaningful way, something that's always been somewhat in the background but never examined in such a way as to suggest a break in the cycle. As much as I enjoyed "Breakout Star," which a lot of people didn't, even I have to admit that it played more with their perceptions of Anne for laughs without making any more poignant examinations, so "Toad Tax," in that sense, feels incredibly refreshing and exciting, taking that episode's ideas and pushing them towards a certain end.

Final Space Review: The Happy Place

"Gary, where are you?" "In case you're interested, H.U.E. is right here. Heyyy."

When "The Toro Regatta" ended, one thing caught me somewhat off-guard: with its last frame smushing Gary, Lil Cato, H.U.E., K.V.N., Nightfall, and newcomers Clarence, Fox, and Ash together, I realized that the current cast of the show is straight bloated. Throughout Season 1, every gain seemed to be matched with a loss, keeping the sizable ensemble at a steady equilibrium, but this season's gains threaten that sense of harmony, and unfortunately, I don't feel like "The Happy Place" really put me any more at ease with that fact.

That's not to say that "The Happy Place" doesn't find some great utilization with most of the cast, because it certainly does. An early highlight is the cold open, taking the form of a sprawling, cinematic pissing match between Gary, Clarence, and almost the entire cast (Nightfall watches on, completely unphased), and it's the sort of go-for-broke joke that just works because of its insanity and dedication, all while getting everyone in on the fun. Likewise, even once all the characters get broken up, none of them ever fade into the background. The premise of the episode, though, doesn't enable them to show a stronger sense of chemistry than we've seen before, even when it tries to advance them as a unit.

Amphibia Review: Contagi-Anne / Family Shrub

"Wow, that's uncharacteristically generous of you."

Amphibia episodes tend to play like extended proverbs and life lessons. No matter how complex the episode, there's a basic sense of lesson-learning crucial to each of them. From the very start with a basic but cleverly-subverted message about not judging books by their cover, to "Breakout Star" teaching you to never forget where you came from, there's a sort of fortune cookie mentality, with each episode dispensing some nugget of uncomplicated wisdom on its way to the finish line. It's never to the expense of the material of the show itself, and it allows for a basic throughline of optimism that connects every episode, but at a certain point, you wonder if there's really any other mode that Amphibia can switch into.

"Contagi-Anne" is, in that respect, as straightforward in its lesson-learning as it can get. Instead of helping out her new family with protecting their crops during the worst rainstorm of the year, Anne decides to fake coming down with a bad case of the Mocha Lattes, but as a result of her refusal to lend a helping hand, all the other Plantars get legitimately sick, and it's her job to take care of them. That's a fine bit of situational irony in and of itself, but there's the extra step taken of having all of them come down with a far worse ailment: a deadly disease called Red Leg, which turns you red from legs up until you croak. (Heh, frog puns.)

Amphibia Review: Dating Season / Anne vs. Wild

"Alright, boy, go get that lucrative business relationship!... I mean... romantic relationship! Saved it."

"Dating Season" and "Anne vs. Wild" are, generally speaking, more traditional episodes of the show, but they're both looking to shake up the status quo in interesting ways, with the former seeking to expand upon the show on a more developmental level with its characters, and the latter taking the show's most explicitly narrative-driven stride yet. They're nothing too grand on their own, but they're the stepping stones to greater things, and suggest that, sooner or later, this season is gonna experience some pretty serious shifts, and the story lurching in the background of the show is preparing to jump out into the forefront.

"Dating Season" is, by far, the more simple of the two. While most previous episodes of the show have put Anne in the spotlight, "Dating Season" decidedly puts Sprig first, and it's an exciting idea for the show to get behind, allowing him to really prove his worth as a character independent of the others. He does a great job, too; the episode cleverly casts almost every other character against him in their encouragement that he pursue his friend, Ivy, but after giving some traditional courtship the good old college try, he decides he's miserable and flees into the forest with her to hang out like a couple of buddies and watch some fireflies.

Final Space Review: The Toro Regatta

"Gary, may I speak in ironics? You're a prisoner, once again." "Wow, freakin... hilarious insight, H.U.E."

It's the dawn of a new season, and Final Space is shaking things up. Gone are the cold opens of Gary floating through space in the last 10 minutes of his life. Gone is the overproduced, CGI opening sequence, replaced with a qu⁠ick, to-the-point logo. Some new, exciting names line Final Space's post-intro crawl credits⁠—among them Ashly Burch, Ron Funches, Jane Lynch, and headline status for perennial bit-player Conan O'Brien—while others have gone away—Coty Galloway, most noticeably, for obvious reasons. Basically, this is a new era for the show, and it's time for it to really prove itself. Luckily, "The Toro Regatta" plays to the show's strengths, even if it's a low-key re-entry to the universe of Final Space.

That's almost surprising considering how intense the last episode was, the dramatic fight between Gary's ragtag crew and the Lord Commander that ended with the team fractured and otherwise presumably left for dead. "The Toro Regatta," though, is quick to fill us in on the questions "Chapter Ten" didn't answer: Gary's limp, near-dead body is sucked into a trash-collector spacecraft, and Lil Cato was similarly picked up, dropped at the feet of Clarence, a seemingly-minor character from Season 1 who now puts them into servitude with a brand-new, 20-year prison sentence. (H.U.E. also returns, now in the form of a bipedal robot, as does K.V.N., much to everyone's immediate dismay.)

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Inquisition

"It's better this way."

You know an episode is a bit of a head-scratcher when you just sit back and don't know how to really comprehend what just happened, so I'll just start with a basic, two-word sentence. Cliffhangers, right?

Cliffhanger endings are scary, especially when you compound that with them being an unequivocal downer. Everything about "The Inquisition" throws the future of Gumball, not just as a series but as a franchise (if movie rumors turn out to be true), into doubt, and whether or not the finale yields anything else determines how much its ballsiness pays off. Before we really get into the nitty-gritty of all of that, though, and of all the abstract questions raised by the episode, by the show, and by the people behind the show itself, let's just talk about the episode for a minute, because finale or not... this is still a review. "The Inquisition" is fantastic.

Warning: major spoilers. You knew this.

It's hard to know just how much of the past six seasons of Gumball were really building to this exact point, but everything about the premise, and how it becomes increasingly dark and twisted, is perfect. Not only is the show tackling untapped territory which, at this point in the show, is sort of an intrinsically exciting rarity, but it's a master-class in deconstruction, with its humor more meta than ever before. This time, Gumball subverts its own visual identity, with its vibrant cartoon characters existing in a photorealistically-rendered world, by acknowledging that its characters are an anomaly. While their irregularity and individuality makes them charming and who they are, it also means that, as their world comes to a screeching halt, none of them will survive.

Amphibia Review: Anne Theft Auto / Breakout Star

"Thanks for helping me, guys." "That's what we're here for." "Not me. I'm here for the drama."

"Anne Theft Auto" and "Breakout Star" are two incredibly different beasts—even moreso than other episode pairings last week—but in spite of their differences, they form an effective pair, playing to different strengths entirely and ensuring that, when put together as a double-feature, they're all-encompassing of everything great about Amphibia at this point in time.

"Anne Theft Auto" is perhaps the more traditional of the two, focusing on Anne and Sprig on another misadventure, this time taking ol' Bessie (the Plantar family snail) for a ride without reading her instruction manual, which Hop Pop makes a requirement. Anne's reprehensibility is probably her leading trait, and it's a somewhat predictable means of driving some conflict and lesson-learning into an episode, but "Anne Theft Auto" is able to nail it because it doesn't just save those morals for some last-minute resolution out of a botched attempt to solve her mistakes as usual. When she and Sprig take her off-road, leading to Bessie retreating into her shell and effectively leaving the two trapped in the woods, there's no easy escape, and sending out Sprig to get Hop Pop and solve her problems only goes so far. (In a fun twist, one of the townsfolk that he mocked in an act of road rage earlier is his only chance of hitching a ride to Hop Pop, and he gets punished accordingly in the form of the most nightmarishly slow ride of his life.)

Amphibia Review: The Domino Effect / Taking Charge

"Welcome, brother, to the Church of Cute!" "Uhh, this a cult thing?"

For better or worse, Amphibia's very much in its first season, and while it's been advantageous on the character front, working hard to solidify each character and demonstrate their chemistry, the episodes through which they've been demonstrating their worth, for the most part, feel safe. I don't find that lack of ambition surprising, though: Amphibia is accomplishing everything that it has to with aplomb, carving out a distinct universe and tone that makes it stand out from other, like-minded shows, and leaving an impression is the earliest sign that a show's getting somewhere.

Unfortunately, though, episodes like "The Domino Effect" are a reminder that we're still in the show's first phase. As I mentioned last time, there's a formula the show's been using where an object that once seemed insignificant suddenly comes out of nowhere and saves the day, and lo and behold, Anne's toy mouse gets to hold that coveted role for this iteration, though with an unfortunate lack of unpredictability to make it at least an engaging conclusion.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The BFFS

"What are you doing?" "Oh, just looking for a darn to give."

It's so weird to think that we're one episode away from the end of the series, and that, come the 24th, I'll never write a standalone review of the show ever again. Certainly not helping with that general weirdness is the fact that "The BFFS" doesn't feel like the penultimate episode the show. In fact, it barely feels like anything. At best, it feels like a disappointment. Maybe I just didn't have enough darns in my darn pocket, but this was a strange one, and not necessarily in a great way.

Certainly not helping is the premise of Gumball's first best friend, Fuzzy, knocking on his door one day, with the two reconnecting, much to Darwin's immediate discomfort. There's a lot wrong about the premise itself in that it forces us to pretend that there's a logical reason Gumball would even have a best friend as a toddler that went completely unmentioned over the past 238 episodes, let alone that friends you have as a toddler don't really add up to anything, because we all know that toddlers are stupid. (I said it. We were all thinking it.) Even so, though, beyond having to suspend your disbelief, "The BFFS" just feels rocky on a lot of other fronts.

Amphibia Review: Hop Luck / Stakeout

"SON OF A SLUG!"

There's a formula key to what feels like every other Amphibia episode so far: something that once seemed insignificant at the start proves to be crucial to the resolution of each narrative. In "Cane Crazy," Anne's hypnotic pen becomes a commodity to pay for reparations to Loggle's damaged shop; in "Flood, Sweat, and Tears," Anne and Sprig's pillow-fighting becomes an invaluable asset in the climactic fight sequence; and now, with "Hop Luck," Hop Pop's old-fashioned book of advice goes from a relic of the past to a vital source of life-saving advice.

Some adherence to that formula is expected, and I know why the writers are using it for now: it works. It's pacing by-the-books, ensuring that episodes make sense and have a satisfying conclusion. The issue is just that, as someone who gets really into the mechanics of plot devices and how narratives get assembled (I'm a massive writing nerd and I apologize profusely), that means that episodes like "Hop Luck" feel transparent in their lack of adventurousness. Luckily, Amphibia is such a charming and charismatic show that it never impedes on the show's ability to be fun, and Anne and the Plantars' quest to gather pizza ingredients in hopes of winning the town's annual cook-off for the first time is an enjoyable enough ride.

Amphibia Review: Cane Crazy / Flood, Sweat, and Tears

"Oh. Oh, I like this."

While the first episodes of Amphibia more firmly established the show's overarching narrative, "Cane Crazy" and "Flood, Sweat, and Tears" reel it back a little. Anne's got two months before she can embark on her journey to the mountainous edges of Amphibia, so the pair making up today's batch is more of a look into what we'll be getting in the meantime, turning out two serviceable episodes more focused on lighthearted adventures with faint beats of character development along the way. They don't aim high, but they make for satisfying entries more focused on getting us comfortable with the characters and their dynamics than adding anything more pressing into the formula, and that's alright with me.

The first of the two, "Cane Crazy," is by far the least eventful, though that's not an inherently bad thing. Both episodes suggest that Amphibia is subscribing to the "monster of the week" episode formula, but it manages to do so in a fun enough way with plenty of creativity, with Anne accidentally breaking Hop Pop's prized, family heirloom cane. Obviously, Hop Pop would be mad at discovering what she did, and she fears that he'll live up to his threats of kicking her out of his house for misbehaving, so Anne, Sprig, and Polly meet up with the local wood expert, Leopold Loggle, a fun character with some fun eccentricities in his devotion to woodworking and unfortunate speech patterns. He ends up pointing them in the direction of the Doom Tree (which turns out to be a strange tree-insect beast) where the original cane's wood comes from, and they set out to fetch a new branch to replace it.

Amphibia Review: Anne or Beast? / Best Fronds

"Guys! I just had the craziest dream where I was trapped in a world of frog pe— Oh. Right."

Amphibia is a show that I've been patiently awaiting for the past year, which is something of a rarity for me. Although I'm someone who generally likes to think that he keeps his tabs on animation, there's not a lot of projects that have filled me with as much excitement as this one.

We're in what I feel like is a very transitional era in cartoons. This is a point where it's becoming clear which shows in the past few years were the true trend-setters, and a point where animation is becoming increasingly serialized, more intent on telling a longer narrative with dramatic twists and turns that allows for deeper character investment as opposed to the zanier, episodic antics of cartoon's past. There's also been more pushes for diversity in the voices of those creating animated programming, and Amphibia is no exception. It's culled from the mind of Matt Braly, a half-Thai former storyboard artist for Gravity Falls and Steven Universe, basing the show off of his childhood experiences of visiting Bangkok.

Although the influence of the show off of his childhood is currently more subdued (it'll play more of a hand in the show as the season progresses), that sense of being a fish out of a water in a strange world is retained, and the creation of animation's first Thai-American protagonist, Anne Boonchuy (voiced by Brenda Song), is an exciting development: as a person of half-Asian descent myself, let alone also being named Matt, Amphibia had me sold from the start. It helps, too, that if the first two episodes are any indication, we're in for the start of a wonderful new show.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Decisions

"There! I made a decision to do... exactly what that guy told me... ugh."

Self-awareness in late seasons of a TV show is something of a double-edged sword. In some cases, it comes across as smarmy, making fun of your show's own failings without making any proper amendments to fix them, but in other cases, it's a step towards fixing some deeper-set issues. Whether or not "The Decisions" was able to symbolically fix up Darwin's spotty history as a character over the past few seasons of sidelining, it's far more in the latter lane than the former.

Darwin's always been something of a difficult character for the show to grapple with. While there are some pretty solid spotlights here and there, most recently with "The Sucker," he's relegated to a supporting role without even the faintest bit of influence over what's going on too many times to count, and while he once had a fun level of tact in that role (like in "The Hug," by calling out Gumball's idiocy), the past two seasons have eroded most of that away, making him a pleasant but biteless partner-in-crime. That's what makes "The Decisions" so exciting in its self-awareness: Darwin finally realizes that all he does is whatever Gumball tells him, and he needs to learn how to forge his own path in life.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Revolt

"STOP OBJECTIFYING OBJECTS!"

Remember how, in my last review, I said that when all is right, Gumball's writers sure know how to make an episode fly? Yeah... this is what happens when that fails.

Gumball is, indisputably, a show that puts comedy first, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Whereas cartoons are generally headed in a more serious, narratively-driven direction, Gumball is one of the last strong shows working episodically with the central focus of being fun, and that prevents it from being as weighed down as its contemporaries in the sense that anything can happen. While that usually plays out to the show's benefit, though, there's a lot of ways it can go wrong, with writers instead using the opportunity to go sloppily apeshit in pursuit of some self-destructive idea that works against the show, because as I said, anything can happen, right?

"The Revolt" isn't just one of those episodes: it's the epitome of everything going as roughly as you could imagine. It suffers every single issue that a Gumball episode possibly could, and whereas there's quite a few episodes that unfortunately fall victim to a few issues, "The Revolt's" licked a few too many doorknobs, and it's just sweltering with grotesque infection.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Heart

"What seemed sweet has turned out to be lethally toxic, like feeding a chocolate cake to a puppy, next to the tailpipe of a 4x4, in the middle of an oil spill, while reading it Elmore Stream comments."

It's surprising how many recent episodes have made efforts to be legitimately sweet or optimistic in one way or another. "The Heart" is the latest installment to take that direction, serving to bury the hatchet between Mr. Robinson and his toxic relationship with Gumball and Darwin by reaching into the emotional core, or rather the lack thereof, of his character.

It's an exciting development considering how repetitive and nonsensical the Watterson brothers' infatuation with him is. It feels like one of the few major elements from the show's first season that's really survived this far into the program, with episodes centered around him often going in the same direction: Gumball and Darwin give him nothing but love, but he isn't having any of it. "The Heart" reaches an interesting fork in the road, though, by forcing them to realize that Mr. Robinson has never loved them, and it crushes their souls. Not only does that freeze up the normal route these sorts of episodes like to take, but it pushes Mr. Robinson into the spotlight as an unlikely protagonist, and the new angle does wonders.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Mess

"Ask me for anything you like and I'll buy it for you!" "I would like the golden twinkle in an old man's eye as he holds his infant granddaughter." "What?" 

For whatever reason, Gumball's writers really like making Gumball sleep-deprived for quick jokes. The good news, though, is that they do it incredibly well, and evolving his sleep-deprivation into a full-fledged, conceptual episode alongside Darwin was a smart way to elevate the gag with some new wrinkles added to the formula. Fueled—or, I guess, the opposite of that, really—by a night of video-watching, Gumball and Darwin are tasked with watching Penny's sister, Polly (making her first major appearance in an episode) though they fade in and out of consciousness repeatedly, losing Polly along the way and awakening every minute somewhere else, in the middle of a new scenario with an inexplicable lack of context.

That's the game of "The Mess," and it's a ton of stupid fun. Watching Gumball and Darwin run around at only half of their mental power is already fun enough, allowing for more interesting dialogue and an all-around weirder narrative, but centering it around them attempting (and failing) to babysit Polly adds a nice sense of urgency to everything. It's just a terrible day, but amplified up a thousand times, and that kind of idea is right up the show's alley.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Web

"Feel the doom impending / 'Cuz stupidity is #trending."

There's a lot of problems with "The Web" in a lot of different directions. This is the series' long-overdue (though not at all necessary) satirical take on the boomer-millennial/gen-Z gap in understanding technology, and while that does allow the episode to find some interesting beats along the way, there's too many compromises being made for certain jokes to land or have any merit.

Not that, realistically, that's anything new for the past season. As much as I will defend a lot of the show's stranger episodes, there's been a concurrent trend of changing core qualities in its characters, most often their intelligence, to make odder premises work. (Think back to "The Wish" just a few weeks ago.) This time, though, Nicole is the unfortunate victim, getting spun into an archetypal boomer parent with a complete misunderstanding of tech terms, and it's a bad look on her and the show.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Agent

"Your name?" "Watterson. Gumball Watterson." "Is that all one word or with a hyphen?" "What?" "Like 'Watterson Gumball Watterson' or 'Watterson Gumball hyphen Watterson.'"

Nothing goes together like Gumball and Gumball pretending to be something else entirely. That's not even a joke: some of the series' greatest entries are its genre-swapping episodes, turning a run-of-the-mill day in Elmore into anything from a horror movie to detective noir, fully committing to stylistic mimicry while retaining the heart of the show's comedy. "The Agent" is the latest entry to follow suit (spy pun unintended but welcome), and while it's not one for the books, it's undoubtedly a strong outing.

This time, Gumball and Darwin get to play dress-up in a send-up of James Bond movies from the moment the episode starts, with Gumball's entry framed through the barrel of a toilet paper roll. Admittedly, I'm not the biggest expert on the franchise, with my knowledge pretty much limited to a handful of Mitchell and Webb sketches and old GoldenEye 007 cartridge-tilting videos that I thought were hilarious when I was 14, but it's clear to see that "The Agent" was as much a labor of love as its colleagues: the winning writer threesome of Richard Overall, Mic Graves, and Tony Hull (credit where credit's due) finds a great middle ground between what they're spoofing and the sensibilities of a more traditional episode. The best genre parody episodes, after all, are the ones that can be unequivocally appreciated regardless of your familiarity with the subject matter, and if I'm any indication, "The Agent" really gets the job done, featuring an awesome Thunderball-inspired title sequence and handfuls of excessively circumstantial, Bond-esque witticisms.