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.

179. S01E36 - “The Fight” (3/13/12)

What Happens?: The Wattersons fear that Tina may be bullying Gumball.

Why Is It on the List Here?: There’s a lot of defenders of this episode, which I acknowledge, and I can see why: it shows that Tina is a surprisingly complex character, not an antagonistic force so much as a misunderstood softie looking for friends. My issue, though, is that it just doesn’t really ring true, and that while I get the message “The Fight” is trying to get across—don’t judge books by their cover—Tina’s the sort of character that the show set up to be judged as such. 

Granted, “The Quest” certainly showed that she had a sympathetic side, and I feel that what they do there was well-earned for the character, but “The Fight” seems to exist in the face of all of the series’ earlier episodes where Tina is a straight-up bully who wants no business with Gumball. The fact that she would suddenly want to be his friend feels like a shoehorned attempt to give her more dimension, never coming across as believable. It also seriously damaged Tina’s ability to be used to any greater capacity in the future, with “The Fight” showing the emotional truth to her character, and it feels like an ambitious, but ultimately wasted effort. 

So why isn’t it further down if all I have to say is negative, you might ask? Well, I think that the episode’s heart was in the right place, and it wanted to try something new and more introspective with its supporting cast. While far from a success in my eyes, I appreciate the show taking that chance. 

Best Moment: Oh yeah, and also, having Nicole successfully beat the crap out of Tina’s father was an undeniably badass moment. You go, Nicole. 

178. S04E09 - “The Gift” (9/03/15)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin can’t figure out what to get Masami for her birthday and decide to kidnap her.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Gift,” above all else, is just forgettable to the point where there’s just not much to say about it. The most interesting thing to take note of is that it has a strong focus on Masami, who’s gone very underused across the series (only really having two starring roles prior); even if how she’s defined here is still a fairly limited take, she makes for a decent, understated scene partner to Gumball and Darwin as a misunderstood rich kid who, despite her privilege, wants to be treated like everybody else. 

Strangely enough, though, it doesn’t really add up to the episode having a strong climax, with the Watterson brothers’ decision to lock Masami up feeling like a strange way of cranking intensity up without really spiraling into anything too exciting. At the very least, there’s a lot of clever gags and jokes to pull “The Gift” through, with the chase sequence towards the beginning finding a fun way to utilize a large portion of Elmore’s students, and the sudden ending comes as a nice surprise to let proceedings end with a nice jolt of energy.

Best Moment: Alan’s cheesy monologue in the middle of the episode is so insufferable that the show’s camera refuses to settle on him.

177. S03E02 - “The Fan” (6/05/14)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin struggle with Sarah, their newly self-proclaimed fanatic.

Why Is It on the List Here?: I’m super torn on “The Fan.” There’s some stuff I like, but also a lot that never really struck a chord with me, largely indebted to Sarah as a character. Though she gets a lot better as the series progresses, her earliest uses cast her as a personification of a superfan of the show within the show, meaning her presence always clashes with the situations at-hand. She delivers a lot of self-aware, fourth wall-breaking humor, too, but whereas I’m normally a massive fan of that, every instance of her using them is deliberately forced, as if her characterization is some facetious critique of the show and its own plot devices. In other words, right now, Sarah’s pretty graceless.

Nothing about “The Fan” really catches my attention until the second act starts, with Gumball and Darwin recreating Sarah’s fanfiction after they hurt her feelings. It’s just simple, stupid fun watching them reenact her dramatic take on their lives and their wholly fictional infatuation with her, with the best jokes coming from their misinterpretations of her stylized words and illustrations (Gumball and Darwin confuse fighting with dancing at one point and “snuggle” instead of “struggle”) that break up the momentum with flashes back to reality. It’s enjoyable, but it doesn’t really resurrect the episode as a whole from being just fine.

Best Moment: I liked how annoyed Gumball got about their incorrect heights in Sarah’s drawings.

176. S03E18 - “The Password” (9/25/14)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin struggle to become Richard’s favorite child when the new computer password suggests it to be Anais.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Password” should theoretically make for riveting Gumball, bringing competitive streaks out of both Nicole and Richard and culminating in a high-octane car chase, but everything about how it lays itself out feels like it’s been done better before by the show, leading to an entry that’s undeniably fun but which feels strangely familiar. It succeeds the most in how it pits Nicole and Richard against one another, each trying to be the better parent in their kids’ eyes in a cute, albeit somewhat rushed, reversal of the original premise, but it exists almost as a prolonged tangent.

Additionally, “The Password” ends with its entire point of conflict being a trick by Anais—who changed the password in hopes of bringing about an emotional crisis in her brothers—to get more computer time, but having them explode was too abrupt to really work, and her manipulation was far more interestingly demonstrated in a few episodes you’ll see a bit later on the list.

Best Moment: Gumball and Darwin cut a bunch of footage of Anais together to construct a slandered sentence seemingly denouncing Richard. It’s hilariously weird.

175. S05E22 - “The Stars” (2/23/17) 

What Happens?: After Richard reaps the benefits of a negative review, Gumball and Darwin go on a reviewing spree to get everything they could possibly want.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Stars” has drawn a lot of mixed reception, and while I tend to veer more positive, that doesn’t make it any less problematic. There’s a strong idea at play, and watching Gumball act recklessly out of his own self-interest is always great, but there’s an unbalanced meanness that permeates over everything. Nobody—not Richard, Gumball, Darwin (unfortunately, his role as a moral compass has fallen to the show’s wayside), nor even Larry, the victim of their merciless feedback—comes out of this one looking particularly good, and that’s fine, I suppose, but it makes the entire episode a straight shot and disconnects us to a point where nothing really hits as it wants to. 

At first, we want to be able to root for Richard, but he’s too stubborn to resonate with; then, we want to root for Larry, but his ultimate spin of abusing the app’s power against all of Elmore ensures that there’s nobody to stop the sense of alienation and removal from the screen that “The Stars” haphazardly fosters. Even with its fun efforts at making satire and the nightmarish idea of making normal people susceptible to being reviewed, very little fully works, though the writers try their darndest. 

Best Moment: Richard’s attempt to type a review reaches a screeching halt when it’s revealed he can’t even enter his own password into his laptop.

174. S02E15 - “Christmas” (12/04/12)

What Happens?: Nicole accidentally run over a homeless man, whom the kids and Richard are convinced is Santa.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Why is it that every Christmas special of a cartoon features Santa in some shape or form? Needless to say, Gumball’s Christmas special keeps up with that general rule—even if having Brian Blessed voice him helps out a ton—and while “Christmas” isn’t flawless, it’s a cute, inoffensive means of getting the holiday spirit going. While a lot of people complain about it being too short for its own good, I actually think it’s the perfect length; a lot of other Christmas specials go on almost interminably, but the 11-minute timeframe restricts Gumball from getting too indulgent, and the episode is always changing. One minute, Gumball, Darwin, and Anais are trying to help Santa rekindle his holiday spirit while failing miserably; the next, Nicole tells them that Santa isn’t real, and they perform a black-and-white dirge about Christmas being cancelled. 

The climax of all of this is Richard discovering Santa’s sleigh, and alongside Gumball, trying to land it, saving Christmas as all cartoon characters are required to do at some point by law. The real MVP of “Christmas,” though, is Nicole; though she gives up hope in Santa because she never received the present she wanted, it turns out to be due to her failure to address the letters properly, and seeing that gift after all those years turn out to be her family, rendered in little stuffed animals, was a cute, well-earned moment.

Best Moment: Richard scores some of the biggest laughs as he tries to get on Santa’s nice list through a series of good deeds that backfire significantly, most brilliantly when he accidentally sets on fire and melts a little girl’s reindeer decoration and spray-paints “Rap Music” onto a fence to de-vandalize.

173. S01E27 - “The Date” (11/28/11)

What Happens?: Gumball’s family helps him prepare for a date with Penny, which turns out to actually be her pet’s funeral.

Why Is It on the List Here?: This episode can be split into two very good pieces: the first half is all about Gumball’s family making sure he’s ready to go on his date, while the second half is the cruel reveal of the supposed date actually being the funeral for Mr. Cuddles, her pet spider. Everything about his date preparation works on some level, shuffling through all of the other Wattersons (except Nicole) who talk him through a different component of how to be romantic and suave, while the back-half exists to render all of that preparation not only useless but make it completely backfire with some surprisingly effective cringe comedy. While I don’t think that the resolution is particularly great, it's nice that it ends on a happy note, even if that entails Mr. Cuddles being a venomous spider who sends Gumball to the ER. 

Best Moment: Gumball’s funeral speech: “Well, Mr. Cuddles was Penny’s pet. Even though I never met him, Penny’s pretty hot, so I’m sure he was pretty hot, too.”

172. S02E26 - “The Tag” (7/24/13)

What Happens?: Richard and Mr. Robinson get in a feud after Richard tries to use Mr. Robinson’s trash can.

Why Is It on the List Here?: I mean, if you couldn’t surmise anything from that description, “The Tag” is pretty barebones. The plot isn’t surprising but it’s competently-done, there’s plenty of solid jokes but no real standouts, and the character work is easy to appreciate, if not exciting. More than anything else, it’s just nice to see Mr. Robinson return to a main character role, considering his overuse in Season 1 amounted to a minimal presence throughout Season 2. Pitting him against Richard brings out the best of both characters, but the fact that the action is on such a small scale prevents anything amazing from coming out of it. Even the climax, where Gumball and Darwin lock them in a trash bin in hopes of teaching them a lesson about teamwork, evolves into one long, simple joke (though an enjoyable one), ensuing a chase sequence as Gumball and Darwin pursue the renegade bin after it gets knocked downhill to an uncertain fate.

The refinement of Mr. Robinson's dynamic with Gumball and Darwin, in all honesty, is probably the “The Tag’s” nicest touch; instead of them looking up to the poor guy with misplaced idolatry, he’s just a neighbor engaged in a meaninglessly aggressive feud with their dad (even if later episodes revert back to their old dynamic, for better or worse). Other than that, there’s not much else, though the various means through which Richard and Mr. Robinson attempt to get back at each other are fun, and the aforementioned ending makes for a nice anticlimax.

Best Moment: That gosh-darn satellite falling out of the heavens was awesome.

171. S06E36 - “The Factory” (5/20/19) 

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin sneak into the Rainbow Factory and complicate Nicole’s important meeting with two shareholders of the company.

Why Is It on the List Here?: The prospects of a Rainbow Factory showcase hung over the show for what feels like quite a while, and they finally got realized in “The Factory,” a completely competent and nice episode… but not the most memorable. Delightful musical number aside, it’s the expected amalgamation of jokes: Nicole’s meeting with the shareholder yields some fun, satirical throwaway lines ("Children in the workplace?! What is this, every other factory I own?"), and Gumball and Darwin wreak havoc. The climax is pretty fun, with toxic gases sending everyone into a drowsy, hallucination-prone state of mind, but it’s not anything that the series hasn’t done better before. If there’s one nice thing that stands out, it’s that there’s a legitimately happy ending with Gumball and Darwin saving the factory, making everything easy to swallow, albeit hard to truly recall.

Best Moment: Gumball and Darwin’s increasingly-depressing song and dance number is a nice highlight of the episode, allowing for a delightful slow burn dripping with the writers’ most hilariously bleak ideas. For the record, rainbows are, in fact, made of gasoline, arsenic, latex, lead, and rust.

170. S02E17 - “The Bumpkin” (1/29/13)

What Happens?: Idaho teaches the Wattersons how to live a simpler life, though Gumball’s failure to abide by those terms causes him to go into shock.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Bumpkin” is Season 2’s effort to look more in-depth at Idaho, Elmore Junior High’s resident talking potato. He turns out to live a simplistic, Amish-esque life in the country, which intrigues Gumball so much that he wants to spend a weekend with him to learn his ways. In all honesty, Idaho’s not the most interesting or elaborate character, with most of the jokes surrounding him coming from the contrast his lifestyle has with how the Wattersons function, but “The Bumpkin” is secretly less about Idaho, I feel, and more about examining Gumball and how he acts; after sending Idaho into shock following an all-out junk food and video game party, he aptly claims, “I’ve got principles. It just turns out I can’t live by them,” which is perhaps the greatest summation of his Season 2 self.

The pacing is fairly slow, but the episode makes up for it with Richard’s car scenes at the beginning and climax. There’s one joke to them—that the GPS sends him driving recklessly all over the place—but the rapid-fire visual humor those segments entails adds a nice rush of adrenaline that carries “The Bumpkin” to the finish line in one piece.

Best Moment: Gumball talking about his principles (as previously stated).

169. S04E07 - “The Pest” (9/01/15)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin help Anais deal with someone who’s bullying her.

Why Is It on the List Here?: It’s not that “The Pest” is mediocre. If anything, it gets a lot right. I always like seeing Gumball and Darwin spending quality time with their sister and trying to help her out, and she and Gumball in particular have a fantastic dynamic here. Whereas Anais has the smarts, Gumball has the practicality, wanting to straighten Anais out by helping her align with her morals. Gumball, as a character, looks great here: he’s an upstanding guy who wants Anais to be the bigger person. 

The issue with “The Pest,” though, is that the titular pest is Billy. It’s weird to see him back so soon, and while “The Egg” (which you’ll see a bit later) is pretty good fun, I don’t know if it was enough to really warrant an exploration of Billy in the aftermath. Sure, he’s written with a sympathetic edge by the end of the episode, and he gets some smarmy one-liners during his “fight” with Gumball (as well as a visually interesting shadow puppet sequence), but this is an episode that just doesn’t feel warranted nor fulfilling on a narrative front, which is what Gumball was going for.

“The Pest” is as well-written as you could hope, but it feels like a conceptual afterthought.

Best Moment: I’m always a huge fan of Gumball acting melodramatically, and his demonstration of the cycle of violence, making Anais hit him and Darwin repeatedly, hits that spot for me perfectly.

168. S04E11 - “The Routine” (10/05/15)

What Happens?: Richard goes on an epic journey to get some mayonnaise. 

Why Is It on the List Here?: There are some episodes that I get the appeal of yet can’t really bring myself to love, and “The Routine” is one of them. It’s not that it lacks ambition—the story here is a legitimate journey, and the cinematography is jaw-dropping from start to finish—but for everything that makes the episode great, there’s something that detracts. The reliance on narration, for instance, makes the overall pacing somewhat odd, and aside from a few off-handed jokes and the reveal that the narrator is Richard’s trustworthy Cartax (the family station wagon), it doesn’t really add much to the story. The fact, too, that “The Routine” feels like a revved-up follow-up to the far superior “The Return,” albeit with an admittedly stellar paint job, leaves everything with a “same old” sort of feeling.

The appeal of a Richard-centric quest ultimately isn’t lost, and “The Routine’s” wit is laser-sharp, but its efforts to skewer mundanity with fantasy elements just end up feeling, well, mundane.

Best Moment: “To the beast, he is a thief. To his family, he is a huge slob. To his neighbors, he is the reason house prices are going down in the area.”

167. S03E25 - “The Pizza” (11/13/14)

What Happens?: Elmore falls apart once Larry, feeling underappreciated, quits his jobs.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Pizza” should be an amazing episode. Conceptually, it’s pretty interesting stuff, with Larry being the singular figure holding up all of Elmore’s businesses and infrastructure, and having his removal cause Elmore to descend into Mad Max territory is a great idea with some serious visual panache. The issue's that “The Pizza” takes so long to get to its climax, only to kill off the episode’s momentum with a rushed conclusion that feels like it uses the series’ status quo as an excuse to finish itself off. While it’s fun to see the Wattersons talk about how bad their days were, all while interacting with Larry, the slow descent into insanity makes “The Pizza” too tonally-frenzied for its own good. There’s still a lot to like, but everything feels just an inch short of greatness.

Best Moment: Darwin being so hungry that he can’t even hallucinate properly, seeing Gumball as a purse instead of a piece of food.

166. S05E13 - “The Potato” (2/07/17) 

What Happens?: Gumball and Sarah try to help Darwin curb his potato cravings out of fear of offending Idaho.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Back when I originally wrote about this episode years ago, I had a lot of more negative opinions, but watching it again, there’s honestly a lot to like about “The Potato.” Although it’s rough around the edges, featuring some annoying personality quirks from Gumball in the second half, this is an episode defined by non-stop visual comedy and witty one-liners, so that even when the narrative stumbles, there’s some smart punch of humor right around the corner. Everyone here gets a little moment to shine, whether it’s Sarah’s insistence on being called “Scoop Dogg,” Mr. Small’s meat-eating relapse, or Idaho’s walk to the Wattersons’ house, during which he slowly and accidentally turns himself into a baked potato. Even if there’s not much cohesion, the rapid-fire nature of “The Potato” doesn’t disappoint. 

Best Moment: While a lot of people would go for the origami gag, there’s something amazingly stupid about the one guy shoveling salt onto the sidewalks to melt snow in the middle of summer, only serving the narrative purpose of making Idaho more tasty; his deadpan delivery of “I’m so fired,” too, is criminally underrated.

165. S02E05 - “The Flower” (9/11/12)

What Happens?: Gumball gets jealous when he thinks that Penny is dating Leslie.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Flower” is a fairly traditional take on the whole sitcom spiel of someone’s crush supposedly (but not actually) dating someone else. It’s a sitcom tale as old as time, and it always seems to play out the same way, allowing us to watch one character’s world collapse as they go insane in that state of depravity. Recognizing that sort of behavior would be out of character, though, the show decided to take a far more interesting approach, personifying Gumball’s jealousy as a living being (voiced by John Kassir of Tales from the Crypt, naturally) that takes over his body.

His addition certainly helps the episode coast past a lot of its cliches, with Jealousy channeling a funny, haphazardly comedic voice that causes Gumball to do all sorts of incredibly stupid, malicious things directed towards Leslie, all without Gumball’s actual awareness. Carrie also plays a great role, taking everyone to her house to have Jealousy dispelled from Gumball’s body through, to be incredibly technical, some cool witchcraft stuff.

At the end of the day, though, “The Flower” gets weighed down by what it is: an expected, fairly conventional episode of the show. There’s some great moments, but you know what you’re gonna get, and we know how it’s gonna end (Leslie isn’t actually Penny’s boyfriend, and Gumball and Penny’s relationship is unharmed). Still, it's a testament to Gumball's writing that it can get this much mileage off of such a standard idea.

Best Moment: When Gumball opens his locker and all of his anti-Leslie paraphernalia falls out.

164. S02E31 - “The Voice” (9/10/13)

What Happens?: After blocking everyone on Elmore Plus, Gumball and Darwin receive a threatening message from an unknown user, so they quickly apologize to everyone at school.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Voice” is incredibly weird, not necessarily in its premise but in the execution. In the same way that episodes like “The Bumpkin” and “The Watch” are vehicles for specific characters, this is William’s big showcase… but he only really appears in the last two minutes. The rest of the time, the show uses a unique mechanic to mask his identity through first-person shots of Gumball and Darwin’s conversations.

That’s fair, I suppose; “The Voice” is really all about Gumball and Darwin, who rush through confused, half-baked apologies for half of the running time. Each of the major players in the show’s supporting cast have a fun moment here—with the first half consisting of quick and awkward interactions with every classmate Gumball and Darwin can think of—revealing the episode’s greatest asset to be them more than anything else. William only makes his entrance after everyone’s been forgiven, and after Gumball and Darwin briefly get in a fight between themselves.

As an episode, “The Voice” is pretty solid, but it wouldn’t have hurt for William to really establish himself more, coming across here as more of a gimmick than a character.

Best Moment: After Gumball and Darwin apologize to everyone, they suddenly feel at-peace with nature: Darwin gets some sweet J.G. Quintel hair, and both, enveloped by sunlight, are surrounded by woodland creatures as they hug. Loved it.

163. S01E30 - “The Ape” (1/31/12)

What Happens?: After realizing nobody likes her, Miss Simian pursues a “Best Teacher” award by trying to befriend Gumball and Darwin.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Ape” is an effort to, if not humanize Miss Simian (she goes straight back to square one of character development intentionally by the end), at least demonstrate that she has some level of complexity beyond just being Gumball and Darwin’s irrationally aggressive teacher, and I would say that it actually works fairly well. However, the most interesting thing about “The Ape” is that it structures itself far more conceptually than your average Season 1 episode. The pacing is phenomenal, and it seems to hint at the show’s shift towards a more cynical outlook in Season 2, with its ending being arguably cruel to the Wattersons, who are manipulated by Miss Simian into adoring her, but even crueler to Miss Simian, even if she’d prefer to think the entire situation was a win. There’s still a sense that the good side wins, of course, but “The Ape” rears its ugly face to everyone involved, and it’s a lot of fun.

Best Moment: Miss Simian doesn’t seem to understand what high-fiving is, instead shoving her hand into Gumball and Darwin’s faces. This comes back around as an attack during the episode’s climactic car chase.

162. S02E39 - “The World” (11/26/13) 

What Happens?: We take a look at the creatures and objects around Elmore.

Why Is It on the List Here?: While I don’t think “The World” is one of Gumball's more successful vignette episodes, it presents itself as a fun opportunity for the show to play around with bringing life to everyday objects all around Elmore. The premise offers free reigns to test out the most outlandish premises the writers can fathom and it works fairly well; there’s no real stinkers in the bunch, though at the same time, few highlights.

A lot of “The World” is built upon ridiculous “What if?” scenarios. What if a video game character in a fighter game tried to ask their opponent out on a date? What if hot dogs look at being heated up as getting a tan? What if those tangled-up wires hate being organized? The episode’s greatest successes are those that add some ridiculous amount of personality to the most humdrum of activities; my favorite bit, for instance, is Gumball’s lunch treating their slow consumption as a melodramatic battle in a war they can’t win. The surprise return of a talking soda can Darwin discards at the halfway point is nicely realized, too, toppling Darwin over with a stack of soda cans in a particularly strange but enjoyable redemption arc. 

With all things considered, this is an admirable, fairly strong episode, but you’re not gonna end up thinking about it too much once it’s over.

Best Moment: The aforementioned lunch warfare scene.

161. S05E10 - “The Loophole” (11/17/16) 

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin decide to help Bobert become safer, with his literal interpretations being incredibly destructive, but their efforts lead to some unfortunate developments.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Loophole” is perhaps the sharpest refinement of a Bobert episode, turning his robotic peculiarities into one of the show’s more haywire entries by having him realize he has to destroy mankind for the greater good of the world. The issue is simply that no matter how strong the episode, the fact that it’s recycling the same premise that the series has done countless times before means it will always feel somewhat derivative, and while “The Loophole” fights valiantly to avoid being boxed in with its predecessors, it just can’t. The episode is perfectly solid in its own right with fantastic bits—Bobert finding ways to harm Gumball in increasingly strange ways while Darwin attempts to patch up his issues, and the bit with Bobert running around the mall enforcing obscure state laws, are delightfully absurd—but there’s nothing new or unexpected here.

Best Moment: Bobert managing to headbutt Gumball back a year to the opening scene of “The Spoiler.”

160. S01E33 - “The Microwave” (2/21/12) 

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin create a monster in the microwave that starts to eat their family.

Why Is It on the List Here?: There’s a lot of good stuff that “The Microwave” figures out, but at the same time, it never really gelled with me as a whole. The aesthetics and cinematography in the climax are striking and compelling, and Gumball and Darwin’s monster Kenneth always feels like a real threat to the characters, but everything feels somewhat unremarkable in scope, and the fact that it’s so unremarkable while having a premise as ridiculous as Gumball and Darwin creating a gigantic monster made of trash and bodily fluids means that something doesn’t really click.

Personally, I can pin that down to how it takes a while for “The Microwave” to reach its climax, with the first half playing everything out with straightforward comedy before suddenly turning intense; that tonal shift and lack of true build-up makes some of the drama feel almost unearned. With that being said, it's still pretty darn enjoyable, and a strong indicator of the sort of insanity awaiting the series right around the corner.

Best Moment: Darwin filling the role of an absentee father the second Kenneth is created was such an abrupt and great little moment.

159. S03E06 - “The Recipe” (7/03/14)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin discover how to create Anton, though it quickly grows out of hand.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Anton was an interesting choice to have an episode built around, considering that every gag about him from the show involves him being made of bread, and to “The Recipe’s” credit, that joke is pretty persistent here. I certainly think that it was successful, if not only because, in spite of its increasingly cinematic scope, it’s pretty low-key. Instead of working off of the little characterization Anton already has, “The Recipe” decides to add an interesting wrinkle; every time he gets injured or killed in the show, his parents just make a new Anton in the toaster, and with that knowledge, Gumball and Darwin experiment and crack the formula.

It’s fun to see the characters fiddle around with the morality of what they’re doing, but the episode really finds some direction after an Anton they accidentally burnt turns out to be sentient, declaring himself “Ant-One” with hopes of destroying the real Anton (who, to be honest, has an incredibly limited role in the episode as a whole). From that point on, it’s straight action, but with little dudes made out of bread ill-equipped for the sort of action that type of genre would entail. The episode, then, becomes a fun case study in incongruity, ending on an expected anticlimax (the Anton they save in the end isn’t the real Anton). It’s super fun, but there’s not much in the curveball department.

Best Moment: I like the fact that Gumball and Darwin decide that the best way to hunt down one of their Anton clones that went missing is to make dozens more to find him, an exercise that ends with each Anton fighting at best or, in the case of Darwin, committing mass “pastricide” at worst.

158. S03E16 - “The Allergy” (9/11/14)

What Happens?: Darwin’s allergies interfere with his ability to live his life.

Why Is It on the List Here?: The entirety of “The Allergy” is a one-joke premise, but it just goes to show how great Gumball is with comedy that it manages to take an idea so simplistic and minimal and turn it into a full-fledged adventure. For one thing, it’s fun to see episodes with a focus on Darwin, but even more than that, “The Allergy” shows off all the Watterson kids, with Gumball stepping up as Darwin’s sidekick and Anais attempting (and mostly failing) to logically handle Darwin’s condition. There’s also a ton of fantastic physical and visual comedy here, from Darwin’s sneeze forcing the color out of Tobias and lodging Gumball into a wall to the ending gag, where his sneeze breaks our television/computer screen. The real reason it comes together so wonderfully, though, is that “The Allergy” is legitimately realized, and it knows how to raise the stakes, at times almost completely devolving into a cheesy, tearful melodrama. 

Best Moment: The closing fourth-wall break.

157. S05E25 - “The Ex” (3/01/17)

What Happens?: Gumball desperately tries to win Rob back when he decides to pursue Banana Joe as his new nemesis.

Why Is It on the List Here?: I wish that I hated “The Ex” sometimes, I really do, and there's still a lot that doesn’t quite work: Penny gets pushed to the side and has literally no effect by design, and Darwin’s fear of a baseball cap is a pointlessly childish non sequitur. There’s also that “The Ex” is something of a letdown in the grand scheme of Rob’s character arc, and coming after “The Disaster” and “The Rerun” is a recipe for disaster that “The Ex” never really tries to refute. Even so, I attribute that last issue to the fact that what else could “The Ex” really be? Gumball played its cards too early with Rob, and what goes up has to come back down at some point, but at least this is an episode that’s fully aware of how stupid it is, and I say that as a complete compliment.

Casting Gumball as a helpless romantic trying to win back the heart of the guy who attempted to erase him from existence is naturally hilarious, allowing the writers to make fun of rom-com conventions in unexpected and twisted ways. Transforming Gumball into a codependent sad-sack desperate for attention, most prominently, is a lot of fun to watch, especially paired up with someone as stoic and uninvested as Rob. (If he didn’t make for such a good foil, there’s a chance of “The Ex’s” chemical structure imploding upon itself completely.) It’s great, too, how even when everything ends as terribly as it possibly could for him, with Rob vowing to destroy him yet again, he’s too entranced by his excitement in the moment to care.

“The Ex” is a dumb episode, but I’m happy that it has the self-awareness that it does to embrace that. It takes a hit for the greater good of the series, and there's no shame in that.

Best Moment: Gumball Say Anything-ing Rob with a boombox.

156. S06E10 - “The Anybody” (3/09/18)

What Happens?: Clayton decides to start impersonating everyone else he can for the fun of it without realizing how much damage he’s causing.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Anybody” is about as uncomplicated as an episode you could expect from Clayton, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. It’s more intent to deliver a quality serving of laughs, wacky moments of character interaction, and sharp gags than redefine its source material, and while that means this one isn’t destined to be anyone’s favorite, it goes in one ear and right out the other with enough pleasantness to leave you pretty happy. 

Most importantly, Clayton’s actually sort of fun here. Sure, he’s reckless and irresponsible, but the childlike enjoyment that he carries through each of his transformations keeps everything afloat, and it allows for some great, incredibly surreal moments, perhaps the peak of which is emotionally-devastating poor Tobias on his birthday. There’s also room for a legitimately great twist, with Gumball and Clayton pulling a switcheroo at the last minute that only reveals itself at the very end, when an err in judgement strands Gumball to fight off against an alligator. It’s the small things that demonstrate “The Anybody” to be especially tight, even if not fueled by new ideas.

Best Moment: There’s a lot of great telegraphing in how “The Anybody” rolls out its gags. Playing the long-con by having Clayton make nondescript cameos in “The Cage” and “The Lady,” for instance, was a pretty awesome reveal, but I like that there’s a sound effect of clay being smushed when (deep breath) Gumball, pretending to be Clayton-Gumball, shoves Clayton-Gumball, who is actually Clayton but who we are led to believe is actually Gumball, into a movie seat. It’s a small thing that always makes me smile in its subtlety.

155. S03E05 - “The Puppy” (6/26/14)

What Happens?: The Wattersons try to take care of a turtle that Richard buys them (thinking it’s actually a puppy).

Why Is It on the List Here?: While I’m not a big fan of “The Puppy” as a whole, most of that has to do with its general conceit, not its execution. Evil Turtle just feels like such a weird character to introduce to the show; she has no real narrative purpose in the sense that, say, Frankie had when he was introduced, or Rob when he was re-introduced. Instead, Evil Turtle is just a pet who pops up occasionally and does things that demonstrate that she’s insanely malicious, and at the end of the day, even if she made a pretty fantastic episode happen further down the line, I don’t know if that’s enough to really necessitate the character’s existence, and as a direct extension of that, “The Puppy’s.”

However, this is a fantastic outing for the Wattersons. For whatever reason, from Season 3 onward, there were increasingly fewer episodes involving the family, so “The Puppy” is a nice return to form in giving each person a place to shine in the grand scheme of things. Gumball is, and forever will be, Gumball; Anais is the chief strategist who tries to help everyone take care of Evil Turtle, and later, re-capture her; Richard is the catalyst, but makes some lovably stupid attempts to fix things; and Nicole tries to hold the family together. Darwin, though, gets perhaps the best turn of all; Evil Turtle attempts to drown him, but he’s a fish, and he comes back to kick Evil Turtle’s butt in the grand finale. 

Perhaps "The Puppy's" greatest contribution, though, is the introduction of the Awesome Store, a windowless van and repository of occasionally-dangerous but always delightful oddities. There's not much to its appearance here, and Evil Turtle doesn't even play much into the supernatural antics later explorations of the Awesome Store entail, but at least Richard's affection of it allows for some of the episode's funniest jokes. It'll be used to greater effect in the future.

“The Puppy” was a strong effort, but in the long run, a fairly unwarranted one.

Best Moment: “He was revived by my tears!” “IT FEEDS ON MISERY!”

154. S02E20 - “The Virus” (6/05/13) 

What Happens?: Teri, Gumball, and Darwin fight off a virus bent on killing all of mankind.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Virus” is an interesting episode on two levels. First of all, it’s Season 2’s examination of Teri, the paper bear with a crippling fear of germs. (Shout-out to her legion of ironically rabid fans!) While her germaphobic tendencies aren’t particularly ripe with interesting comedic hooks, she’s still an enjoyable foil to a particularly stubborn Gumball, and the absence of a true middleman between the two of them—Gumball believes in mind before matter as an excuse not to wash his hands after Penny high-fives him, while Teri is the kind of character who visits the school nurse five times a week for imaginary ailments; Darwin is just sort of there to break the two up—allows for some fun comedic bickering. Of course, once the very real virus gets brought to Gumball’s attention, that dynamic shifts entirely.

That’s where the second thing interesting about “The Virus” comes in: it’s just a dramatic, extended anticlimax. Gumball, Darwin, and Teri engage in full-on warfare with the virus, who takes over all electronic objects within their radius, and it makes for some exciting action… only to end with Gumball stomping on the Virus disinterestedly, killing it instantly. It’s the sort of self-indulgent prodding at meta-awareness that Season 2 loved to do, and whether or not it paid off is for everyone else to decide; personally, I found it a solid ending, though it’s the sort that's since been perfected.

Best Moment: I liked Teri drawing a mask on her face to protect her from the virus, only to have Darwin steal her pencil and attempt to do the same thing, which fails hilariously. It’s something that Kevin Johnson writes about in his particularly well-known Gumball essay (if you’re reading this, hi Kev, you never responded when I emailed you a year and a half ago looking for critique); Gumball is an intensely visual show, and it’s fun to see the show deconstruct its logic when the lines are blurred.

153. S06E03 - “The Sucker” (1/12/18) 

What Happens?: When Darwin and Julius both end up in detention together, Julius takes the opportunity to manipulate Darwin into doing his bidding, to disastrous results.

Why Is It on the List Here?: While I’ve gone back and forth on it quite a bit, I’m ultimately just gonna say that while there’s some issues with “The Sucker,” it’s a successful effort on the show’s part to put Darwin in the spotlight. Taking Gumball out of the equation was a serious risk considering how much he’s overwhelmed the character in the past, but fortunately, Darwin gets to take over as the episode’s glue, holding everything together and coming out of it on top. 

A lot of that success, admittedly, comes from the inclusion of Julius, culled from relative obscurity since his last major appearance (and debut) in “The Lesson.” He’s a very aggressive character who comes in almost complete contrast to Darwin, someone whose only motive is the pursuit of doing the right thing as much as possible, and while that leads to one of the episode’s issues—a strict adherence to its jokes being formatted almost exclusively as Darwin misinterpreting everything that Julius says—they make for great comedic foils. Julius is the bad guy, and it’s fun to see Darwin find ways of one-upping his badness, with the resolving joke being Darwin toying with Julius’ emotions to assert the higher ground in a playful enough way to feel like development as opposed to defying his personality. It's just an all-around great character study for two characters who you’d never expect to be put together.

Best Moment: Abrupt endings almost always work, and here, having Julius’ house and parents explode was, pun intended, a bombastic way to close things off.

152. S03E23 - “The Bros” (10/23/14)

What Happens?: Darwin is jealous of Gumball and Penny’s new relationship.

Why Is It on the List Here?: First of all, just to get all of the negativity out of my system: until “The Apprentice,” that whole spiel of Penny’s bro speech was, in my opinion, one of the biggest groaners of a resolution to any episode. It’s not that it sticks out narrative-wise, but all of those bro puns are legitimately painful, and it’s delivered so swiftly that it almost cuts the edge off of how intense the narrative gets. Please never do that.

Outside of that, though, “The Bros” is pretty good! It’s certainly interesting, seeking to examine how the status quo has changed in light of Gumball and Penny dating and how that makes Darwin feel. It brings out a whole ‘nother side of his personality: intense possessiveness. Watching his repeated attempts to assert dominance in Gumball’s personal hierarchy by eavesdropping on her, sabotaging a romantic lunch, and ruining a round of basketball brings about some of the funniest moments while also managing to ring true to how he would feel. For however alpha he gets, Darwin’s actions never feel forced, and it’s fun to see him being the crucial ingredient to making an episode work.

That extends, too, to the second half, where after scaring Penny into taking time away from Gumball, he’s forced to reassess his behavior and bring the two back together by creating the most romantic date ever. Gumball then shifts into some pretty hardcore cringe comedy as the date goes wrong in all of the worst ways imaginable, but Darwin ultimately saves the day, they reconcile, and everyone’s happy! There’s a lot that happens in “The Bros,” but above all else, it’s a fantastic Darwin showcase.

Best Moment: The end. Penny’s house catching on fire due to some romantic albeit unfortunately-placed origami roses was such an unexpected way to close off the episode, but it seriously works, and the timing of it all is immaculate. 

151. S01E01 - “The DVD” (5/03/11)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin, in their first adventure from the series, try to find a way to take care of their overdue DVD, which they accidentally destroy.

Why Is It on the List Here?: As the first episode of Gumball aired—but notably one of the last of the season written—“The DVD” will never be anyone’s favorite, unquestionable Season 1 diehards aside, but it makes for quite the smorgasbord of elements demonstrating the series' capabilities. Even if watered-down by the standards of later seasons, we get hints of satire—such as when Gumball and Darwin go on the street to procure money right next to a homeless guy—as well as genre parody, with the climactic chase sequence imbued with the sort of sweeping dynamism you’d see in an action movie. 

Plus, even though the characters still had quite a ways to go, there’s some nice interplay between Gumball and Darwin, the latter of whom tries to hammer forth the point of accepting the consequences of one’s actions (which Gumball naturally refuses to do), and Nicole, who asserts her dominance as Season 1’s best character, a no-nonsense mother who’ll do anything to try to keep her kids out of trouble. It’s stuff like that which made Gumball stand out in the first place, giving the series some strong roots to grow into what it would eventually become.

Best Moment: Larry uses hilariously unconventional methods of warning the Watterson boys about their late fee, including red writing on red envelope and fragmented phone calls so his messages couldn’t be skipped.

150. S02E14 - “The Bet” (11/27/12) 

What Happens?: Gumball wins a bet against Bobert and he and Darwin proceed to take control of him for the day.

Why Is It on the List Here?: It’s somewhat frustrating that nearly every Bobert episode goes the exact same way: Gumball and Darwin, in some way, try to mess with Bobert, and a series of mistakes based on his inability to read into subtext cause him to incite mass destruction. “The Bet,” though, is a significant improvement over last season’s attempt—”The Robot”—by making Gumball entirely at fault for his irresponsibility and proud cynicism in putting Darwin down when he speaks against what’s going on. If anything, Gumball chastising Darwin for implying Bobert’s “challenged,” all while making him roll around on the ground in a legless game of fetch, is so terribly messed up but perfect at the same time.

The climax, too, in all its predictability, actually works fairly well. It helps that “The Bet” is a complete refurbishing of Bobert’s formula, meaning that however derivative he is through subsequent uses, the shtick is at least somewhat fresh at this point in the show, and his attempt to terminate Gumball is filled with lots of glorious sidebars, including some early screentime for the school nurse (who repeatedly complains that she’s “a nurse, not a mechanic,” and that she’s pretty much done with all of this). The end, too, is a surprisingly fun comedic bit of inverting the whole “self-destruction countdown” cliche, with Gumball pretty much accepting his fate, giving up on trying to diffuse Bobert, and not even having the heart to let out any last words. Those little moments help break up the episode’s theoretical monotony, and while “The Bet” is far from perfect, it’s a solid entry into the show’s second season.

Best Moment: Darwin trying to set Bobert up with Tina by feeding him cheesy, swoon-worthy dialogue was fun, even if Gumball predictably ruined it.

For the last part of this list, from 209-180, CLICK HERE.

For more in-depth reviews of episodes starting with Season 5, you can read all of my previous reviews HERE.

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