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.

149. S03E17 - “The Mothers” (9/18/14)

What Happens?: Gumball, Tobias, and Banana Joe compete over who has the best mom in a mom-off.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Not a lot of people seem to like “The Mothers,” and most of those issues stem from the perception that Gumball and Darwin just put Nicole through a ton of pain to prove that she’s the greatest mom. I think that perspective somewhat ignores the point; Gumball and Darwin are naive, and the competition they’re competing in is a dumb one, but it’s driven by sincere love and admiration for their mother. It’s an angle that the show hasn’t demonstrated too often, and “The Mothers” does so in a really fun way.

Everything leading up to the climax is excessively silly, with Gumball, Darwin, Tobias, and Banana Joe taking their mothers to the mall and (with the exception of Tobias’ mom, Jackie) being oblivious of the test that their kids are conducting on them, repeatedly throwing their moms in harm’s way or testing their patience. Each character and their mom bring something fun to the table, too: Tobias and Jackie are trying to cheat and win for a nice bit of ego-stroking, while Banana Joe is blissfully unaware of how stupid and painfully accident-prone Banana Barbara is.

Once the episode gets to its final act, though, “The Mothers” becomes especially interesting, with Nicole having to rush off and save the day after Gumball and Darwin accidentally put themselves in danger in an attempt to apologize for the day’s festivities. Nicole, in an awesome turn, inadvertently becomes a straight-up superhero, showing the episode’s got more tricks up the sleeve than comedically abusing its characters and proving that Nicole is, inarguably, one of the greatest moms in cartoon history. Simple, but solid.

Best Moment: Banana Barbara is a hot mess in all the best ways, but the reflex challenge is inarguably her greatest moment from the episode. Head’s up!

148. S06E09 - “The Neighbor” (4/13/18)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin go to extreme lengths to uncover the name of their next-door neighbor, but accidentally expose that he’s in the witness protection program.

Why Is It on the List Here?: This is the episode that goes straight Wes Anderson in its climax, so naturally I have my biases towards it. Granted, I usually try to hold Gumball accountable to making referential humor, and mirroring a scene from The Grand Budapest Hotel is no exception, but it’s the attention to detail that makes me love that part of “The Neighbor” as much as I do, nailing the cinematic and musical quirks of its source material while maintaining a sense of appeal even to those the reference naturally excludes. That radical shift, too, goes hand-in-hand with the episode’s narrative, transforming from a classic game of name-guessing into a thrilling tale of espionage. 

A surprising amount of that is indebted to its use of a character that’s been with the show from the beginning but was left entirely unexamined for the preceding five seasons: Gary. Granted, his characterization remains simplistic here, playing something of a straight man/victim to Gumball and Darwin, but the revelation that he’s in the witness protection program, and having the Watterson brothers accidentally lead several hitmen to his front door, was an inspired way to elevate the premise and take it into unpredictable, darker directions. Basically, “The Neighbor” delivers a fresh idea with a fresh character, but executes it by sticking to the tried and true formula of what the show does best. 

Best Moment: The Wes Anderson chase sequence! Kudos to Ben Locket’s incredible Grand Budapest soundalike score.

147. S06E25 - “The Ghouls” (10/19/18) 

What Happens?: Carrie shows Gumball and Darwin the depressing downside of Halloween: there’s no such thing as real fear anymore.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Ghouls” is a sloppy episode. Even if it frames itself as something else entirely, with Carrie showing Gumball and Darwin various examples of how the world simply isn’t afraid of some good old-fashioned scares, it’s really just the incredibly loose frameworks for a vignette episode; it’s so loose, in fact, that Gumball, Darwin, and Carrie literally vanish for three minutes in the middle. All of it, too, leads to an ending that feels a bit too jarring to really land, taking advantage of the show’s status quo in a way that feels like everything ends just as it’s getting started.

On the plus side, though, everything else. Even if “The Ghouls” is a little graceless, it makes up for its shortcomings by being ridiculously fun. It’s the sort of episode that kicks everything off with a massive ensemble musical number just because, for instance. Being a vignette episode, too, it plays around with as many horror movie tropes as possible, allowing all of them to hilariously backfire. 

Each sketch mirrors a specific movie, and they all find some weird caveat: what if Freddy Krueger’s victims were more afraid of being late for work, or worrying about their talents not living up to their expectations? What good does the girl from The Ring do if nobody from this generation knows what a VHS is? And what happens when, in the best vignette of the bunch, the victim is more horrifying than the villain itself, with Sarah responding to an ominous question about wanting to watch a movie by espousing every horror movie genre known to man?

In the battle between fun and flaw, the inherent likability and ambition of “The Ghouls” will always win me over, even if its problems mean it’ll never rise past this (admittedly pretty respectable) position on my list. 

Best Moment: Sarah successfully out-scaring her scarer was great, but having her literally become the antagonist, appearing in the scarer’s basement, was perfect.

146. S05E40 - “The Puppets” (10/06/17)

What Happens?: Darwin refuses to discard of some childhood puppets that he and Gumball discover in the attic, and they take over his body.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Y’all ready for some more controversy? 

I really wish I could be fully on-board with “The Puppets,” and to be honest, I’m more into it now than ever, but at the end of the day, I just don’t feel like it really comes together. There’s a lot riding on it, and it presents Gumball at the height of its riskiness, with Internet oddballs/aficionados Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared fame coming in as co-head-writers and helping construct the episode’s final act, a nightmarish sequence of absurdist puppetry. All of that’s cool, and arguably amazing, but for some reason, that never translates into the episode itself for me. Chalk it down to another case of loving the concept but being frustrated with the execution.

Part of the issue is that while Gumball and Don’t Hug Me sounds like a match made in heaven, instead of intermingling perfectly, both seem to fall apart. The first half of the episode, done in the general direction of the rest of the show, is lacking in the series’ usual punch with its joke-telling. It never feels like it’s really going anywhere, instead meandering in uninteresting ways to fill time until the episode’s climax with full knowledge that nobody’s gonna remember the build-up as much as what it’s building to. For a show that tends to feel uniformly meticulous in its execution, there’s a bit of disappointment there. 

Meanwhile, while I know a lot of people will disagree, I was never too tickled by the puppetry sequence much, either. Sloan and Pelling are best when they’re completely untethered, and having to abide by the standards of a kid’s show means that they can only get truly dark through implication. As such, the sequence is appropriately off-putting but nothing further. It feels like it’s building to something more grotesque, but with a deliberately anticlimactic ending, that never really comes.

There’s a lot going on in “The Puppets,” and you might appreciate what it does. I certainly admire it to death, but that admiration can only take it so far.

Best Moment: The puppets looked pretty sweet. Let’s give it to the puppets.

145. S02E28 - “The Lesson” (8/07/13) 

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin cheat on a math test and get sent to detention.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Lesson” is the series’ earliest experiment in genre-swapping, and while it’s a far more modest affair than Gumball’s finest efforts, it’s still incredibly enjoyable for what it is—an episode that draws a parallel between prison dramas and escape films by placing Gumball and Darwin in detention. It’s a hilariously overdone dramatization that the episode takes every opportunity to capitalize upon, whether in making a visit to Mr. Small’s office a “correctional room” that tortures its prey with drawn-out poetry, or turning Principal Brown into a no-nonsense prison ward. The peak of “The Lesson’s” parody takes the form of a somber musical number in black-and-white, showing Gumball and Darwin gathering all the resources they need to help plot their escape.

The most crucial component to the episode’s success, though, is Julius, who makes his debut here as leader of the detention room ne’er-do-wells. He’s an interesting character type that we haven’t seen much of from the series, and he and the Watterson boys have a fun dynamic when he takes on the role of showing them the ropes, all while nicely countering Gumball’s holier-than-thou demeanor like few characters have ever truly been able to. (The moment he stops a protesting Gumball dead in his tracks in the middle of their great escape makes for one of the show’s bluntest put-downs.)

With that being said, it can be a bit hard to look back on “The Lesson” without comparing it unfairly to its contemporaries further down the line; while fairly high-concept, it never inhibits the genre it chooses to parody too strongly, instead feeling like a standard Gumball episode with a handful of fun altercations. Perhaps the more optimistic way to look at it, though, is that “The Lesson” is Gumball dipping its toes into what it would come to embrace in its greatest successes, and it ain’t half-bad.

Best Moment: There are few things I want to be able to physically obtain more than a sexy Principal Brown calendar. Get on it, Cartoon Network, you’ve made way more than enough Steven Universe shirts. (Let the records show that there are 89 variations, to Gumball’s 5, and that the total amount of Gumball merchandise is literally one-third the size of Steven Universe’s shirt selection. That hurts.)

144. S04E22 - “The Girlfriend” (3/31/16)

What Happens?: Jamie, feeling a need for companionship, forces Darwin to be her boyfriend.

Why Is It on the List Here?: A lot of people seem to hate “The Girlfriend,” and on a surface level, I can understand why: somewhere in there is a story that frames Jamie as a “crazy bitch” who just wreaks destruction and antagonizes her boyfriends. But I think that gets in the way of how “The Girlfriend” works as a study for the character, who often goes woefully overlooked: she acts as antagonistic as she does because that’s just a deeply-ingrained part of her nature, and the comedy in how she acts comes from how her personality type clashes so ridiculously with someone trying to be a stereotypical girlfriend.

There’s inherent comedy in seeing those two sides of her coincide to the point where she takes simple romantic gestures, like giving presents, and distorts the heck out of them because she doesn’t understand what they fundamentally mean. Meanwhile, Darwin is left in an equally confused position, refusing to say anything to Jamie and hoping that she’ll be able to reach her own conclusion about their “relationship.” That ends up trapping both in a vicious cycle where they feed off of a completely nonexistent sense of romance that, realistically, does nothing for either character. Throw in a pretty awesome thriller movie sequence where Jamie chases after Gumball, whom she declares her new second boyfriend, and you’ve got an episode that’s both high-concept and well-executed enough to land. 

Best Moment: Jamie giving Darwin a gift to give to her, which she gets offended by. It pretty much summarizes the logic behind the episode in the span of 20 seconds.

143. S02E11 - “The Apology” (11/06/12)

What Happens?: Miss Simian takes extreme measures to frame Gumball and Darwin as the bad kids that she believes they are.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Miss Simian can be difficult character for the show to look at meaningfully, but “The Apology” manages to find a new and interesting perspective by demonstrating how her mind works. Almost all of the episode is framed around her and her thought process, with Gumball and Darwin going in and out of her schemes as opposed to leading the episode off, and I think that makes for a strong change of pace. We were never, at any point, going to side with Miss Simian and her ridiculous means of trying to frame the kids by committing blatant crimes and pointing to them as the culprits, but it makes for an insightful bit of character work to demonstrate that she’s got more complexity than just being a screechy voice with a hideous butt.

“The Apology” sticks the landing, too, by showing Gumball and Darwin's good sides, to the degree that they commit a crime just to help Miss Simian keep face. While fairly devious in other episodes, I really liked their attitude here; they recognize that they’re tearing her apart despite doing nothing wrong, and they want to make her feel better in the only way they know how—by giving her what she wants—and while that doesn’t fully work out in the end, the characters instead demonstrate a surprising amount of respect for one another. For however cynical Season 2 liked to be, “The Apology” is a nice reminder of the sweetness that occasionally rises out of it.

Best Moment: Principal Brown’s fifteen second-long coffee spit-take still stands as one of the show’s most GIF-worthy moments, and I’m not even a huge GIF guy.

142. S04E29 - “The Points” (6/02/16)

What Happens?: Tobias tricks Gumball and Darwin into doing his chores by paying them with fictitious “good points.”

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Points” is a bit of an oddity for Tobias; instead of focusing on his overarching lameness in the face of who he thinks he is, it’s all about him being deep into video game addiction, manipulating Gumball and Darwin into accepting non-existent currency to take care of his chores. It’s an incredibly far-fetched premise to the point where I don’t think that the show manages to properly satirize video game addiction—the game of the episode seems to be simply relishing in the comedy inherent to Tobias’ mental and physical deterioration—though elevating his level of dissociation to an invisible weapon fight was an inspired move. That’s where most of the fun of “The Points” comes from: seeing how much mileage Gumball can get out of a specific well of jokes, whether that’s Tobias slowly losing touch with the world, Gumball and Darwin sucking at doing chores, or imaginary shootouts. It’s nothing too memorable, but it’s a good dose of fun.

Best Moment: The sequence of Gumball and Darwin trying to do Tobias’ chores, helped greatly by Ben Locket’s legitimately fantastic synth instrumental track. Where’s the album?

141. S01E12 - “The Ghost” (6/27/11)

What Happens?: Carrie starts taking over Gumball to eat food, though he struggles to reclaim control of his own body.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Ghost” is our first formal introduction to Carrie. While she’s far from her final characterization—her personality, at the moment, is more centered on being a self-loathing emo—her being a ghost allows for Gumball to explore some interesting new concepts, attempting to teach a basic lesson on permission through having her repeatedly take over Gumball’s body to go on crazy, junk food-eating sprees. It’s a fun way to take advantage of Season 1 Gumball’s naivete, casting her as a fun foil with no self-control to the point of refusing to take his no for an answer, all of which culminates in a legitimately awesome fight conducted entirely through Gumball’s body, alternating between Gumball and Carrie’s control. 

This one’s still as rough around the edges as you’d expect from the show’s first season, with its simplistic joke-telling and expository dialogue, but the fact that it was so beloved when it came out isn’t lost on me: it offered a taste of what was to come, presenting the sort of tricks that the show’s writers had up their sleeves.

Best Moment: “The Ghost’s” first-person food-eating spree was a mouth-watering technical accomplishment for the show early on, as well as pointing towards the show’s excellent use of parody (in this case mirroring the music video for “Smack My Bitch Up”).

140. S02E03 - “The Knights” (8/21/12)

What Happens?: Gumball fights to win the approval of Penny’s father so they can work together on a school project, all while Tobias tries to claim her as his fair maiden.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Knights” is a weird episode because it would seem to suggest that the show is taking a few steps back on Gumball and Penny’s relationship, namely in regards to her father, Patrick. Patrick’s a character that the show struggles to use quite a bit because of how he’s put into the role of an overprotective father, an issue that gets compounded when the show refuses to ever acknowledge any change in his relationship with Gumball (see: “The Apprentice”). Here, though, it at least makes sense, and while some of the events of “The Date” undo themselves a bit, he makes for an enjoyable enough antagonist here, with Gumball’s varied attempts to win him over all being hilarious misfires.

Perhaps the best part of “The Knights,” though, is the introduction of Season 2’s new and improved Tobias. While Season 1 painted him as nothing more than a rich jock, he’s a pathetic nerd pretending to be cool here, and it’s a hilarious bit of subversion that really pays off. The delusional idea that he’d be able to “take the hand of fair Penny” by wearing Medieval garb and tights is such a stupid but glorious way to add a bit of a counterbalance to the more one-sided the Gumball-Patrick story arc, and every second of his screentime is fun as hell.

Best Moment: I very much appreciated the gag of Tobias slapping Gumball with a glove non-stop for a straight three seconds. (That’s forever in cartoon gag time, by the way.)

139. S05E27 - “The Menu” (3/06/17) 

What Happens?: Richard, Gumball, and Darwin attempt to find out what Joyful Burger’s secret menu burger is and how to order it.

Why Is It on the List Here?: There’s a lot going on in “The Menu,” and while the end result isn’t the most cohesive 11 minutes of comedy, almost every bit lands hard. One of its first big scenes, with Gumball and Darwin climbing the Joyful Burger corporate ladder on behalf of Richard, then forgetting their intentions and just becoming rich billionaires living in a shared mansion, is perhaps one of the greatest, weirdest asides that the series has ever done, a completely self-aware waste of time that just kills; immediately after, the scene where Gumball, Darwin, and Richard kidnap Larry and commit unsightly acts upon the Joyful Burger clown mascot, Burgie, is another highlight. 

Unfortunately, the episode’s final act burns off a bit of that goodwill with the idea that Richard has to eat a burger at every Joyful Burger in Elmore to claim his prize, becoming a mere segue into some pesky gross-out. The end reveal of the burger being a literal MacGuffin salvages things a little bit, but it’s an annoying hindrance to an otherwise phenomenal, comedically-sharpened outing for the show.

Best Moment: Gumball and Darwin slowly becoming the CEOs of Joyful Burger.

138. S03E38 - “The Egg” (8/06/15)

What Happens?: Nicole tries to whip her family into shape to impress Felicity when she sets Anais up with her son on a play-date.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Egg” is an episode that fans love to hate, and a lot of that has to do with Felicity as a character. She’s unrelentingly heinous, perhaps one of the only characters in the show who's truly cruel, and unlike the other character closest to her in that department—Margaret—there’s nothing cartoonishly exaggerated about how she acts. Like, she spews some nasty stuff towards Nicole, all culminating in a speech with absolutely no jokes at all during which she tells Nicole that she’s living a lie and should know her place in the pecking order.

You can hate her, but that’s the point. We’re not supposed to find Felicity funny; it’s what she brings out of Nicole that matters, spending the first half of “The Egg” attempting to make her family better in a vain attempt to impress. Once Nicole finally drops the act and loses all respect for her guest, though, the episode redeems itself in whatever ugliness Felicity brings to the table, turning her into a literal demon and attempting to devour the woman. Nicole is Nicole, so don’t mess with her.

"The Egg" also introduces Billy as Anais’ foil and potential romantic partner, providing a more playful counterpart to the rest of the episode’s more hard-to-swallow aspects. There’s not a lot to say about them because Billy’s abhorrence of Daisy the Donkey turns out to be her ultimate deal-breaker, but they do have an infectiously fun, Europop-infused romp around town. While their relationship later reemerges to lesser effect in “The Pest,” there’s a lot to like about their little sub-plot here. 

Best Moment: The moment that Nicole and Felicity start fighting by slamming their heads into each other in slow motion is a moment that I don’t think I’ll ever legitimately grasp, but it still makes me laugh every time.

137. S05E08 - “The Code” (10/20/16)

What Happens?: When the Watterson’s Internet goes down, Gumball and Darwin try to entertain themselves before fighting to regain it.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Man, by this point in my watchthrough, I’m starting to feel nostalgic— “The Code” was the first episode I ever reviewed. While at the time I gave it a glowing, and clunkily-formatted, A-, I’ve since taken a few steps back and adjusted it to more of a B+. “The Code” is still really fun, with some great jokes and fun twists, but it’s nothing too special.

This is an episode with two acts. First, Gumball and Darwin try to recreate the experience of being online in real life, and later, they “hack” into Mr. Robinson’s WiFi to reclaim access after they believe he has kicked them off of his server. They each work in different ways, with the former allowing for a ton of fun jokes in turning the quick, transactional nature of using the Internet into drawn-out (or, alternatively, painfully terse) events when reenacted, pulling from the show’s more traditional well of jokes to great success. The second half, though, is where “The Code” really defines itself, changing aesthetically into a hacking sequence in cyberspace, with Gumball and Darwin stealthily navigating their way into Mr. Robinson’s LAN.

Both sections are fantastic in their own right, but they don’t make for a complete whole due to the abrupt shift in nature, and the reveal that the hacker sequence was entirely imagined is a somewhat disappointing retread of the gag from “The Downer,” and a strange put-down to rush out the episode’s ending. “The Code” starts strong, and finishes a little less so, but it’s worth appreciating that it never runs out of gas.

Best Moment: While the hacker sequence is what “The Code” will be remembered by most, my favorite scene will always be Gumball accidentally attaching Richard in his real-life email. It’s just the perfect epitomization of how stupidly exaggerated replicating online actions in reality would be, with Gumball patiently traveling all the way to a hospital to give Richard his “email” without ever realizing what he was doing.

136. S06E33 - “The Silence” (4/29/19) 

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin fear that the magic of their friendship is fading when they run out of things to say to one another.

Why Is It on the List Here?: I’ve always been somewhat on the fence with “The Silence,” and a large part of that has to do with its incredibly unassuming first half. There’s a legitimately interesting concept at play here, but its exploration of that idea meanders until the halfway point, effectively just a series of missteps in hopes of finding some way to reinvigorate their lives. There wouldn’t be much wrong with that, but it’s surprisingly uninteresting, with a few strong moments (Darwin regrettably whispering “alternative medicine,” summoning Mr. Small, and some nice conversational blurbs between scenes) amidst conventional and occasionally frustrating ones—Gumball and Darwin visiting Harold as a psychotherapist goes exactly as you’d expect, and the sequence where Gumball roleplays as a coquettish schoolgirl, damn its polarized reception, is massively cringeworthy.

At the midway point, though, “The Silence” becomes amazing. Its highly meta musical number, with Gumball and Darwin walking increasingly further apart and creating difficulties in their ability to properly duet, is hilarious. Equally fun is Gumball recreating Darwin’s adventure to the dump, where he gets trapped mid-song, with incredibly precise beats demonstrating just how much he understands how his brother ticks. Suddenly, “The Silence” isn’t just working: it’s galavanting. It even manages to find a perfect resolution—it’s not that they’ve lost touch with one another so much as they’re so in touch that they’ve transcended speech. 

Even with the difficulties of its first half, how “The Silence” ends makes it worthwhile, and utterly delightful to boot.

Best Moment: The song was a brilliant little bit of meta comedy.

135. S04E08 - “The Sale” (9/02/15)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin do everything in their power to stop Mr. Robinson from moving out of the neighborhood.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Sale” frustrates me because, even though it’s comedically fantastic, it’s problematic. After Mr. Robinson’s near-complete lack of representation in Season 3, it seems as if “The Sale” takes it upon itself to reset the dynamic between him, Gumball, and Darwin to how it was in Season 1, casting the two brothers in a strangely obsessive position that goes entirely unexplained. Their intense infatuation with the poor guy is one of the few things that the series has kept up since its inception, and it sticks out like a sore thumb because of its static nature. 

However, “The Sale” really does go all out in the stupidity of its premise, and that redeems its issues quite a bit for me. It’s always great when Gumball incorporates a show-stopping musical number, and the brothers’ rousing “Never Gonna Let You Go” is such a fantastical, hyper-emotional display and reminder that Jacob Hopkins could seriously hit those high notes; seeing Gumball and Darwin’s varied ideas of scaring off Mr. Robinson’s potential buyers, too, lets them do so many strange and ingenious things ranging from delivering intimidating monologues in Southern accents to staging police brutality. Sure, the ending is kinda dumb, with Gumball and Darwin saving the day by uncovering “oil” (which is actually just raw sewage), but that’s just on par for the episode: “The Sale” is idiotic, and in a lot of ways fairly flawed, but hey, it’s a darn good time. 

Best Moment: Gumball and Darwin fiddling with the piano sound effects and accidentally playing some sweet Muzak.

134. S01E05 - “The End” (5/23/11) 

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin fear the upcoming solar eclipse will mark the end of the world and make the best of the 24 hours they have before the world comes to an end.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The End” is one of the most successful episodes to come out of the first half of Season 1, with its premise making for a lot of fun moments. The entirety of the episode is structured into specific time slots, all of which act as markers of different scenes throughout Gumball and Darwin’s day. It’s almost like an early vignette episode, though with a linear progression, splitting its narrative into brief, increasingly-dramatic scenes marked by the continuation of the ominous timer through which Gumball does everything from attempting to marry Penny to growing a perm. It starts off with the Watterson brothers in the pinnacle of melodrama and finishes with strokes of insanity.

“The End” also does an excellent job of illustrating the roles that every family member plays in the family, as previous efforts either isolated them or failed to explore them on particularly deep levels. Each character gets their own moment to shine, with Anais and Nicole making for admirable foils to Gumball and Darwin’s apprehensions, and Richard having a rare early spotlight, joining up with them to prepare for the worst and getting in a fight with an incredibly noncompliant self check-out aisle. 

Best Moment: Gumball having a perm, and repeatedly exhibiting pride in said perm, never gets old.

133. S03E26 - “The Lie” (11/20/14)

What Happens?: Gumball invents a holiday to snap Elmore out of its mid-January slump.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Lie” is an interesting creature; it’s pretty much a holiday special for a completely nonexistent holiday, taking narrative cues from the blueprints of Christmas specials’ past—most notably by deploying a soft-spoken British narrator—to construct an almost-parodic episode of the show. I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest fan, probably because of how methodical it is and how that affects the show’s usual pacing, but “The Lie” is still worthy of praise.

I especially enjoyed pairing up Gumball and Anais during the episode’s climax. It’s strange how rarely we see Anais joining up with another member of her family besides just being a third wheel, but she’s a nice counter to Gumball, helping him iron out his plans to save Sluzzle Tag by ensuring it lives up to its expectations (gifting everyone in town with disposed Christmas presents). I also liked that Gumball created an entire Sluzzle Tag subculture that Elmore immediately picked up on, with grindcore-drenched Christmas choirs and barbed wire-lined toilets—it’s so dumb, but it helps make Sluzzle Tag all the more memorable, and it’s almost a shame that the holiday isn’t as iconic among fans as it should be. Lastly, Ms. Simian makes for a really fun, Grinch-like antagonist, helping to keep things moving and on a set path while also offering some great little moments.

Best Moment: Gumball opening their front door the wrong way, crushing Ms. Simian against the wall, was delightfully specific.

132. S02E09 - “Halloween” (10/25/12) 

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin turn into ghosts after drinking too much of Carrie’s potion at a haunted house party.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Holiday episodes are almost always a mixed bag for a lot of shows, with festive themes often either interfering with the tone that their show usually goes after, or those holidays being used as an excuse to make something overly-saccharine. “Halloween,” though, went incredibly smoothly, thanks in no small part to Carrie, who allows the world of the living (Gumball, Darwin, and later Anais) and the dead to intersect in fun ways, perhaps no better demonstrated than by turning a haunted mansion into a raging, ethereal house party. (Honestly, if you only got out one day of the year, what else would you do?) 

While watching Gumball and Darwin fly around town and mess with everyone else’s festivities was a lot of fun, though, “Halloween” is still fairly intuitive. There’s just a lot to cram into this 11 minutes, and I feel like the emphasis on how Gumball and Darwin were enjoying the holiday removed us from a lot of the other stuff going on, especially in regards to Carrie, who pretty much vanishes entirely until the climactic ending of the episode despite carrying it to the finish line. (Anais, too, doesn’t have a lot going on here, while also falling into a well and nearly dying after being inevitably turned into a ghost.) Still, insofar as this is a holiday special, Gumball lets loose just the right amount, finding some fantastic ways to spin the expected spooks into an enjoyable, wacky outing more intent to entertain than to frighten.

Best Moment: Darwin kissing Carrie. Not only does it set off one of the show’s more long-running story arcs between the two, but more importantly, it actively works to powerwash the existence of Rachel off of the show. Thank God.

131. S03E08 - “The Extras” (7/14/14)

What Happens?: The background characters of Elmore get to stand in the spotlight for once. 

Why Is It on the List Here?: I get the generally low enthusiasm surrounding “The Extras.” This is pretty much the least Gumball episode of the show to date, if not exclusively because Gumball and Darwin are only there to introduce eleven minutes of scenes with characters we’re not particularly familiar with, some whom we’ve never even seen at all. But I think that’s why it works so well: one of Gumball’s greatest assets is Elmore and the citizens who live in it, and it’s fun to see how such a varied cast spends their life when Gumball and Darwin aren’t using them as scene partners.

“The Extras’” ambitiousness makes even the weakest scenes easy to appreciate. There’s a lot of genuinely funny stuff, especially when the episode actively tries to challenge us with material beyond short, one-joke scenes. An early winner is the scene between Felicity and Billy, having Billy take the place of a kid who won’t stop asking, “Are we there yet?” so much that, once they arrive home, Felicity knocks herself out with a shovel on the front lawn. The second-to-last bit, too, is a fun experiment in build-up, telling the story of how the Pepperonis (the couple with pizza heads) first fell in love, culminating in a kiss that mushes their faces horrifically because, y’know, they’re pizzas. Simplicity is at the core of each conceit, but that’s also their greatest quality.

“The Extras,” too, bookends itself with a phenomenal musical number, “Just Notice Us.” It hammers the point in immediately, but it’s such a lavish production that you just have to sit back and appreciate it. That dude acting as the green gummy bear, Simon Lipkin, is legitimately belting his heart out, even though that character is gonna be put out-of-commission the second that the episode ends. In that sense, he really does embody the spirit of the episode: even if this is all just a throwaway, Gumball’s making the most of it.

Best Moment: My favorite scene from “The Extras” will always be the bit of the criminals in jail humming, only for the spray paint guy to start blowing violently into his harmonica. It’s the most beautifully stupid punchline imaginable and it always gets me.

130. S01E28 - “The Club” (12/5/11)

What Happens?: Gumball can’t find a club to join at school until the Rejects Club tries to welcome him. He refuses, causing them to go after him to ruin his reputation.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Club” may not be as strong comedically as a lot of the episodes that appear before it on the list, but what makes it work is how it uses the Wattersons. The episode shows how each of them have a particular niche—Nicole goes to anger management, Richard does roleplaying, Darwin swims, and Anais does physics stuff—and not only do those interests perfectly fit their personalities, but they end up being important in saving the day.

After the Rejects Club goes after Gumball with a video exposing his deepest secrets, the Wattersons all band up to take them out, with each of their hobbies finding a use in slowly knocking each individual obstacle out of the way. While you could argue that things fall into place a little too easily, and the episode coordinates itself very explicitly, each character use felt well-earned and built on how their characters have been established over the course of the past season, and the climax of the episode is also sort of a culmination of all the development they’ve gone through up to that point, and it’s undeniably awesome.

My one complaint, though, is their decision to drop all the members of the Rejects Club off at the mall naked as a punishment when none of them ever had clothes. Come on, guys.

Best Moment: Darwin takes down his opponent in the Rejects Club by synchronize-dancing with him. It’s surprisingly effective.

129. S03E36 - “The Nobody” (2/26/15)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin suspect someone is living in their house.

Why Is It on the List Here?: While “The Nobody” can very easily just be boiled down to "the episode where Rob makes his grand entrance," it’s sturdy enough to stand on its own two legs even before he comes into the picture. His existence is simply an unexpected twist, with the actual meat of the episode being Gumball and Darwin doing their best detective work when things start to go missing around their house. It’s fairly low-key by Gumball standards, but the fact that it’s so barebones shifts the focus to just how strong of a dynamic Gumball and Darwin have; that sounds obvious, but it’s always a joy to behold, and they prevail without the need for anything more dramatic to feed off of. Simple but effective.

Of course, once Rob joins in, the ante gets upped. While it’s not until the climactic, last-minute reveal of his origin story that the character fully comes together—he was sucked into the Void but survived by clinging to Mr. Small’s van at the end of “The Void,” developing a vendetta against the Wattersons for their failure to rescue him—his introduction is well-appreciated, a moment that leaves you on the edge of your seat waiting for his return. With that being said, “The Nobody” is more intent on planting the seeds of Rob’s story arc than making a huge statement, but it’s a fair compromise. 

Best Moment: When Gumball and Darwin are trying to help Rob come up with potential roles he could play in the show, they reach a point where Larry pops up repeatedly because of how many jobs he holds down.

128. S04E03 - “The Crew” (7/13/15)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin join the most hardcore group in Elmore: the senior citizens.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Old people jokes make up some of the most overdone comedic fodder there is, but “The Crew” is solid proof that they can still thrive and be just as thoughtful as anything else. It’s an episode that succeeds indebted to its specificity; instead of easy punchlines, there’s a thoughtfulness to the new identities Gumball and Darwin assume as members of the Senior Citizens that keeps everything fresh and surprisingly invigorating. Transforming into old people is stupid, but doing so out of woefully misaligned hero worship just makes every single joke click into place.

It certainly helps, too, that the episode’s final act goes even more absurdly that one could imagine, with the kids misinterpreting a text message Marvin wants to send to Louie as a direct order to murder him—a profoundly dumb misunderstanding, but one ripe with strange potential—and the ensuing chase sequence, a surprisingly-robust blend of old people and gang jokes, ensures that everything goes out on the highest note it can. It’s interesting wrinkles like that (pun fully intended) that demonstrate Gumball’s ability to evolve even the simplest jokes into strokes of genius, even if “The Crew” is just about a bunch of old folks.

Best Moment: Gumball and Darwin’s attempt to impress the senior citizens (all of whom are clearly asleep) while walking past them through doing fly walks and dropping their pants down was hilariously dumb.

127. S05E23 - “The Grades” (2/27/17)

What Happens?: Miss Simian discovers a loophole that sends Gumball back to kindergarten, but the two end up forming a temporary alliance to help bring Gumball back into her classroom to save her from losing her job.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Perhaps the greatest quality of “The Grades” is that it wants to subvert your expectations as much as possible, but in a rare move, through positive developments. Instead of taking turns for the worse, the characters make engaging developments in their favor, like Gumball’s realization that, after a harrowing day at kindergarten, he just needs to lose his inhibitions. Once that’s done, he has the time of his life and he couldn’t care less.

The nicest surprise, though, is the amount of chemistry between Gumball and Miss Simian that appears in the back half of the episode. If it were even slightly off, “The Grades” wouldn’t work at all, but they bounce off of each other so effortlessly that I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of their dynamic in the future. Somehow, they bring out the best of each other, with Gumball unveiling Miss Simian’s sense of compassion and Miss Simian enabling Gumball to academically succeed, passing the re-entry exam with an A+. This isn’t a mind-blowing episode, sure, but with those sorts of ideas, it’s a refreshing one.

Best Moment: "They just waddle around with their pants down, grabbing everything they see, and putting it in their mouths, even if it's a part of your anatomy! They get into fights for no reason and end up crying and hugging! Then they just go on slurring unintelligible nonsense and they pass out wherever they feel like it! They're like.. they're like... British tourists."

126. S04E34 - “The Blame” (8/16/16)

What Happens?: Gumball tries to prove to Felicity the positive benefits of video games.

Why Is It on the List Here?: First off, I just want to get this out of the way: “Romeo, oh Romeo, Rom-ey is your homie-o” was a mistake. But moving on from that, “The Blame” operates in a similar vein to “The Points” from a few episodes before, but with a more sharply-honed satirical vantage point. Parents being angry at violent video games is never gonna go away, and it’s arguably one of the more sensitive, unending culture clashes of contemporary society, but “The Blame” wants to postulate another point entirely: books aren’t much better, and “The Blame” issues forth an intense rap to prove it. 

While that song is often the subject of most of the episode’s praise, and rightfully so (aside from some… rough spots), I’m more a fan of Felicity here. She’s such a specific character to work with in how hateable she is, and transforming her into an overly-offended mother who objects to all new media (video games, “the pop music,” et al) is a smart move. Plus, she’s anti-vax, obviously, in one of the episode’s most low-key jokes; for 2016, that’s aged like a fine wine.

While I don’t think that “The Blame” is the most spot-on attempt at satire Gumball has ever done, and its ultimate stance is somewhat pedestrian, there’s always some surprise around the corner that keeps everything exciting.

Best Moment: In an abundance of excellent jokes, ending the episode with a good, old-fashioned book burning was perfect.

125. S06E01 - “The Rival” (1/05/18) 

What Happens?: In a flashback episode, Gumball and Darwin are introduced to a baby Anais, who turns out to be out to kill them.

Why Is It on the List Here?: It was an interesting idea to launch the series’ sixth season with a flashback episode. Instead of playing into the nostalgic sentimentality of the like-minded “The Origins” or “The Choices,” though, Gumball shoots for complete irreverence, taking the opportunity to redefine Anais as a hyper-intelligent, malicious infant bent on getting Gumball and Darwin in trouble, if not murdering them outright. While there’s a few hurdles to it being a knock-out success, there’s just so much fun to this episode that it’s hard not to be charmed by how opportunistic “The Rival” is.

While a lot of people took issue with Anais being depicted as an evil toddler, I don’t really see that as foul play at all: she’s a baby without any inhibitions, and with her key character trait of being a smart cookie, it checks out that putting those two things together would result in her being an evil mastermind. She’s not too dimensional, but hey, neither are babies, and there’s enough of a winning formula to the episode on a conceptual level that it’s always working, culminating in a gorgeously-animated action sequence resulting from Gumball and Darwin’s attempt to teach her a lesson backfiring pitifully.

The one misfortune is that “The Rival” relishes in an annoying bad habit of Season 6 episodes of using faces in place of legitimate joke-telling. Granted, faces can be inherently funny when used in moderation, but the lack of legitimate contributions that they make to the episode comedy-wise means that once you notice their frequency, some parts of the episode can be a bit exhausting. Regardless of that, though, at the end of the day, “The Rival’s” solid. 

Best Moment: The revelation that Gumball’s spirit attempts to go to hell when he and Darwin almost get run over is nicely underdone.

For the last part of this list, from 179-150, 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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