Summer Camp Island Review: Honey Moondog / Royally Bored / All the King's Slides (Puddle and the King Chapters 1-3)

"Choo choo! All aboard! Last stop: a heightened understanding of the physics of true love."

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I'm not gonna lie in saying that the prospects of the Alien arc of this season scared me a bit. Puddle and the King have been two characters that I have, perhaps controversially, always struggled with a bit; while I've found them pretty darn delightful in small doses, they can become exhausting for me when they're pushed more towards the forefront, with episodes like "Space Invasion" and "Tortilla Towels" being among the most frustrating entries in the show to me. Every appearance from the aliens risks them becoming a cumbersome presence that exist to weigh on Oscar and Hedgehog.

It came as a surprise to me, then, just how much I enjoyed this week's offerings. Whereas the Susie arc was made up of four deeply interconnected episodes with a focus on telling one story, the alien arc is more in the spirit of how SCI usually conducts itself, though with a sharper focus on the aliens and their kingdom. While there is linearity to the episodes, going from Puddle and the King's departure to their return and focusing in large part on Oscar and Hedgehog assuming the throne temporarily, each installment is interested in exploring vastly different concepts. Some inevitably landed for me more than others, sure, but combined, they come across as a pleasant return to form that, nonetheless, feels distinctly invigorating and special.

"Honey Moondog," especially, quelled a lot of my fears about what I feared the arc could be, kicking off the trilogy with the soundest and most delightful episode of the bunch. While I have a lot of praises to sing for the King and Puddle here (which we'll get to), so much of that is indebted to some classic Osc-Hog shenanigans. For such a winning duo, it's a little unfortunate how much last season de-emphasized their partnership in favor of solo outings, so seeing Oscar and Hedgehog back in their element and playing off of each other as enjoyably as they do here is like the balm that our troubled souls need.

With the two of them stepping up as stand-ins for the honeymooning royal couple, Oscar and Hedgehog assume the sort of perfect roles that allow them to be firing on all cylinders. Hedgehog gets to take on the sort of comically-overblown role that she so rarely gets but was born to play, assuming the position of Queen with hilariously snobby narcissism, dismissing the notion of having a King with sharp defiance ("You cannot make me. Elizabeth I didn't have one, and Victoria was bogged down by hers.") and pleading to Oscar, point blank, not to be a lovable disaster for even a single day. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Oscar is, well, a lovable disaster, and thank God for that; his klutziness and naivety might not be anything too new here, but the formula is as fool-proof as it is endearing.

Putting Oscar and Hedgehog to task with conducting the Swan-Upping ceremony, an annual census wherein they have to photograph and document the well-being of every swan in the kingdom, is the perfect sort of simplistic premise for them to conduct their newly-royal selves through. It helps, too, that they're buoyed by two fun new characters as well: Dennis, a swan that Oscar accidentally scares off before they can properly conduct his census, and Shortcake, an alien miner battling newfound listlessness after being denied the same royal temp position that Hedgehog ended up inheriting. 

For however simple the conceit of both characters is, too, they're as appreciably realized as you'd expect of SCI. Shortcake's defeatist melancholy is as sweet as it is humorously-specific—"Sorry, I don't usually make jokes at the strawberries' expense. I'm better than that." is the perfect one-two punch of absurd and affecting—and the fact that they get to actualize their passion for photography at the end by effortlessly coaxing Dennis out of his den for some census glamor shots presents them with solid closure. Meanwhile, Dennis risks being nothing more than something for Oscar and Hedgehog to guilelessly harass, but him acknowledging that he's no worse for wear and at least got to take some sights in and exercise sparkles with inner life. So much of "Honey Moondog" is just watching four characters playing off of each other in prime form, and it most certainly makes for one of SCI's more infectious, memorable romps.

It's the little scraps of the King and Puddle's honeymoon that are the most resonant part of the episode, though. They've never been cuter than they are here, with Puddle melting the King's heart and filling him with feelings he's never felt before at the display of their knot repair skills. It's the sort of rare demonstration in a television show of such a humble, universal feeling that SCI is so good at unearthing. Although all of the alien's material in this episode is expendable in how detached it is, and perhaps not as elaborated upon as it could be—I would've liked a third segment between their two honeymoon scenes to grant the acceleration of their feelings for each other a bit more structure—it's remarkably sweet character work, and by far my favorite means through which they've been explored.

Similarly, "Royally Bored" opts to have Puddle and the King function largely independent of Hedgehog and Oscar's journey, yet manages to plunge even deeper into their characters in the process, structuring itself as a steady, beat-by-beat overview of their first interaction. It's hard to say if episodes like "Honey Moondog" and "Royally Bored" demonstrate that Puddle and the King's peskier quirks can be triumphed, but they present a formula through which the characters can thrive without compromising others in their midst (and be freed from a more complex narrative like "Feeling Spacey" or "We'll Just Move the Stars"). Strained of that, we're just left with their inherent warmth and sweetness, and the tale of a salt water taffy robbery-turned-meet-cute. 

I was initially a little hesitant about the episode; it felt like it was going into backstory that didn't really demand the same level of exploration as, say, the partnering Susie and Ramona material, but I ultimately think that just further speaks to the themes of the alien arc as a whole. It's not imperative that we know everything, but it's certainly appreciated, and ultimately welcome. For what it's worth, too, the means through which "Honey Moondog" unfurled itself was more engrossing than last arc's narration from Jimjams, in my opinion.

The episode cleverly finds a way to deliver its flashbacks while keeping its foot strongly grounded in the present, and especially in Hedgehog and Oscar's journey from room to room of the castle, by fighting through the more immediate quest of conquering Queen Hedgehog's ennui. The fact that said quest involves breaking jesters out of every room's floorboards and asking them what they heard on one fateful night only serves to make things more delightfully specific, and to fan a greater array of voices across the story at-hand. It's a well-balanced means of ensuring that Oscar and Hedgehog exercise agency over the episode and actively contribute to its progression, but without ever becoming an interference on what "Royally Bored" is trying to highlight.

Instead, it's a clever way of providing more substance to the admittedly-simplistic story that "Royally Bored" is telling without hogging up the spotlight. It never feels like the framework exists as a crutch; as one of the court jesters later says, the flashbacks are more of a cute prequel to everything that would eventually take hold between the royal alien couple. Having Puddle disguise as the local castle ghost in hopes of flirting with the King through a game of billiards is so far-fetched that in any other show it would come across as questionable, but SCI manages to weigh all of the moments to its narrative perfectly, and it just... works. It's almost foolish attempting to break down the strange charms of the show into a science, but it's that willingness to just allow things to register in whatever weird, sweet way that it can—culminating in the two staying up until dawn eating saltwater taffy—that allows every moment to be sold with shocking earnestness. 

To cop the words of a man who was perhaps not as smart as he thought himself to be, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; you just have to allow the absurdity of SCI to do its thing and drive its way to a surprisingly touching conclusion.

In spite of that sense across "Honey Moondog" and "Royally Bored," though, "All the King's Slides" feels like a bit of an odd whimper to close out the trilogy despite its dedication to weirdness. Whereas the former two episodes were intent on digging into who the King and Puddle are at their core, "All the King's Slides" feels oddly counter-productive, turning the King into a psychotic despot intent on driving his sugary planet into destruction for the sake of quenching his new obsession with salt. It's not that the episode is a case of old habits dying hard, but it's not the most flattering and balanced recontextualization of the characters either, and that can make things, ironically, a little hard to swallow.

There's certainly a lot to appreciate, and a lot that keeps "All the King's Slides" operational. It's always fun to see Susie paired up with Oscar and Hedgehog, forced to align and shed her selfishness but never at the cost of her crabbiness. I also liked pairing Puddle with the trio, allowing the King's irrational behavior to feel more like an independent case study than a continuation of SCI's usual premises for the characters. With that being said, the plot overall isn't any less plagued by irritable patterns, invoking an "us versus them" mentality that feels a bit old hat for a show like SCI that prefers to operate in more of a neutral, gray area.

The fact that the King's uncharacteristic salt thirst is the result of being infected by a parasite takes the edge off a little bit, and it's a nice assurance that none of what the character goes through is to be taken as some personal display of his sentiments, but that also makes the existence of the episode in such an otherwise character-focused arc feel baffling. I don't intend to unfairly amplify my issues with the episode at a baseline, but it feels a bit wasted within its context, depriving "All the King's Slides" of anything to say. At the very least, SCI's trademark absurdism, with moments like the King and Puddle transparently disassembling Susie's car to force her to look at vacation photos, the salt virus' ambivalence to being launched back to his home planet, and everything involving Susie's literal straw man boyfriend Jonathan, resonates as strongly as always.

The shortcomings of "All the King's Slides" don't weigh too much on the uniform strength of this week's batch, though; as with "Honey Moondog" and "Royally Bored," there's a sweetness that ultimately drives it towards its conclusion, and combined, the episodes stand as a touching affirmation of the King and Puddle's love. The fact that each installment takes its own avenues, too, crafting something unique out of its subjects while still working towards that general theme, keeps things fresh in a way that plays to the strengths of a show as varied as SCI wonderfully. Whether or not any of what transpired will ever be able to plug back into the series as meaningfully as any of last week's revelations, it's nice to see Summer Camp Island embracing its more carefree, light nature and giving its supporting cast the justice and sweetness that they deserve.

FINAL GRADES:
"Honey Moondog": A.
"Royally Bored": B+.
"All the King's Slides": B-.

On Sunday: The yeti arc begins.

For my review of the last two episodes, "Meet Me in Massachusetts" and "Witches in the City," CLICK HERE.

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