"I'm feelin' a little heavy-hearted."
--
Ready the mince pies and pack up your toilet paper rolls! Today's
SCI reviews are for "Shave a Little Off the Wheel" and "He's Just Not
Here Right Now." Let's get on into it!
One of Summer Camp Island's greatest gifts is its ability to imbue
even the most fleeting characters with such a deep sense of inner life, and
I can't think of an episode to demonstrate that better than
"Shave a Little Off the Wheel." It's a strange entry into the show's
catalog; set against the backdrop of a wintry holiday called the "Holly
Harvest," our focus immediately shifts from Oscar and Hedgehog to
Cookiesmell, the mouse living in the wall of Oscar's cabin, making a
small-scale adventure to shave a little cheese off of the cheese wheel in
the cafeteria kitchen.
Although every Holly Harvest he makes the journey for his kids, this year
there's a new stipulation: the already dangerous trip—leaving him at the mercy
of some textbook slice-and-dicing if he gets caught—has been exacerbated by
the high heels that his kids have jokingly glued to his feet. (Admittedly,
though, Cookiesmell loves them.) That's when he makes a chance encounter with a
snowflake, naturally named Snowflake, who possesses the innate power to muffle
the sounds of his clacking heels. They're a pairing that works because of how
much of a touching dynamic both Cookiesmell and Snowflake have, and despite
their relatively simple characterizations, they're conceived with a lot of
heart. Snowflake, especially, gets a rather thoughtful bit of back-story,
declaring that in the sea of identical snowflakes, she wants new life purpose
beyond falling and landing and melting, even if only for a day. That makes her a perfect partner to Cookiesmell, whose annual travel plans have
suddenly turned from a source of nervous jitters to a source of newfound joy,
scampering across the food hall and kitchen with her in palpable glee.
That's also what makes the sudden moment where Snowflake melts that much more
of a sucker punch. It's a moment made all the more affecting by how "Shave a
Little" doesn't play it off as particularly maudlin. Cookiesmell doesn't cry
out at the sight of her having turned into a droplet from reclining next to a
mug—he merely sighs and quietly forwards his evacuation plan with a lump in
his stomach. It's a moment that bears a heavy heart, if one that Oscar and
Hedgehog do their best to mend with the reminder that she's not truly gone. She's merely evaporated back into the atmosphere, and soon she'll be snow again. It's
a bittersweet end to the journey, but sometimes you just need to try out a new
look.
That's also why I really appreciate the ending of the episode, as subdued as
it is. I feel like it offers us a greater context of what Cookiesmell's life
is like, returning home to his rowdy children who devour his cheese shaving
about as unceremoniously as his friendship with Snowflake concluded. But it
doesn't weigh on him, ultimately; he's a dorky dad mouse who's quietly proud
of his dorkiness and unruffled by the indifference his children bring to the
story of his adventure that they tacitly ask about. They might refuse to
indulge his heartfelt ode to Snowflake, but he fulfills the narrative to
himself in spite of their pleas of its boringness, and he allows his heart to
be exposed. It's far from a conventionally happy ending (a part of myself was
expecting Snowflake to re-emerge), but it's a poignant one. While we may
never see Cookiesmell or Snowflake again, "Shave a Little" offers a gorgeous
window into the most stirring days of their lives, and there's something to
appreciate about that.
"He's Just Not Here Right Now" similarly captures a small moment
in time, with its simple plot bookending an extensive flashback to a camping trip, though it doesn't work
quite as well. I think a large part of that is that, despite having strong
ideas that it's working with, it struggles to really assess their value as the
narrative progresses. The end result certainly reflects a story, as if pulled
from real life—Oscar endures a small crisis of identity, but this is quickly
overturned in place of a fear that defines the rest of his story—but it also
feels like it could've been pushed along a bit further.
Fortunately, there's still a lot of natural charms to the idea. Upon
discovering that Susie and the witches are going to cut down a small pine
barren on their island to make room for a brand new witch sauna, Oscar and
Hedgehog recount a tale from the Pine Barrens of their native New Jersey. It's
a cool proposition for a lot of reasons. For one, we get to see Osc-Hog as
adorable children, as defined by their usual characteristics as they are by a
broader naivete, but we also get to step away from the island and explore the
world as the two characters understood it to be before they were truly aware
of the magic around them. We also get to see more of Oscar's father, Andy, who
continues to be endearing in spite of his
infrequent usage by the show; most sweetly, when he notices his son feeling gloomy due to not getting to paddle their
canoe, he doesn't console his son so much as make a legitimate, sincere case
for his significance as the canoe's "special little sack of potatoes."
Andy also weaves out the tale of the Jersey Devil to his two kids, a
creature with cloven hooves, arguably just the body of a horse, and an
ongoing prowl through the pine barrens for other peoples' sandwiches
("because sandwiches always taste better when someone else makes them"). For
as much as the Jersey Devil is the ultimate point of the story, though, his
presence also derails the episode's character work. As we settle into
something of a curious conflict with Oscar, who wounds up being emotionally
wounded when he sees two other campers describing the frivolousness of his
canoe position, "He's Just Not Here" makes a strange backpedal from further
exploring or rectifying that dilemma in favor of exploring Oscar and
Hedgehog's fear of the Jersey Devil for the final act. It's a perfectly fine
way to go, and indeed a necessary one considering the point of Oscar
recounting the story to Susie... but it also serves to invalidate some of
the episode's choices in direction, something which feels even more
disappointing as the Jersey Devil ends on a bit of an anticlimax. Oscar and
Hedgehog stay up all night out of fear, and although they discover their
sandwiches to have mysteriously vanished, they didn't catch so much as a
glimpse of the Jersey Devil at all.
That's because, as Susie condescendingly points out to them, the Jersey Devil
is invisible, a revelation that bears the good fortune of allowing for "He's
Just Not Here" to wrap itself up in a pretty delightful way:
lawyer Hedgehog is back! It's undeniable fun to see Hedgehog getting another opportunity to flex her
wits with some cross-examination, making the case that although Susie's
rationale for cutting down the pine barrens is that the Jersey Devil never
showed up, maybe he's actually been there this entire time. Considering how
often Hedgehog has been a relatively passive presence this season, too, it's a
treat to see her send this episode home and resolve the episode while playing
to her greatest strengths. I just wish more of this episode could've gotten a
similarly elegant resolution.
As we approach the homestretch of the season, it's interesting to look back on the sort of trends we've been seeing, and I think both "Shave a Little Off the Wheel" and "He's Just Not Here Right Now" speak to the two sides of this season. On one hand,
SCI is dedicated to bold experimentation, whether that means introducing new characters, working to a greater degree with underutilized, pre-established ones, or reconsidering the show's DNA entirely with episodes like "
Sea Bunnies" or "
Oscar & His Demon." On the other hand, though, we've also tended to get more conventional fare that isn't advancing the show so much as finding more variations on your typical narrative, and while such episodes remain enjoyable, they feel rather safe and low-stakes, lacking a strong central concept or the motivation to really elaborate upon the world of the show.
Summer Camp Island is, and will always be, endlessly charming, but I'm hoping that the final few episodes allow those concepts of reinvention to roam free. That's what always serves the show best, and keeps it such a joy to return to.
FINAL GRADES:
"Shave a Little Off the Wheel": A-.
"He's Just Not Here Right Now": B-.
For my last reviews of "Jeremiah" and "Tomorrow's Bananas,"
CLICK HERE.
If you like my stuff, be sure to follow me on Twitter
@Matt_a_la_mode.
No comments:
Post a Comment