The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Ghouls

"Dude, it's so sad! We need to help them get their scare back." "He's right, we'll do anything. Is there a page we can like or a wristband we can wear or something?"

Sorry this post is a bit late, but I've had a busy and exciting weekend which I will be sure to write about! And also college. So if you're not cool about this coming out late, then... sucks to be you, man, I guess you have to find someone else to read. Good luck with that!

Watching "The Ghouls" helped me realize that modern Gumball episodes are at their most successful when they succeed in two regards: one, they have an interesting structure bound around a strong concept, and two, that they're just downright fun (see: "The Founder," "The Vegging," "The Candidate"). Unfortunately, the past season has been filled with a frustratingly disproportionate amount of episodes that only really succeed in one of those regards (usually the former). "The Ghouls," then, is an episode that is fun... but it's difficult to properly evaluate on the level of how it's put together considering the weakness of a lot of every aspect of it otherwise.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Awareness

"We should just nip it in the bud." "Uh, no, let's not. That phrase is actually incredibly offensive to plants."

Continuing off of Gumball's grand tradition of releasing episodes early in different countries without a US airdate in sight, "The Awareness" found its way inconspicuously on British airwaves yesterday, and through the power of shady Internet wizardry, I'm here to review it.

I think I'll start things off by saying this much: even if I don't think a lot of episodes are great, I can generally see how people could get to those conclusions. Maybe you like "The Intelligence" and the extent of its commitment to the medieval motif, or you enjoyed the macabre hijinks of "The Ad." But "The Awareness" is an episode that eludes me on that front; it's not that it's bad, it's just uniform in every way. It takes a fun premise and just goes along with it as much as necessary without ever breaking into more exciting territory, making for a respectable but unmemorable outing.

First of all, it's worth noting that the episode tackles a very interesting satirical target in the form of Gumball attempting to demonstrate an understanding of plant culture to a skeptical and condescending Leslie, with the two creating an echo chamber of cultural appropriation in an attempt to maintain the upper hand. Theoretically, the premise brings out some of the strongest cynicism that Gumball has to offer, at times bordering on Season 2 levels of deviousness, but none of the episode really gets channeled into a satisfying end, and in my opinion, there's a lot of reasons for that.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Ad

"Well, I guess we all learned a lesson today. It's okay to commit a crime if it means you get away with a different crime." "Nicole, that's a terrible lesson."

"The Money," in my opinion, is the greatest single episode that Gumball has ever created. Its examination of the Wattersons' financial situation, how it manages to strongly demonstrate the role that each Watterson plays in the family dynamic, and how it shatters the fourth wall so dramatically makes it, no matter what angle you look at it from, a complete blast. With that being said, though, I don't think it really warranted a sequel, but alas, that's sort of what "The Ad" is.

I'm not saying that "The Ad" traces the plot of "The Money" very much, though in all honesty, it's not a bad episode to take notes from. Rather, it follows the same basic plot of Richard wasting money on something particularly lavish—in this case, a horse named Wunderklopp—causing the family to take every measure possible to scrape up the money to survive for a month until a potential horse buyer can pay the money back. While "The Money" devotes itself to exploring their depravity and falling dignity, though, "The Ad" simply finds them involved in a scheme, using their house as a bed and breakfast to earn money, all while secretly living in the house. Theoretically, the premise offers up promising absurdity, but the route the show takes somehow winds up crafting one of the most boring, uneventful episodes since Season 5's "The Deal."

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Understanding

"Catch the catch?"

So... I hate having to be prickly from time to time, but this episode was a mess. Every once in a while, even the best television shows will leave you with an episode that just utterly baffles you in terms of how it got into fruition, and I'll be damned if "The Understanding" isn't Gumball's. Sure, the show's had worst episodes, but there's never been one this ridiculously perplexing in its existence. It's just an episode that tries too much. While I usually admire the show going balls to the wall with some fantastically insane premise, here, it pays off very little, or at the very least far from the desired effect. Let's break down why.

The largest issue with "The Understanding" is that it wants to take advantage of shock humor. I can see the logic there and why the writers thought it would be a fun idea: the episode is framed around Peter Pepperoni, who Gumball and Darwin are completely unable to decode in how strangely he speaks, so they decide to just nod in agreement with everything. This, however, backfires when it turns out he was talking about him and his parents' abhorrence for the government and inviting them on a heist of town hall records.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Transformation

"I am not oppressing you! I'm just exercising my authority to force you to do something you don't want to do!"

Ever since "The Shell," Penny has proven to be one of the most difficult characters for the show to work with. If anything, she exemplifies the show's greatest issue: its sense of overachieving, ushering forth extravagant episodes without paying attention to how that affects the show further down the line. Penny is perhaps the patron saint of having-the-short-end-of-the-stick, virtually disappearing after arguably one of the show's greatest episodes, occasionally resurfacing but never really enough to justify how the show played its cards. In that sense, "The Transformation" feels a bit like damage control.

At the same time, though... it's been so long. And instead of making me frustrated by, say, the episode's lack of timeliness and how much it epitomizes her under-utilization, I was just relieved to see it work out as well as it did. Sure, there's some issues here and there, but "The Transformation" is a worthy successor to "The Shell," finally offering us something new from Penny after years of relative neglect.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Spinoffs

"Diction, diction, action!"

Vignette episodes have always proven to be a somewhat difficult thing for the show to pull off. For every episode like "The Singing" that oozes with creativity, there's another episode like "The Compilation" that struggles by virtue of the threat of variance in quality and loose structure that the format allows. "The Spinoffs," though, managed to avoid the usual pitfalls that such episodes have to endure, and as a result, it rises to the top as, I'd argue, one of the most successful episodes of its kind, and a shining example of the show's unbridled creativity.

I just want to take a moment, though, to express why I really think it works better than a lot of other entries, because that's a fairly bold claim to make. One of the most concurrent issues of vignette episodes is that they try to follow a plot; this both limits the scope of their skits across every scene and, at worst, creates an incredibly weak center. "The Spinoffs" has the perfect solution: present the scenario as Rob (with the "assistance" of the Internet) hijacking the show's usual programming with video demos of alternative shows led by other characters across the series.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Potion

"Sorry, it's my turn to be depressed? Thanks."

Welcome back! That's all I really have an idea of in terms of an introduction, because there's so many of these pesky episode bombs that trying to think of something new every time is a waste of mental exertion. So let's just get into it: "The Potion." It was... alright. That's about as good of a one-word summary as I can get.

Hector has always been interesting for the show to work with. His character is defined by his height, with his other only major role, in "The Colossus," turning into an awesome, adrenaline-packed Shadow of the Colossus tribute, and his more recently memorable stint in "The Night" exploring how his life would be different if he were smaller. Both of those episodes, though, more importantly, examined how his height influenced his personality, with both signifying its dangers, but the latter especially hammering in his yearnings to be just like everybody else. "The Potion" just comes across as an elaboration on that, and while it tries to become more of a close examination, it feels more like a general rehash.