Final Space: Chapter Ten Review

"We're going to have a lot of fun."

So... what now? Well, it's hard to say. And I've spent the past five days milling over how to go about addressing Chapter Ten, and it's not any easier than it was before. There's a lot to discuss here, so let's take a quick moment to get those feels worked out. Take your time. Deep breaths. Ready? Good. Let's go.

First of all, and before we tackle the meat of anything else, Chapter Ten is a spectacle of animation. Final Space has consistently proven itself to lovingly understand the craft, but the cinematography on display here is unparalleled and a perfect demonstration of how strong of an effect it can have on the atmosphere of the show: there's tension, there's drama, there's anguish. Everything about Final Space goes hand-in-hand with no component more important than the other.

And just as the animation is a culmination of the show, so too is the narrative. Final Space understands, perhaps ironically, finality; it's something the show has taken advantage of time and time again, and Chapter 10 is the most ruthless episode yet. (At least until the ending, which we'll get to.) On paper, it's an episode that slowly goes through our heroes, but in practice, it's an intense study of character relations, of increasingly helplessness, and of loss, both glorified (Quinn) and unglorified (Little Cato, who Gary accidentally knocks into space after ramming him with the Galaxy 1 on-course for the Lord Commander's ship).

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Stink

"Look at me! I have so little impact that when I'm gone, it'll be like I never even existed! Doesn't that sound fulfilling?"

"The Stink" is sort of fascinating to me. Whereas I can chalk my more impartial reaction to episodes like, say, "The Pact" to their more derivative material, "The Stink" is its own beast with an interesting satirical target—my brain in the middle of exam-prep mode (compounding onto my already-existent propensity to over-explain) wants to label it "hypocritical environmentalism" which isn't quite right—but something about it never really worked. It simply didn't add anything new, especially in regards to Mr. Small, feeling weirdly stale despite otherwise going all-in.

That's not to say that Gumball balked at the chance to play with its commentary, because it found a great equilibrium in deploying its satire without any heavy-handedness as to ensure its failure. Writing an episode about environmental issues is a task that almost always results in a stilted PSA, but the show knows better, concentrating on the moralistic dilemmas of them as opposed to the good-old "We suck at taking care of the Earth" shtick. And true to fashion, we don't really end up with anything more by the end of the episode; "The Stink," in other words, is the show's latest deep-dive into cynicism, and it's particularly raw.

Final Space: Chapter Nine Review

"I don't know who you are. But I like how you keep shooting people even after they're dead."

It's hard or me to describe Chapter Nine. Coming off of a string of intensely emotional episodes, it ends up feeling like a quick moment to return to relative simplicity. And that's a strange stance to defend considering how hectic the episode is regardless—I mean, we do bear witness to Earth's destruction in the hands of the breach—but Chapter Nine feels like a quick and much-deserved victory lap before doubling down on whatever nightmares await as the penultimate episode of the season.

That's not to say Chapter Nine is any less intense, because there's no shortage of strong moments scattered about. And I'd hardly describe it as perfectly feel-good, but as far as Final Space goes, casually throwing Gary and co through waking nightmares, it kind of is. Everything's about to go insane; let's just enjoy a moment in the sunlight before getting thrust back into a nighttime of major feels.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Shippening

"Ship on sweet electronic creatures."

So "The Shippening" is a bit difficult to evaluate. It's an episode designed to be pandering, stemming from Ben asking fans to come up with odd pairings to incorporate into the show, and to the show's credit, the pandering gets pulled off pretty effortlessly. It never felt like an episode made out of the writers' obligation, and if anything, in terms of sheer entertainment value, it's one of the most fun and charismatic episodes in quite a while.

But they don't call me Mr. Wet Blanket for nothing. Or they used to, so now I have to conform to the label a bit. And that's not to say it's bad, because it's certainly not, but with Gumball being the only show that would come anywhere close to executing the idea with legitimate dedication, there's some ways that it comes up a bit short.

Final Space: Chapter Eight Review

"Didn't know we were members of the same club."

As that old Maya Angelou adage goes, "We are more alike than we are unalike." I could just stop right there and quit while I'm ahead, because my stuff more than less just sort of devolves into incomprehensible thoughts, so I will... Wait, I don't have enough of a reputation to get away with that? Crap.

Well, the adage rings true for Chapter Eight. And it does so not by focusing on all of the characters and exploring their interplay, but by stripping Gary bare before them (I mean that happened last episode, but... bad joke, sorry) to examine the imperfections that riddle his mind.

This is a particularly daunting predicament. Gary, for all intents and purposes, is the show's head honcho in the comic relief department, a character who no doubt knows tragedy but is always bouncing back and messing around. But straight from the start of the episode, where he alternates between a charged pep talk and freaking out over the hollowness of his speech in his room, it's clear that the guy's got some serious baggage to unpack. And what better thing to make him confront his anxieties than putting him face-to-face with his father?

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Neighbor

"People say you're supposed to mourn a relationship for half the amount of time you were together... I'm done."

Alright. So.

Today I learned that Gumball's creator, Ben Bocquelet, as well as the crew behind the show, reads my work. He even advertised it on Twitter (which, as far as my second shout-out goes, is a pretty massive step up)! To think that the people who work on my favorite shows have gone out of their way and shown an appreciation for my work is such a foreign concept to me that I don't even know what to think, so I'm just gonna stop thinking. But it's really humbling.

However, I won't take that to mean that I'm gonna treat the show any more lightly than before, because that's not why they like my stuff. That probably won't show too much today, though, because "The Neighbor" was a heck of a lot of fun.

While Season 6 has shown itself to be particularly daring and largely successful in trotting out the supporting cast for some delightful hatchet-buriers (i.e. episodes designed to finish off a character arc), "The Neighbor" brought along something even more interesting, giving the Wattersons' relatively unknown neighbor and mailman a shot in the spotlight. Sure, it's not a knock-out success by any means, but it succeeds most in its simplicity, going for a more writerly execution than one designed to stand out.

SNL Sketch Analysis: John Mulaney: "Sitcom Reboot"

"For the first time ever, we're please to announce a crossover episode." "With who?" "Dateline."

It's been a long time since I've talked about Saturday Night Live, but John Mulaney just makes things happen, alright?

Not many people probably remember, but way back when, I used to do full-fledged reviews of SNL, but I quit for two reasons. One, it was exhausting. SNL is a beast to watch and an even more difficult one to evaluate, and while there's always highlights and lowlights that are particularly fun to discuss, there's always plenty in the middle that don't really warrant a need to be discussed in large. Two, the amount of work those took definitely didn't match up with the outcome, and they've since faded off without anybody really caring.

Hence, I devised this, where I'll choose one sketch from every episode of SNL—be it spectacular or absolutely terrible—and break down how it works or doesn't work, all while providing a general evaluation of the night. It's also just a good way to flex some good old-fashioned sketch analysis.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Pact

"Well if I go down, I'm taking you with me." "Yeah? Well, if you do take me with you, I'm gonna sit in the back and complain the whole way and keep asking you if we're there yet."

Well, those plot synopses are a bit annoying, aren't they?

Before we discuss anything else, I think it's something incredibly important to address how misleading they are, because all they've done is cause mismatched expectations to emerge, and in this instance, they've helped sink this episode's reception to some extent. And I understand why: it advertises Penny playing a larger role on the front box, but her character is only utilized as much as necessary (that is to say for roughly five seconds of screentime). Even if it's difficult, I don't think we can hold this episode's disregard for the character against it: that was never the direction the show was trying to take.

There's a lot to be said about how Penny just isn't on the writers' minds, and that's a problem in and of itself for sure. But we can't chalk this as a failure merely because some idiot watched two minutes of the episode, assumed it was going to do something else, and haphazardly wrote a rough description. Simply put, you can't evaluate an episode on the basis of that which it wasn't trying to do.

With that being said, though, "The Pact" certainly wasn't anything special, and though it was far from an abject failure, it came across as a rather scattershot effort. Let's chalk it under that "pleasant but forgettable" category.

Final Space: Chapter Seven Review

"I never thought I'd be creating a murder squad with a small boy, but here we are."

Following the events of Chapter Six, one thing became incredibly clear: more than ever, our heroes have to see eye-to-eye. However much chemistry they've established, as I said in the last review, they're a group but not truly a team. With the shake-up that is last episode's ending (I'll just phrase it like that up here so nobody spoils themselves by accident), though, there's no better time to snap the gang into place, and it's an interesting challenge that Chapter Seven nimbly and almost effortlessly rises to.

Even if this a reconstruction period for everyone, Final Space doesn't relish the moment too much, and I say that in the best way possible. Don't get me wrong: the events of last episode are crucial to how things unfold here, with Chapter Seven exploring the effects of the tragedy on its characters, but there's very much a mentality of "one step back, two steps forward." That's not even a thing. Final Space is making that a thing.

So yes, we do see Gary sulking and feeling purposeless, and we see Little Cato's distress mounting as he keeps to himself, but there's also interesting advancements, too. Most significantly, Gary's sentence as prisoner aboard the Galaxy One is over, and Nightfall makes her presence known as she tries to rewrite the future. Beyond just adding a newfound dimension to the episode, though, they're the lens through which these feelings from before become properly realized.