A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part V: 124-100

This is Part V of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part IV, CLICK HERE.

124. S06E06 - “The One” (1/19/18) 

What Happens?: When Tobias discovers he’s not Gumball’s best friend, he decides to slay all of them, Darwin included, to take that coveted position.

Why Is It on the List Here?: While I always enjoy “The One,” it’s certainly an episode that’s flawed from the get-go. The issue isn’t Tobias, mind you: he’s better than ever here, with the episode hilariously distorting around his narcissism and deep-set insecurities in the form of a killing spree, which is about as stupidly awesome as it sounds. The issue is that, at least leading up to the climax, the episode isn’t able to choose who to focus on, and the end result is that there’s just too much going on that doesn’t feed back into what’s happening. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m always down to psychoanalyze Gumball, but no part of the episode told with Gumball’s perspective at the forefront is really important once the intentions of “The One” set in. Tobias is acting weirdly and overestimating their friendship; you don’t really need to deconstruct and compare Gumball’s relationship with Darwin to his with Tobias to establish that. Luckily, though, as soon as Tobias just nonchalantly enters their house, this episode’s firing at full cylinders and doesn't stop, so while I can’t say what happens at the beginning pays off, it’s at least easier to scoot it under the rug and just enjoy the ride.

Best Moment: Tobias being kicked out Gumball’s front door, and rolling down the sidewalk, into a plane, and over a mountain, is an amazing gag.

123. S05E28 - “The Uncle” (3/7/17)

What Happens?: After learning that Ocho’s uncle is a famous plumber, Gumball fights to become his friend but ends up getting more than he asked for.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Uncle” is a fairly problematic episode, and most of those issues are with the fact that it’s so on-the-nose with its referential comedy. Making Ocho’s uncle literally the Mario immediately sticks out oddly, and in the process also sort of gives away the fact that his uncle isn’t actually the real deal—Gumball doesn’t really have that kind of licensing money to throw around. Combine that with a series of other relatively contrived jokes that are basically just “Hey, it’s like the video game! Funny, right?”, and “The Uncle” would be something of a miss if not for the great angle that the episode takes with Ocho. He’s a character who, despite his underrepresentation, has always come across as hot-headed and aggressive, and this episode allows him to really showcase his insanity to the extent that he hazes poor Gumball just to earn his trust.

But more realistically, this is the episode with “Goodbye.” ‘Nuff said.

Best Moment: “Goodbye” is, without a doubt, one of the best songs to come out of the show. It’s a complete R&B jam with great writing and a hilariously accurate aesthetic, with Gumball trading in his sweater for an unbuttoned, free flowing white jacket and grooving out to the finest ‘80s music Ben Locket can orchestrate.

122. S04E18 - “The Wicked” (1/21/16)

What Happens?: Darwin tries to prove that Mrs. Robinson isn’t pure evil to Gumball.

Why Is It on the List Here?: It’s an interesting idea to use Mrs. Robinson’s malevolence to examine how Darwin perceives the universe, and “The Wicked” is a delightfully dark episode in that regard. Darwin likes to believe in the inherent goodness of everyone, but as it becomes increasingly obvious that Mrs. Robinson is nothing but pure evil—with her smiling as Darwin chokes to near-death—Gumball manages to twist the knife as cruelly as ever. While that means that there’s always going to be somewhat of a polarized opinion on it, I think “The Wicked” works because of how far it pushes itself, and the ending, with Mrs. Robinson getting some serious instant karma after framing Gumball and Darwin with her crimes, is perfect. This is an episode where nobody wins, and while that often leads to some of the series’ worst episodes, there’s enough retribution done to all parties involved that “The Wicked” is able to transcend.

Best Moment: Mrs. Robinson facing the wrath of the world at the end.

121. S03E24 - “The Man” (10/30/14)

What Happens?: Granny Jojo introduces the Wattersons to her new boyfriend, Louie. Richard isn’t a fan.

Why Is It on the List Here?: The absence of a father figure for Richard has been a particularly interesting little caveat when it comes to his character, and it’s something that was never meaningfully addressed until “The Man.” While it only really presents the tip of the iceberg regarding Richard’s daddy issues, it made some important declarations in terms of his backstory—most notably that his father left their family to “get milk,” something he never understood and held onto for 42 years—and offers him some merciful reconciliation and character development.

Realistically, though, none of that really happens until the very end. In the meantime, “The Man” is a comedy machine, finding Richard exasperated over Louie and trying to get him out of his life due to his overprotectiveness of Granny Jojo. A bit later, too, the focus shifts to the Watterson kids trying to help sneak Granny Jojo out of the house to meet Louie behind Richard’s back, all while completely failing to successfully do so. There’s not a lot of narrative girth to either parts, but they help create a light air under which the more serious subject matter within “The Man” is able to thrive, and by the time that Gumball instates a man-off as a tactic of forcing Louie and Richard to hold an honest conversation with one another, Richard starts to reveal his vulnerabilities in a really poignant way. There’s hints of Richard being forced to confront his emotions throughout the episode (such as his conversation with Nicole in bed), but seeing him accept Louie into the family is legitimate character growth, and it’s exciting to see.

Best Moment: Gumball, Darwin, and Anais discussing how Granny Jojo looks and the various tactics to make her look better brings about some of the best lines. “She looks like a haunted Christmas!”

120. S05E30 - “The Heist” (3/09/17) 

What Happens?: Richard accidentally robs a bank of two million dollars, and the Wattersons have to figure out how they could possibly return it.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Heist” is something of a mixed bag, but only in the sense that it doesn’t quite line up. Weirdly enough, it operates with two contrasting angles: on one end, the first half is devoted to Richard hilariously managing to, by sheer ignorance and lack of periphery, pull off the bank heist of the century, leaving law enforcement to cobble together a series of tightly-budgeted means of fighting back. On the other, what goes up must come down, with Nicole, Gumball, Darwin, and Anais pondering ways of getting the money back into the bank. 

While I would’ve loved to see the former explored more, with Doughnut Sheriff and his fellow officers’ incompetence (and Larry’s anger at it) scoring the most successively hilarious moments, turning “The Heist” into another episode in the vein of “The Check” or “The Box” pays off rather well, with each Watterson getting a pretty decent little vignette to call their own. (Bonus points for Nicole continuing her streak of fantasizing over criminal acts.) Unfortunately, because of the structural difference in both halves, they never really gel, and while it is truly funny all the way through, it feels weirdly shoved together. As far as knocks against episodes, though, it’s not enough to trample on just how fun “The Heist” can be.

Best Moment: The news reporters in the first half, much like law enforcement, gets to show off their hilarious incompetence as well, including a reporter on the streets who can’t even see what’s going on.

119. S01E06 - “The Dress” (5/23/11) 

What Happens?: After Gumball’s clothes gets destroyed in the wash, he’s forced to wear his mom’s wedding dress to school. Nobody recognizes him, though, and he admittedly becomes incredibly popular, with everything going great… until Darwin tries to make him his girlfriend.

Why Is It on the List Here?: A lot of people like to dismiss “The Dress” because they think the joke begins and ends with Gumball in drag, but the way I see it, it’s an interesting bit of satire, exploring the sense of vanity that Gumball ends up falling into as everyone starts to bend over backwards for him as a girl. Unfortunately, all of that takes a hilariously uncomfortable turn when Darwin falls madly in love with him, at which point Gumball and Anais plot out a convoluted narrative that’ll take Gumball’s persona out of town forever. Suddenly, Gumball isn’t just raking through well-worn cartoon fodder; it’s peeling back their lairs at its very foundations and revealing their mortifying realities—at least insofar as Darwin falling head-over-heels for Gumball can be considered a “reality”—and that level of commentary and subversion would become the series’ greatest asset as it progressed.

It’s gleefully stupid, sure, and the show never does anything to refute the fact that “The Dress” is dumb in general, but in a season otherwise bent on trying to teach lessons and use its characters as a moral compass on a few too many occasions, it’s fun to see an episode that just wants to be fun, and it’s about as funny as Season 1 gets. Is it as good as some of the episodes behind it on the list? No. I’ll admit that. But it was surprisingly well-crafted for the show in its infancy, and that deserves credit.

Best Moment: “That’s GumballOopsEggWobbleUnderpants!” “From GumballNoWaitBattleaxeNinja!” “That’s in Europe!”

118. S04E31 - “The Night” (6/16/16)

What Happens?: We take a look at the dreams of several Elmore residents.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Night” took some time to grow on me, to the point where I was constantly changing my opinion of it to the day that this will have been posted. There’s a very simple idea to it, scanning across Elmore and giving us glimpses into the thoughts, fears, and desires of a handful of characters, and unsurprisingly, it works to pretty great effect. Logic is thrown out the window, and that lack of a need to adhere to the rules of the show means that this is one of those rare episodes where anything can happen, and Gumball rarely takes that sort of opportunity for granted.

There’s a couple different modes “The Night” functions on. A handful of the vignettes take classic fears and filter them through the series’ cast—Teri has a classic nightmare about being naked at school, Mr. Small’s is claustrophobic, and so on. While they’re not generally the most imaginative, it’s a nice chance to go over the checklist this type of episode creates without losing any of the show’s charm. You also get a handful of fun blackouts that serve less as meaningful psychological examinations of their dreamers so much as a chance for a good laugh; think back to Carrie’s “nightmare,” or Sussie’s delightful fourth-wall break, Aurélie Charbonnier cameo and all.

The best of the episode’s offerings are when it finds a sweet spot between dream logic and characterization. Nicole’s vacation dream being repeatedly disrupted by Richard’s breathing and squirming, and the Robinsons’ similarly-minded efforts to deliberately sabotage one another’s dreams, were slapstick masterpieces allowing “The Night” to explore the interplay between its character’s relationships. The best dream of all, though, and the epitome of everything the episode works to accomplish, is Larry’s. The poor guy is so sleep-deprived that he clumsily traipses his way through dream after dream, so disoriented that he loses the ability to distinguish reality from fiction; the one time he attempts to take control of his own nightmares, it turns out that he’s not even dreaming, and his subsequent freak-out lands him in prison. I’ve never resonated more with a fictional character in my life.  

“The Night” may have the occasional miss, but it’s all the hits that keep you excited until the very end.

Best Moment: Larry’s dream.

117. S03E21 - “The Burden” (10/16/14)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin have to take care of the school’s hamster, Chris Morris, for a weekend.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Burden” is a lot of things. It’s an episode that veers super hard into some pretty gnarly gross-out, for instance, spending its first half with Gumball and Darwin bonding with and fondling a tuft of Principal Brown’s fur under the impression that it’s a hamster. It’s a strange tribute to comedian and The Day Today anchor Chris Morris, whose show would prove to be a massive influence on Gumball in a later installment. But I think what makes it most successful, enough to push it fairly high up the list, is one scene: Darwin taking “Chris Morris” to the park.

“The Burden” is sandwiched between two particularly important episodes, character-wise: fan favorite “The Shell,” and “The Bros,” which examines how Darwin feels about Gumball’s new relationship with Penny. “The Burden,” thus, offers a hilarious, albeit incredibly timely, psychological portrait of Darwin as he freaks out to “Chris Morris” and goes through a whole gamut of emotions, all in the span of 30 seconds. The fact that Darwin isn’t even telling all of this to a hamster, and in fact a disgusting pile of Brown’s fluff, makes it all the better; it’s just Darwin thinking out loud without restraint, which is such a rare opportunity.

The rest of the narrative is pretty fun, too. The second act commences once Gumball and Darwin attempt to find and capture the real Chris Morris, and it turns into some pretty straightforward but enjoyable hijinks. If not for the fact that Chris Morris is a sentient hamster, which enables the narrative to indulge in some of his peculiarities (he has a lot of great moments stemming from his snarls and limited speech skills), “The Burden” is remarkably typical, but he’s such a fun character to have Gumball and Darwin bounce off of that it doesn’t even matter.

Best Moment: Darwin’s breakdown and emotional breakthrough bumped the episode up quite a few spots for me.

116. S04E15 - “The Uploads” (11/21/15)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin browse Elmore Stream-It.

Why Is It on the List Here?: One of Season 4’s more successful vignette episodes, “The Uploads” may not have a grand finish, but it’s a perfect microcosm of Internet culture, presenting short “videos” of all kinds, ranging from make-up tutorials to YTPs, all captured perfectly in the spirit of the show thanks to the characters across each scene. Richard, for instance, helms a game review parody which is, in fact, him using his computer’s built-in calculator and believing it to be a video game; a later segment spoofs epic fail videos by having Hector film someone running into a trash can several miles below him, before being hit by an airplane overhead. Even troll videos get a nod, with the omnipresent Saxophone Chihuahua making his triumphant, recurring debut here to fine, painfully-deflating effect.

Plus, unlike its inferior sequel, “The Compilation,” there’s actually something of a narrative going on the entire time, albeit quietly, with Gumball and Darwin getting sucked into Elmore Stream-It and commentating over each video. It’s a small touch, but it helps give everything a nice sense of progression, which is arguably the most important part of vignette episodes.

Best Moment: Richard’s criticism of Calculator: “There’s no female characters, but there’s no male characters either, so it’s okay, I guess.”

115. S03E14 - “The Move” (8/28/14)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin try to help Clayton stop lying.

Why Is It on the List Here?: As you may recall, I ranked Clayton’s earliest episode, “The Skull,” as the worst of Season 2, and consider it a generally lackluster entry overall; the issue there was that Clayton was comedic antimatter, with his exaggerated lies leaving the episode ungrounded and frustrating. “The Move,” though, manages to turn all of his annoying traits over almost entirely, though, by dissecting why he thinks as he does.

Whereas “The Skull” struggled in placing Clayton front-and-center, Gumball and Darwin are the ones in charge of "The Move," taking on the mission of trying to stop his compulsive lying and eventually discovering that it stems from him believing his life to be too boring. All of that, though, reaches an interesting fork-in-the-road when Clayton demonstrates one of his perceived lies—about a finger-touching heart-disintegration kung fu move—to be true, knocking Tobias out. All of the progress his character makes is then scrapped almost entirely in the eyes of Gumball and Darwin, forcing Clayton into a moral dilemma when they want him to lie his way out of it again. Tobias, meanwhile, is perhaps the episode’s greatest comedic gift, starting out strong with some hilariously awful attempts at catcalling and finishing on top with some great, unconscious slapstick.

Instead of “The Move” serving as a vehicle for Clayton’s idiosyncrasies, it wants to pry at them and look at how much of a detriment they can be. I’ll always approve of that.

Best Moment: I will always love Tobias here and all of his botched efforts to seduce his classmates or otherwise provide an optimistic spin on their rejection of him.

114. S06E42 - “The Decisions” (6/17/19) 

What Happens?: Darwin decides that he’s fed up with Gumball making all of his decisions.

Why Is It on the List Here?: While Season 6’s other Darwin-centric episode, “The Sucker,” granted Darwin a virtually unheard of level of autonomy, “The Decisions” actually has a statement that it wants to make about both his character and the show as a whole. Darwin’s use in the series’ later seasons has been somewhat problematic, going from the voice of reason over Gumball to having little influence at all, and sometimes being flat-out complicit in the sort of messes Gumball gets himself involved in. It feels like something of a shame, then, that it took this long for there to actually be a moment in the past two seasons where Darwin has stood up for himself. Lo and behold, though, “The Decisions” is looking to amend that, and instead of coming across as damage control, it feels like a sincere reassessment of his character, and I appreciate the gesture.

It helps that he’s undeniably awesome here, too. After moving on to an apprenticeship under Alan, only to realize that he’s still being spoon-fed exactly what to say and do, he goes off on his own accord, managing to cause a mall riot that, through a chain of events, leads to the mall slowly being flooded. Gumball and Alan both shout at him, trying to tell him what to do like two shoulder angels, but in the episode’s greatest twist, Darwin actually saves the day singlehandedly, disregarding their squabbling by turning off the mall’s water valve and draining the excess water with the mall fountain. It’s a great moment that registers as an actual victory for his character, proving not just to himself, but to the world, that he’s not just a doormat: he’s Darwin Watterson. It might’ve been the third-to-last episode of the entire series, but fewer victories have been more well-deserved.

Best Moment: The joke of having Darwin have to decide between going two different ways in the episode’s tensest moment is the perfect embodiment of everything “The Decisions” stands for… so it’s doubly hilarious that he chooses the wrong way, and immediately declares it a dead end. You win some, you lose some.

113. S05E19 - “The Ollie” (2/20/17) 

What Happens?: Gumball tries to convince Darwin that he’s a pro-skater while teaching him the tricks of the trade.

Why Is It on the List Here?: It’s kind of surprising that an episode centered around skateboarding has as much universal appeal as “The Ollie” does, but it manages to find a strong foothold so that it can both skewer skate culture and stay in the spirit of a more conventional adventure for Gumball and Darwin. Perhaps a large part of that is the surface-level skater jokes, mainly from taking shots at flannel clothing and weird trick names, but the heart of the episode is just watching and seeing how much Gumball can stretch the lie of his self-proclaimed expertise, with some of the best comedic moments like him literally making offended gasps for 20 seconds coming from his efforts to save face.

It’s also really easy to appreciate the climactic skateboarding sequence, taking a change in artistic direction under guest animator Simon Landrein. His colorful, pop art-inspired style is complete eye candy, turning a skate ride into a psychedelic cruise to the finish line. Whether or not you’re a fan of skateboarding, or even just know a thing about it, there’s something charming about “The Ollie” that keeps it afloat in spite of its focus.

Best Moment: Barring Landrein’s guest-animation at the end, Gumball, Darwin, and a chorus of other identically-clothed skaters mocking a businessman for being a “sad, conformist drone” is pretty sharp social satire.

112. S02E19 - “The Authority” (2/12/13)

What Happens?: Granny Jojo stays with the Wattersons because she feels that Nicole is a bad mother in light of Richard going to the hospital.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Authority’s” greatest quality is that it allows the show to carve out some interesting backstory on Richard’s childhood and his relationship to his mother, Granny Jojo. While she was introduced in “The Kiss,” the only elements of her personality previously established was that Nicole has a debilitating hatred for the woman (and also that her kissy-kissies are really ewwy—I’m sorry I can’t stop talking down to Season 1), and this episode seeks to explore why, landing on Nicole and Granny Jojo’s differing parenting styles. Here, too, we learn that Richard is such a doofus because he lived his entire life sheltered from danger, and Granny Jojo’s attempts to fix Nicole’s danger-prone family lead to a hilariously hideous, Richardly homogenization of the family, the solution of which is Nicole’s parenting style—relying on them learning from their past mistakes.

While the premise is no doubt insightful, it’s also worth mentioning that “The Authority” is pretty darned funny. Watching Granny Jojo scare the kids into submission is a delight (she somehow makes a window explode by closing it), and the idea that the kids, in their new, lazy stupor would repeat the exact same tribulations as Richard does in the beginning to try to turn on the family television makes things poetically full-circle. Watching their recollections of past lessons in the climax, too, is a lot of fun, especially Anais’ strategy of getting cookies down from a high-up pantry by having Gumball do it instead. With a strong concept and great comedic moments, “The Authority” makes for a smart episode.

Best Moment: Granny Jojo scares Darwin by very imprecisely cutting off a fake arm, after which they both scream for ten straight seconds.

111. S02E04 - “The Fridge” (9/04/12)

What Happens?: Nicole tries to make Gumball a winner, though her fridge ranking chart starts to tear the family apart.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Fridge” is the sort of episode that everyone loves to hate because that’s such an easy thing to do. It’s the kind that gets so much routine abhorrence that it's spawned legions of angsty, hastily-written revisionist fanfictions seeking to rectify Nicole’s misbehavior in ways that would manage to make even Tarantino uncomfortable. While I’m not one to dismiss every complaint entirely—it clearly does some stuff wrong inadvertently as to provoke such a negative reaction—I want to defend it a bit.

“The Fridge” is a true Season 2 episode, for better or worse. It’s the sort that’s willing to examine its characters at their most problematic, in this case taking a fairly intense look at Nicole’s competitive streak to the point of her tough love looking more like suffering for an alleged greater good, albeit a greater good that only exists in her worldview. At no point, though, does she get framed as anything but an antagonistic force, and Gumball, her subject, is the voice of reason, and ultimately the only person capable of rising up against her. 

Her character is portrayed negatively, but at no point does it really border on potentially untrue of her established personality. There are points where people argue she goes too far—like stranding her son in the desert—to which I agree. That’s literally the point; Nicole isn’t a good mother here, and the show is demonstrating that so as to warrant Gumball’s actions and further put the audience on his side, and it worked. All of this, naturally, culminates in a massive paintball fight, and Gumball wins, dismantling the fridge chart once and for all.

Everything about this episode is intense character work to demonstrate that we’re in a new era of the show, and that the Wattersons are far from a perfect family. Nobody’s perfect, and in all honesty, everyone’s kinda messed up in their own way, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Comedy comes out of tragedy, and Gumball is demonstrating a willingness to show their cast in a negative light on the occasion, which makes them feel more like real people.

Best Moment: While the paintball scenes were pretty awesome, Gumball is no Community; as such, I’d like to give a shout-out to the mockingbird whistle running gag, which lands every single time and even plays a crucial role in how the episode ends.

110. S04E02 - “The Nemesis” (7/10/15)

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin try to help Rob turn into the perfect villain.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Like “The Nobody,” “The Nemesis” isn’t much about using Rob for the sort of memorable villainy that would come to define his character, instead delving head-first into comedy, with Gumball and Darwin helping him through an identity crisis in an attempt to turn him into a true arch-nemesis. It’s a delightfully loopy premise in how eager they are to fine-tune Rob to their malicious liking (including changing the accent and bass levels of his voice), and one that Gumball breaks down rather succinctly: “Who’d have thought in creating a monster, we’d create a monster?”

All the humor, though, stems from Rob’s complete ineptitude at his job, which reaches completely pathetic levels. It’s the sort of episode that makes you not take the guy seriously, but like our protagonists, we root for him to become someone far greater—perhaps a smart move on the show’s part to underplay how much of a merciless threat he’d ultimately become. His plan to establish his villainy by setting off an explosive at the entirely non-existent Elmore Dam is just a fun time all around, with the show alternating brilliantly between tension and abject comedy. That’s really the best way to describe “The Nemesis”: there’s great things brewing under the surface, but for now, the show’s just flirting with the idea and telling jokes. It’s a good time.

Best Moment: Rob practicing evil laughs in the mirror.

109. S02E34 - “The Boombox” (10/08/13) 

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin try to help out Juke, or at the very least figure out what he’s saying.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Boombox” tends to get either a lot of flak or not much attention at all, but I think it’s an enjoyable little episode. It’s Season 2’s experiment with Juke, the radio-headed dude who can only speak through beatboxing, a trait that Gumball and Darwin struggle to comprehend, let alone accommodate for. “The Boombox,” thus, becomes an exploration of how both characters handle such situations: while Gumball is a stick in the mud who eventually only comes around and tries to be supportive because it feels good, Darwin cares about making sure Juke feels at home, though to the point of overshooting the extent of the problem entirely with his political correctness. 

Watching everything unfold basically amounts to watching two flawed characters with opposing methodologies attempt to accomplish the same goal—trapping Juke, who they feel is sad because he’s missing his homeland’s coming-of-age ritual, in the middle—with different personal motives and attitudes. In other words, if you like to watch the brothers bicker, it’s a ton of fun. If not, then you’re in for a bit of a bumpy ride, but hey, the idea that Gumball doesn’t know what “Thursday” is, as a concept, is something everyone can laugh about.

Best Moment: “The reign of the ape is no more”: a case of terribly mangled words becomes a massive celebration of Miss Simian’s alleged retirement, and one of the most fun segues the series has ever done.

108. S03E37 - “The Downer” (7/06/15)

What Happens?: Gumball wakes up in a bad mood and quickly finds himself to be the only person in the world.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Downer” is an episode that sort of dances around depression, and I can respect that: depression's a very serious subject matter to be discussing in a kid’s show. While I’m sure there’s plenty of people who would complain about the episode not going deep enough, and perhaps biting off more than it could chew with its premise, I really can’t be angry at what the final outcome is: an episode that looks at emotions and sadness with playfulness, but also maturity. 

It starts out on a much more jaunty note. Gumball’s grumpy, and it clearly fogs up how he operates, but aside from the initial darkness that comes about when he realizes that his family has vanished, “The Downer” has a lot of fun becoming what is effectively a chaotic, one-man show as Gumball tries to find things to do with his time and cheer himself up, all of which end up doubling down on his self-inflicted misery. Once Gumball discovers the massive shadow slowly engulfing Elmore, though, “The Downer” takes a far more serious turn, and its analogy grows more grim—his delivery of the line, “The darkness, it's calling me. I feel like I should run, but my legs won't.” is almost chilling. Luckily, he’s ultimately able to save himself by remembering his family, giving everything a wholesome but well-earned ending… even if the show somewhat cheapens that by revealing that Gumball imagined the entire episode. (That’s probably my only real issue.)

Really, there’s just something about “The Downer” that feels intimate, and I think that’s why it’s so strong; Gumball knows what it’s talking about and what it wants to convey, and the writers do a great job.

Best Moment: The moment that Gumball sees the shadows slowly swallowing the world around him.

107. S04E01 - “The Return” (10/08/15)

What Happens?: Richard accidentally loses the kids and has to find them and bring them to school before Nicole picks them up. 

Why Is It on the List Here?: I used to find “The Return” to be a fairly dull episode, and it seems like that sentiment is shared with a pretty large portion of the fanbase, where the general consensus was that it was fine, but not worth re-watching. The biggest impediment to being able to appreciate the episode is that this is only the second episode to completely sideline Gumball, Darwin, and Anais, and the first to use Richard as the episode’s singular protagonist and driving force. Because of it, “The Return” has a different pace entirely, but it’s a refreshing one, ultimately ending up as a fantastic Richard showcase.

Like, it's hard to believe that Richard Watterson, who spent his first season on the show finding ways to throw his kids under the bus, could’ve possibly evolved to this point. Sure, he’s somewhat irresponsible as to unleash the chain of events that ends with Gumball, Darwin, and Anais trapped in a shipping container headed to a country with loose safety regulation, but watching him put the pieces together and rush off to save them puts him in the upper echelon of cartoon dads, all while milking out some great gags and jokes in his wake. Richard’s not lying when he loudly proclaims, “I AM A GOOD FATHER”; he deserves that title.

Best Moment: Richard breaking every car window possible, regardless of its narrative necessity, made for a fantastic recurring gag.

106. S01E34 - “The Meddler” (2/28/12) 

What Happens?: Nicole feels like she doesn’t spend enough time with Gumball, so she decides to tag along with him at school.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Meddler” is an episode that I once loved, then merely liked, but which I can now proudly say that I find to be a lot of fun. While being a Season 1 episode almost always carries some negative connotations, “The Meddler” is a demonstration of what good can come out of it. By this point in the show, the characters are still far from becoming snarky pessimists, and here, we get to take a look at something that no other episode ever really got a chance to: Gumball’s adolescence-fueled emotional immaturity.

There are two points in the episode where that sentiment converges: Gumball struggles with Penny about being upfront in his feelings of her, while at the same time, Nicole repeatedly embarrasses Gumball by acting like a mom and just generally not knowing her boundaries. Seeing those two parts of the story intersect brings out some of the episode’s most hilarious moments, spiraling into Gumball having an emotional breakdown in the cafeteria during which he declares he will never love Penny.

The second that Gumball declares himself done with her ruining his life, though, he immediately calls her after making a bad decision, all of which somehow culminates in Gumball auditioning for cheerleading tryouts while performing a few accidental stripteases. It’s so, so stupid, but hilarious nonetheless, and insofar as it’s an examination of Gumball’s relationship with his mother, it ends on a surprisingly sweet note.

Best Moment: Mr. Small breaking character to berate at Penny’s cheerleading audition. The dude has a great batting average by Season 1 standards.

105. S03E15 - “The Law” (9/04/14)

What Happens?: Doughnut Sheriff tries to prove to Gumball and Darwin that cops can be cool.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Law” was the second episode written without a writer’s credit for Ben Bocquelet, and while I think that the first attempt—“The Vacation”—was largely just an exercise in trying to nail the character dynamics, “The Law” works on implementing two characters we haven’t seen much of: Doughnut Sheriff and Felicity. Throughout the show’s run, Doughnut Sheriff has proven to be a cop who’s laughably incompetent, with that inability to be good at his job being his defining trait. While “The Law” doesn’t really rework that conceptualization of his character (despite him being victorious in the end), it manages to squeeze a surprisingly fun episode out of him, even if the best elements are the supporting cast.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of the episode’s comedy revolves around Gumball and Darwin’s interactions with, and general disrespect for, Doughnut Sheriff. That disrespect causes him to go all out and prove that he’s fun, though that ends rather horrifically, with his display of his powers leading to some high-speed hijinks and an eventual disbanding from the police force. After that, “The Law’s” best component finally steps into picture: Felicity.

While Felicity has been lurking in the background and making chaste comments directed at Gumball and Darwin throughout the episode to her son, it’s after seeing Gumball attempt to jaywalk in front of the recently-fired Doughnut Sheriff that she reaches her breaking point, commandeering an ice cream truck and wreaking havoc in a world where rules no longer mean anything. She’s exactly what the episode needs to send everything home, a ball of unleashed fury allowing the show to do a pretty awesome chase sequence, and as far as introducing the character goes, it’s a fun way to put her in the spotlight in a more low-stakes adventure before implementing her to more pungent effect in episodes like “The Egg” and “The Blame.”

Realistically, the only (somewhat) weak point is Doughnut Sheriff’s lack of specificity, an issue that’s kind of strange for the show, but “The Law” works by virtue of the rest of its cast, brilliant flashes of visual humor, and some fantastic one-liners.

Best Moment: Darwin says that cops are as cool as world music. I really love the specificity because world music is seriously lame as hell.

104. S01E18 - “The Refund” (8/15/11) 

What Happens?: Gumball and Darwin try to get a refund on a video game they bought.

Why Is It on the List Here?: “The Refund” is one of the first episodes in Season 1 to embrace later seasons’ love of ideas built around a single, Sisyphean task disguised as a simple errand, and it’s a lot of fun because of that. The development of the characters and the show don’t really matter, with the comedy instead coming from the absurd means through which Gumball and Darwin try to get their refund from Larry, and as a result, there’s almost a timeless charm to the episode that a lot of Season 1 lacks. It certainly helps, too, that the batting average on the jokes in “The Refund” is spectacular, with every attempt to get their money back registering—including hypnosis and writing a very timely “We Are the World” parody, “Refund the World”—and eventually looping Richard in on the fun, who takes on the role of an aggressive dad who’s not messing around when it comes to getting the refund his kids deserve.

Best Moment: For all the escalation in how Gumball and Darwin try to get their refund, perhaps the funniest is the first, with Gumball walking in nonchalantly right after storming out of the video game store to chippily ask if he can get his money back. The answer is obvious. 

103. S02E23 - “The Dream” (6/26/18) 

What Happens?: Gumball has a dream where Darwin kisses Penny, leaving Darwin in charge of making it up to him, eventually leading to them reconstructing the dream’s ending.

Why Is It on the List Here?: There’s a lot of people who hate “The Dream,” so I went into it expecting to find a lot of material that could arguably justify their viewpoint in terms of its quality, but in all honesty, everything about the episode just personally works with me. The complaints aimed at it share a lot in common with the episode that directly precedes it in running order: “The Hero.”

The prevailing argument is that Gumball is vehemently unlikable in regards to all the actions he makes, here, as vengeance against Darwin for appearing in his dream—something which Darwin couldn’t have possibly controlled. Personally, though, at no point did Gumball getting hung up in his own stubbornness profoundly affect the narrative that the episode was intending to tell, as in “The Hero”; if anything, it was entirely essential. If you can’t stand Gumball being anything less than a model citizen, then “The Dream” isn’t for you, but I don’t see that as a factor which interferes with the episode’s direction.

Honestly, I found Gumball’s childish asswipery to be really fun. We’re not rooting for him in any way, and we know he’s acting like an idiot; it’s something he acknowledges himself in the episode. Watching him aggressively pour an entire salt shaker onto Darwin’s breakfast, then shove that breakfast off of the kitchen table, is just a dumb way of showing his unquenchable thirst for closure, and it works. That catharsis, too, is relieved in one of the show’s trippiest sequences, where the two enter their dream worlds, traipsing through each other’s memories and anxieties before reaching Gumball’s. The resolution of the episode, too, is masterfully-dumb catharsis, with Gumball changing Penny to Sussie in his dream, forcing Darwin to kiss her, thus passing on the betrayal to him, and further proving that perhaps Season 2’s grand objective is just watching the characters cyclically piss each other off. I'm not one to complain about that.

Best Moment: Gumball’s unsubtle blue and orange cupcake metaphor with Penny grows increasingly personal up until the point that it fails entirely, Gumball sets off Penny’s allergies, then fails to give her the right allergy medicine after she goes into shock. (He gives her blue thumb-tacks instead of the orange pills she needs in another fit of color-coded fury, which is an awesome phrase I will likely never be able to use again.)

102. S03E39 - “The Triangle” (7/08/15)

What Happens?: Gumball is jealous of Darwin landing a solo in the school marching band, though quickly realizes someone is plotting to take him down.

Why Is It on the List Here?: While I’m always somewhat annoyed at Gumball’s tendency to take episodes seemingly centered around Darwin only to shaft him and hand the story over to Gumball, I’m willing to accept what “The Triangle” wanted to accomplish, serving as a microcosmic examination of how much Gumball has changed as a character across the seasons. He starts out, here, as a pessimistic, smarmy kid who philosophizes acting like a chicken to “laugh at the eagles when they crash and burn,” and upon seeing Darwin’s success, gets envious and attempts to bring him back down to his level. 

By the end of the episode, though, he undergoes a complete transformation; he learns that he should just be proud of Darwin and supportive of his success, especially after bearing witness to the extremes with which Leslie has secretly been attempting to sabotage his performance. (Leslie, too, gets a nice showcase here as a massive narcissist and diabolical sociopath.) Sure, he ends up secretly getting some enjoyment out of watching Darwin ultimately cave under the pressure, but hey, baby steps. It’s just good to see Gumball in the right, someone with his own sense of moral compass removed from his brother.

Best Moment: Banana Joe has a nice run as the episode’s prime suspect, only to turn out to be intense misdirection, with his intense face being due to him focusing on hitting his cymbals at the right time and not an intent to murder. (I also like that you can see Leslie smiling maliciously during the scene where Darwin’s whistle-playing gets sabotaged with bubblegum.)

101. S05E14 - “The Outside” (2/09/17) 

What Happens?: The Wattersons try to make Frankie feel more at home when they let him stay over by turning their house into a prison facility.

Why Is It on the List Here?: My initial assessment of “The Outside” from over two years ago has drawn a lot of confused looks, and to be honest, I was sort of surprised to give a rating that high to this episode, but after watching it again for the first time in two years… I really stand that it’s that good. There’s just something hilariously stupid about how hard this episode commits to its premise, turning all of the Wattersons into different, rugged archetypes and having Frankie, in his skeevy attempt to mooch off of the family, get chewed up in the process.

Frankie’s proven to be a somewhat difficult character for the show to get the hang of, but “The Outside” uses him best because it’s not trying to prove anything about his character that wasn’t already established: he’s a literal rat who openly manipulates people, and this episode is all about watching him face punishment (albeit punishment with weirdly sincere intent) while making as many wisecracks and one-liners as possible. Rich Fulcher is the perfect guest star to portray the character, and his work here is fantastic, coating all of Frankie’s lines with a weird sense of pathos that makes him feel fully-realized.

Speaking of fully-realized, all of the Wattersons get to play along here, if not to their strengths than to something that somehow manages to transcend that. Casting Nicole as a no-nonsense cop and Anais as a sadistic warden are winning no-brainers, but Gumball has a lot of fun chewing the scenery as a tatted-up thug, alternating between rugged and childish. (At one point, he sweetly thanks Frankie for calling him criminally insane.) The biggest show-stealer, though, is Darwin somehow being cast as a murderous, deranged sociopath, which… I have no idea how that idea came to fruition, but against all odds, it works almost too well. Even if he appears for only a few scenes, he’s the show-stealer. (Richard is the only one who really falls short, emanating prison rape vibes while attempting to exhibit compassion for his father.)

“The Outside” reaches its climax through an attempted prison break from Frankie and Gumball, and it’s a perfect way to kick the episode into second gear. Suddenly, there’s action, and with the involvement of the real police following a hilariously-botched attempt to get out of Nicole’s handcuffs, a real sense of danger. While the ultimate ending, revealing that Frankie was never actually in prison and instead spent decades running from the police, played out with fairly expected beats—the image of Frankie crying in fetal position serves to suggest he’s not very hardened—the hilariously dramatic PTSD flashbacks he gets when Richard sincerely offers to let him live with them helps the episode land perfectly. “The Outside” is dumb, but it makes its crazy premise work like a breeze.

Best Moment: Every moment that Darwin is on the screen is the best moment, though special shout-out to all of Frankie’s one-liners: “Let me give you a tour. Here’s the living area, and that’s the end of the tour.”

100. S02E30 - “The Limit” (8/28/13)

What Happens?: Richard and the kids go grocery-shopping with Nicole and push her over the limit in their demands for candy.

Why Is It on the List Here?: Even though Season 2 worked hard to cast Gumball, Darwin, and Anais as mature, sarcastic, and nihilistic, they’re still a bunch of kids, and it stands to reason that they’re gonna act like it from time to time. “The Limit” is pretty much exactly that: the kids want candy. Nicole doesn’t want them to have candy. The biggest issue, though, is that Richard’s on their side.

If there’s one thing everyone hates about this episode, it’s that Gumball, Darwin, and Anais don’t learn their lesson, and that they get what they want at the end without taking anything away, but that’s not the point: this is an episode about Richard. He starts out as an immature idiot who’s being disciplined by his own wife or manipulated by his own kids, but by the end of the episode, he and Nicole finally realize what’s actually going on: Nicole overreacted, but Richard was a manchild who should’ve stood up for her. It’s legitimate character development, but a lot of people always fail to acknowledge it because, admittedly, the show rams the more cynical ending into it of the kids using their mom’s outrage as a means of scoring some sugar.

Removing the kids from that conversation of development entirely, I actually think they’re fantastic here. “The Limit” lets them show off a side of their characters that we don’t get to see often, and it’s hilarious to see them plot different ways to sneak candy into Nicole’s shopping cart or otherwise fool her into buying it. Each attempt, too, goes along perfectly with their personalities: Gumball’s are all direct and built on some level of destruction, whereas Anais’ are subtle mind games to trick Nicole into thinking she wants what she doesn’t actually want. (Meanwhile, Darwin plots the world’s most brutally dark plan ever, which I’ll frame the episode’s best moment because Jesus Christ.) They’re brats, and they’re terrible, but at the same time, it’s insanely fun, and it makes for the perfect excuse for Richard to finally grow a pair.

Best Moment: Darwin’s plan at getting back at Nicole is to fill the car with paper models of themselves and push it off a cliff. Darwin’s a pretty happy-go-lucky character, but I love it when episodes explore how he functions at his breaking point, and his proposal is met with absolute horror from everyone else.

For the last part of this list, from 149-125, 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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