The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Loophole

"Stop it, you are being hysterical!" "Stop it, you are being illogical."

Bobert is an interesting character in that he's stuck in the rut of always having the same joke. He's a robot, so he follows all things as literally as possible with emotional detachment. (When postured with defining love, for instance, he defines it in tennis terms.) Because of that, it seems especially hard to write episodes centered around him as he's entirely static- there's no dynamism to his character, but that only really compliments the design. When the show uses him, most of the originality is in all the things framed around him and the extent to which he doesn't understand human logic.

I mean, conceptually, this is incredibly similar to Season 2's The Bet, wherein Gumball and Darwin take control of Bobert for the day, eventually spiraling into Gumball nearly being terminated. In this case, they try to fix Bobert, eventually spiraling into all of mankind nearly being terminated, so the stakes are a bit higher.

It starts out simple- when having a conversation with Bobert, they realize the danger of talking to him literally, prompting him to perform such acts as attempt to decapitate Darwin's hand ("Give him a hand", so to speak), and seek to make him safe for the rest of the world's good and, y'know, to get out of homework. 

Right out the gate, the episode has some strong moments- the whole sequence of Gumball and Darwin trying to set rules as to prevent any form of harm is a fine example. It starts out obvious- "Never raise your hand against anyone" means a kick in the knee. But then even the most foolproof methods become increasingly more absurd- when asked to not move a muscle, Bobert instead emits concentrated radioactive waste on Gumball, making his tongue crawl out of his mouth. A similar sequence finds Bobert upholding the law- every law regardless of its lunacy, leading to hyperspecific law-breaking being objected to and amended. (Yes, I checked, it is in fact illegal to sing off-key in North Carolina.)

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Slide

"What do you want?" "Love!" "Upstairs, second on the left."

Last week, I wrote that while watching the last season, I was worried about the possibility of creative fatigue. This episode might suggest that we're relapsing. And, for better or for worse, this episode will live on as the "I love cheese and Internet memes!" episode. Hmph.

That's not to say it was completely bad, but it felt like the show in its first season. I'll get back to that in a second. As for right now, the premise is simple - Rocky, the school janitor Muppet, is sad that he lost the girl of his dreams, and Gumball and Darwin seek to help him find her, and honestly, that's the entire plot. It's a barebones effort.

Even so, it still had its moments.

For instance, the process of trying to make Rocky inherently likable to the dating public was admittedly a bit cute, if not overdone. The trope of not looking good for a single photo except for the above angle was nicely subverted by the fact that no, that didn't work either, and yes, "You look like the kind of guy who likes taxidermy and long walks in the dark," is the kind of delightfully surreal line that I watch the show for. Also interesting is the application of flipping up for someone you don't like on a dating up, which sends the rejected characters hurled into the air in real life. Eventually, through using said app, they find the girl, but Rocky accidentally flips up, so they run through town trying to find her, knowing that she'll never pop up on the app again.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Test

"I'm pretty sure these tests are created by pouring seeds on a keyboard and having pigeons peck at it." 

First, let's address Sarah, the yellow ice cream cone who seems to be one of the most hated characters on the show. The basic idea is that in her fruition, she considered Gumball and Darwin to be cool even without knowing them and quickly became clingy and obsessive, as explored in The Fan and The Comic. At the end of the day, the character is a parodical take on obsessive, Internet-dwelling sadsacks (heck, one quick scene had her cuddling a body pillow with J-pop in the background. Gumball's getting real), so her design is to be annoying just by default. In this I don't see any issues- the only character I have issues with is Clayton because he's not designed to be abrasive but, as a compulsive liar unable to reach beyond a shallow viewpoint, there's little ground he can cover.

Her existence in the episode is also aided by the fact that the episode is a kind of Internet culture critique, with Gumball walking away blatantly offended by a Buzzfeed-esque personality test (with shots all around, especially in the nonsensical non-sequiturs Gumball is forced to answer for the test). It's important that the show is able to so deftly tackle such topics as it allows the show to cover more bases and stay topical- episodes like "The Gripes" and "The Points" are definitely hilarious, but they also have a point that they lay brazenly before you.