The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Menu

"I'll give you twenty bucks if you do it." "Wow, you've reached a whole new level of laziness. You've invented the reverse job."
Spoiler alert: this week gon' be gud.
I'm sure there's going to be a lot of mixed opinions about this episode because it really circles back to Richard's lack of constraint and obsession with food, but at the very least, it executes the formula in the greatest way possible. The premise itself of finding a secret menu item seems fairly tame and standard, but the show was able to elevate it with a lot of smart choices- something they couldn't figure out how to do for a lot of last week.

Again, the premise is simple. Richard hears of a secret menu item from Joyful Burger and sets out to obtain it. However, getting to the point of obtaining the wisely-named M'Guffin is what makes the episode truly stand out.

First of all, there's Richard's demand that the kids infiltrate Joyful Burger to find out about the legendary burger, but instead, we get a super-extended cut of Gumball and Darwin coming to dominate the industry as corrupt business moguls. (I mean, they literally have their hearts removed for the sake of business.) It's only when they contemplate in their mansion about how they got to where they are that they get thrown back into reality. You could easily argue that it's filler, but it's simply brilliant as it is, with the kids getting so distracted in their indulgent lifestyle to remember what they were set out to do in the first place.


There's also Richard and the kids kidnapping Larry (following a hilariously botched attempt to put a bag over his head) and torturing Larry by 'cannibalizing' the Joyful Burger mascot which is just absurdly dark, with Richard deep-frying the statue's fingers and eating them. This show's been showing a lot of streaks of dark humor lately, and I love it, subtle or not. Add on the corporate smearing of posing the statue to be eating the competitor's food and Larry's plea of, "I can't lose this job! I only have 37 others!" and you get something truly memorable.

They force out of Larry that to obtain the M'Guffin, they have to eat at every Joyful Burger in one hour. This is when the episode truly takes off, seeing the gang frantically dart from location to location. It's not the most comedically strong moment of the episode, but it still has some nice twists (especially the revelation that a plastic toy has more nutritional value than the food, which honestly sounds about right). Again, though, the reveal of the burger being called the M'Guffin is such a niche joke that nobody will appreciate, but it was awesome.

My only gripe is the outcome of the whole episode, with Richard being so stuffed from eating all the other burgers that he can't physically fit the burger in his mouth. I get that so few episodes end with true victories, usually being undermined by some other element coming back to nip the characters in the bud, but this didn't feel right for some reason. I don't think it was enough of a pop to end the episode, and it just kind of fizzles out. Sure, a lot of episodes end like that nowadays, but in an episode that has such a steady climax and that has a discernible triumph, one-upping it just feels wong.

Takeaway:
-I saw a few complaints about some gross-out and body horror, but it never really affected me too much. The issue with instances in "The Box" and "The Stars" are that there's no distinct twist, with the gags serving no purpose aside from making you wince. Here, they at least made an interesting joke wherein Richard is so obese that he's perspiring lard. I guess it was a bit tacked-on, but at least it felt like there was effort to entangle it with the rest of the plot instead of serving as some pointless aside.
-Nicolas let some California accent out in the beginning, lol
-Richard's excuse for not being able to get a job at Joyful Burger was a completely missed opportunity to reference "The Job." I'm pretty sure destroying the universe is an infinitely better answer than apathy.
-Richard's popped button causing a building to lose a level a la Tetris was an awesome throwaway joke.
-"OW! That wasn't even a pun, that's just what that word is!"

Final Grade: A. Again, this is a deceptively simple premise for an episode, but instead of embracing a much simpler plot, such as in "The Vase," the show took exciting directions and some interesting twists. This was an episode that could've easily bombed (as Richard-based episodes seem wont to do), but it didn't, and I'm really satisfied with how it turned out. My only complaint is the ending, but it's adequate enough to not really affect the episode score too drastically.

For the last Gumball review of "The Sorcerer," CLICK HERE.