The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Best

"She's just trying to help you be a better person." "Exactly, she's raising the bar! Which is totally unfair for someone like me who liked the bar exactly where it was."
"The Best" was an interesting episode, to say the least. It hit all the high notes, with some smart jokes and visual gags, but for some reason, it never really triumphed as a whole. That's not a bad thing, per se, and to call "The Best" bad is a huge overstatement, but it never became anything truly memorable, played out as you'd imagine, and was pleasing if not revelatory.

The episode is centered around Carmen, with whom Gumball quickly encounters issues (y'know, as he's generally wont to do). Tired of Carmen constantly pointing out every slight error of judgement, he decides to one-up her and put them both on the same level.

Shockingly, though, even with the same premise, "The Best" is at least able to distinguish itself from "The Saint," even if it doesn't quite avoid the unfair comparison. The objective of "The Saint" was to keep pushing at the extremes, with Gumball's lack of a perceived win driving him increasingly insane. Here, though, instead of launching a multitude of fast-paced moments, "The Best" takes it slower, focusing on creating larger scenes.

First of all, we can address the obvious scene that's captivated and/or shattered the heart of everybody who's seen it: Gumball going full-on social justice warrior which, oddly enough, sort of worked. It's always a bit iffy when shows dive into Internet-centric humor, but once again, TAWOG comes out of it strong. Granted, I probably didn't enjoy it as much as a lot of other people - the joke is so easy that I'd be impartial to it otherwise - but everything just clicked, and framing it as a battle a la Scott Pilgrim was delightful.

A bit more low-key but still enjoyable was Gumball and Darwin trying to break into Mr. Brown's computer, a mission whose progress is immediately halted when Gumball gets... rather unfortunately stuck to the ceiling. It's a slapstick routine bordering on vaudeville - am I pretentious enough to call it vaudeville? Probably - and there's something timelessly juvenile to it all.

That mission eventually leads to Gumball and Darwin discovering Carmen's criminal record, which he then plans to spread to the entire school as a coup de grace - am I pretentious enough to say coup de grace? Also probably - before realizing the errors of his ways. A happy resolution, surely... if it weren't for Darwin accidentally hitting the mouse and doing what I can correctly describe as the best envisioning of screaming internally in the history of cartoons.

What ensues is fast-paced gag after gag as Gumball and Darwin dart across Elmore, slapping the phones out of everybody's hands imaginable. Even with the SJW segment, this is where the episode succeeded the most. It's TAWOG at its purest, finding a simple punchline and elevating it to a ridiculous extreme. Teri's phone, made of paper, slowly drifts to the ground before shattering; Gumball makes Tobias' phone divide be zero, summoning forth a wormhole. And yes, Darwin and Carrie's relationship is reaffirmed.

The only phone the two don't manage to break is Carmen's, who sees the video and reassures Gumballl that she's alright with it, wishing him that he'll find the strength of character one day, too, to overcome his current self. It's a perfect punchline, with Gumball thrust back into the vicious cycle, so I'm going to try to ignore the episode chickening out with the reveal of the video, in fact, being of Gumball hanging from the ceiling. C'mon, guys, be confident in your joke-telling! You're already so great at it.

The episode doesn't suffer too heavily from the format - it's become pretty commonplace on the show as of late - but it definitely halts the flow of the episode. Again, the comparisons are unfair, but there hasn't been an episode to masterfully carve out an interesting narrative since "The Detective," and episodes like "The Best" don't even come close. There's something very rigid to this episode's assembly, especially, as if the writers had clear, strong ideas, and quickly put together a plot to incorporate all of them. It just doesn't feel as organic because the premise is a lot more vague, and the result is enjoyable but instantly disposable.

Notes and Quotes:
-The idea that putting "-shaming" after any noun/adjective to make it sound like a legitimate issue was brilliant.
-Google Deep Dream jokes all the way, but Jesus, that was a bit unsettling.
-Ramblr: "It's sort of a bare-knuckle fight to see who's the most tolerant person on the Internet."
-"There's always more than one person to blame! Like, if there was a car accident, who's fault is it, the guy who ran the red light, or the Mesopotamian dude who invented the wheel?"
-I want to believe that Bobert's death was an Of Mice and Men reference, even though it probably wasn't.

FINAL GRADE: B. "The Best" is an enjoyable little romp, but it never manages to sell itself as anything more than it really is: a couple of strong ideas mixed together without the structure to come out on top. All it needed was a bit more je ne sais quoi - alright, I'm officially pretentious.

It wasn't the worst, and it certainly wasn't "The Worst," but it wasn't the best, either. Except literally.

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

For a review of the Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! 10th Anniversary special, which I've been quietly hyping up for the past week, CLICK HERE. Nobody's probably gonna read it, but long story short, it was a magical thirty minutes.