The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The BFFS

"What are you doing?" "Oh, just looking for a darn to give."

It's so weird to think that we're one episode away from the end of the series, and that, come the 24th, I'll never write a standalone review of the show ever again. Certainly not helping with that general weirdness is the fact that "The BFFS" doesn't feel like the penultimate episode the show. In fact, it barely feels like anything. At best, it feels like a disappointment. Maybe I just didn't have enough darns in my darn pocket, but this was a strange one, and not necessarily in a great way.

Certainly not helping is the premise of Gumball's first best friend, Fuzzy, knocking on his door one day, with the two reconnecting, much to Darwin's immediate discomfort. There's a lot wrong about the premise itself in that it forces us to pretend that there's a logical reason Gumball would even have a best friend as a toddler that went completely unmentioned over the past 238 episodes, let alone that friends you have as a toddler don't really add up to anything, because we all know that toddlers are stupid. (I said it. We were all thinking it.) Even so, though, beyond having to suspend your disbelief, "The BFFS" just feels rocky on a lot of other fronts.

While Darwin is fairly off-putting here, becoming overly-defensive of Gumball and feeling his best friendship and brotherhood is being jeopardized by Fuzzy, I think it could've worked. There's nothing wrong with exploring his insecurities, and I love seeing Darwin in episodes where he has a bit more autonomy, but Fuzzy's consistently unenthusiastic demeanor doesn't make for a good foil to Darwin's possessiveness. Honestly, the fact that Fuzzy spends so much of the episode feeling like such a non-entity of a character, even lacking any real chemistry with Gumball, means he doesn't do any good here, and outside of the twist ending, he really has no defining traits other than "former best friend of Gumball." That lack of characterization just lingers as a constant reminder that this episode deals in forced drama without much tact or thought.

I suppose, though, that considering that Gumball is what it is, "The BFFS" was bound to rear its cynical head around at some point, and the twist that Fuzzy is, in fact, an evil, Gumball-obsessed Furby just... doesn't work at all. I don't get why the writers thought it necessary to validate Darwin's hunch of Fuzzy's malicious intent, especially considering that he gave literally no indication of bearing ulterior motives. Instead, the twist that's supposed to bring Gumball and Darwin back together and tighten the knot of their love for one another just has an off-putting side effect of justifying Darwin's overprotectiveness.

Suddenly, Fuzzy's a psychopath who attempts to trap Gumball in a cabin built to resemble his childhood bedroom and forces him into a onesie, and it's the sort of reveal that just doesn't work for a second. It's not even that humorous of a reveal, either, because of how jarring of a shift he takes, feeling both out-of-nowhere and completely uninspired. Of course, Darwin also appears from out of nowhere, apparently having followed them halfway across the country just to conveniently knock Fuzzy out and reclaim his brother, and everything's happy, except suddenly it's not? But now it's okay again, because after a short chase sequence, Fuzzy is gone in one of the few remotely-telegraphed plot points of the episode, being manhandled by his other best friend (which he'd brought up in one sentence a little earlier) and carried away.

I just... don't really know what else to say about this one. It's weird to see an episode so cut and dry in its lack of ambition or effort pushed all the way to the very end of the series. A mediocre idea is sure to slip through even the best shows, and unfortunately, that's where "The BFFS" falls: it's an episode that shouldn't have worked, and continues to not work. Here's hoping that the finale lets Gumball ride out on a high.

NOTES AND QUOTES:
-For the record, there's no reason why an episode centered around Darwin being overprotective shouldn't work; I think "The Bros," where Darwin feels threatened once Gumball and Penny start dating, is a prime and thoroughly-underrated example of that. A large part of why it worked was because of how exaggeratedly crazy Darwin was acting, though also how much his behavior was at least somewhat understandable, both in the context of the episode (with Gumball repeatedly saying things to him about his infatuation with Penny) and the show. The fact that it managed to find a graceful conclusion, too, doesn't hurt.
-"I really wanted to keep in touch and send you a letter or something, but turns out it takes toddlers four years to learn how to write. After all that time, it felt a bit like posting a get well soon card through the window of a hearse."
-Brony conventions? PC gaming metaphors? You can do better, guys. I liked that thing of Gumball loving Darwin more than Canadians telling other people about which actors are Canadian, that's a good joke! Don't pander and have confidence in your own creativity!
-Also, speaking of pandering jokes, Gen Z Reality Check... there's not really much to this one. But yes, we had Furbys! I have no idea why household animatronics became a super huge thing in the mid-aughts, because they were terrifying. Standard marks.

FINAL GRADE: C-. Alongside "The Revolt" and "The Web," "The BFFS" is bound to go down as another weird, unnecessary episode stuck onto the tail-end of Season 6 that just doesn't work, and it's really unfortunate to see the series go out like this considering how generally ceremonious a lot of the season's other episodes have been. This is an episode that just feels contrived, and even in that contrivance, it's never able to push into engaging territory, instead settling for a straightforward narrative that manages to unleash the worst out of Darwin to no justifiable end, ultimately leaving the series feeling more creatively-fatigued than ever.

But hey, we're in the home-stretch, guys. Anything can happen. The quality of one episode in a show like Gumball isn't indicative of the next, so I'm cautiously optimistic for the finale.

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

For updates every time I post a new review, follow me on Twitter @Matt_a_la_mode.