the amazing world of gumball nicole moments

If there's anything you should take away from me, it's this: 'The Worst' severely lacked any of what makes TAWOG work: an impeccable eye for subtleties and the ability to dissect what it's talking about or, at the very least, present an issue through a different lens.ĭon't get me wrong: making an episode like this work is difficult. Gross-Out Update: Nicole's face Gumball waxing himself.įINAL GRADE: C-. 'The Worst' is not, in fact, the worst. The Internet's going to grapple onto this episode and call it 'avant-garde,' I'm calling it.

I think I was a bit fatigued from it all by that point. I feel like I should have something to say about the ending, where the show gloriously chops off Nicole's lines, but it didn't hit as hard as I would've hoped. Richard's oblivious condescension towards everything Anais was saying was a nice touch. 'THEY DON'T SMELL LIKE THE CHEMICALS WE'VE BEEN TAUGHT TO ASSOCIATE WITH MANLINESS!' 'Quick, everyone - question their masculinity in a sarcastic way!' It hits close to home, guys. Idaho's instantaneous rotting is probably his best fatality to date. 'Takeaway' seems like a weird name for this section. Like the characters by the day's end, I'm happy to forget it all happened. The rest of them, though? If they weren't just dead air, they weren't clicking. It's the perfect blackout gag, and the only time the episode shows some grit, and it's admirable.

And with that, she throws her hopes and dreams into the trash - literally. Try as she might to escape the isolation with her imagination, all it can conjure up is a fedora. (If anything, saying the only issue with being a man is that we're stubborn is kinda sexist in its own right, so good one, show.) Richard's segment relied more on rinsing-and-repeating, with him experiencing the tedium of classwork and exams, a premise designed to be interminable, so it succeeded at that, I suppose?Īnais' was probably the best of the batch, playing with the idea of the dreary constraints of being an adult. I mean, the only joke about Nicole is, 'Haha, she can't admit her weaknesses because she's a guy! Isn't that the worst,' which felt pretty low-reaching, especially considering how aggressively the show was attacking sexism. The furthest it went in an interesting direction was Gumball standing up for himself in trying to press the elevator button, but failing by virtue of his height - that's golden - but everything else played out a bit too hacky for its own good and balked at the chance to be meaningful, which was a huge, missed opportunity.įurther compounding the general unpleasantness was, again, that Gumball and Darwin's story arc completely overshadowed all of the other ones, which made the episode feel really imbalanced. that's it? That's all we're doing with that? Okay. Good eye, show! Women don't get enough respect, do they? Oh. They're shooting at the easiest comedic fodder possible - women don't get the respect they deserve - by just demonstrating it at face value. Admittedly, there was something to the scene where Gumball and Darwin get mocked senseless for wearing aromatic shower gel - Tobias is lovingly insecure as always - but the punchline of them being women for a day fell back on broad (no pun) jokes. I think the most glaring issue is with Gumball and Darwin's story arc, if not exclusively because all of the other ones (A) don't register and (B) don't get enough screentime. They tried to wield social issues to make some sort of powerful remark, but they couldn't dig deeper, instead going as aimlessly as possible. This is practically the plot of a Modern Family episode. They then disagree on who truly has it worst and decide to experience each other's lives by switching up their roles, the result of which is a complete disaster, both for them and for the episode. Gumball and Darwin get shunned for embracing some level of femininity, Nicole's experiencing sexual discrimination at the workplace, Anais is tired of the condescension that stems from being a kid, and Richard's, uh, dumb, I guess. The basic premise is thus: all of the Wattersons are angry for various reasons stemming from the biases they experience by virtue of who they are. For 'confused.' 'The Worst' is an episode where the show is trying to make a statement, but it just can't.

But I think that quote pretty much sums up how you're going to perceive this episode - you're either gonna really dig it, see it as defiant to the expectations of society or something, or hate it. No no no, I'm not sexist, don't you play that crap on me. You could 'mmhmm.' Or you could cringe internally. There are three possible reactions I can imagine to come out of this line. 'What's happening?' 'It's the glass ceiling Mom was talking about!' 'What's that?' 'The invisible barrier that stops anyone who's not an old, rich dude from getting the best jobs!'

The amazing world of gumball nicole moments