User blog:Mattalamode/A Second Opinion: The Others

Introduction
To paraphrase the admittedly-not-that-great Warren G. Harding, welcome back to normalcy. (Wow, a Harding joke in 2017. Great start, Matt.)

The last two weeks were intense, so I'm happy to get back to the same-old format... for one article. More on that later. For now, though, there's "The Others," an episode that, while not the most hated, isn't thought of particularly fondly. I'll admit that I didn't think too highly of "The Others" the first time I watched it, but the more I came back to it, the more I appreciated what it was trying to do. Whether or not it's a true success is contestable, but at the very least, it's deceptively inventive.

The Actual Start of the Article
The episode starts with a massive revelation for Gumball and Darwin (courtesy of Anais): there are others in the school beyond their class. They then proceed to seize on that opportunity to try to help Clare, a student about to say goodbye to her friends and life as she knows it. The only problem: she doesn't want their attention. At every farewell - with personality-challenged Wilson Bilson, suave Mr. Corneille, and her boyfriend, Jared - the pair repeatedly forces themselves in, failing to realize that, as reiterated countless times by Clare (however misinterpreted the message may be), it's not about them. It's about her, and there's no way they could remedy the tragedies of her life... except for the fact that they forcefully amend the situation regardless. In a twist, mega-happy ending, Gumball gathers the community together and fix every problem in her life.

In brief, Jared summarizes the episode in one sentence: "Just go with it, these people are insane!" The end.

Analysis
While the episode took it upon itself to mock melodramatic teen dramas, that's not the main reason that I think it stands out. For an episode in a long line of stylistic spoofs, "The Others" certainly aimed the lowest (more on that in a second), meaning that it was much more grounded in the reality of the show. Thus, it can't easily be appraised solely by virtue of taking a different approach, with the teen drama motif being little more than a fresh coat of paint.

Where I think this episode was especially brilliant was in the meta-commentary of Gumball and Darwin's penchant interference into every situation, regardless of if they're wanted or not. Even more fascinating is the fact that they, in intruding on Clare's life, ultimately downplay the entire message of the episode: there are other people with their own lives. It's not a new observation (by any means) that Gumball and Darwin tend to barge into situations where they aren't needed and ruin everything, but this episode takes it one step further by overtly pointing it out. It shows that the writers understand how the show works and how predictable the set-up can be to a point where they just acknowledge it upfront as a joke.

The ending is a direct culmination of all of that. It's a point where everybody just has to accept the fact that Gumball will be Gumball, taking insane measures just to retain his egocentric grasp on every finite aspect of others' lives. (Sidenote: it's kind of hilarious how massive of a turn-around from Season 2 the show did in that regard wherein Gumball pretty much just made smug comments and complained the whole time.)

There's also some interesting subversion going on that's kind of difficult to explain. In this episode, Clare is by far the most attached to realism, but that's what keeps her out of line. This is a cartoon full of magic and anatomically-sound bananas - realism isn't always appreciated, causing Clare to be simultaneously grounded and a complete anomaly. In short: by virtue of being normal, she doesn't belong. I honestly don't care too much for Clare's characterization, which suffers from being stagnant and one-dimensional throughout, but I think there were at least some strong elements in play when it came to her conception. (Either that, or I over-analyze everything. I'm leaning towards the latter.)

Also, I would just like to point out that Mr. Corneille is phenomenal. Even if he also suffered from being one-dimensional, the show turned that around with the solid joke of him not being able to console Clare in any other way than sharing meaningless geography facts. In the end, he's one of those rare characters that defies easy classification: there's nothing generic about how he was created, which I appreciated. People fail to realize how genuinely difficult it is to write a unique character, and it's quite telling of the show that, in less than two minutes, he personally became a stand-out moment for the season.

That's not to discount the rest of the cast either. Wilson Bilson was at the very least an interesting concept of a character, as if the show wanted to parody every type of character in a high school drama under one person. I'm not too sure if lumping all those individual characteristics together was the most ideal route to take because it basically ensures that the character exists solely for a single gimmick (and will thus never be able to serve any further utility), but he was delightfully unusual to say the least. Jared's the complete opposite, lacking in personality entirely, but that's kind of his strongsuit. In his first scene, he only gets one line - "Sorry, do I know you?" - but it kills. It's an unexpected curveball into the formula, showing just how jarring it is for the pair to force themselves into others' problems without so much as an explanation as to what they're even doing.

In spite of all of that, I think the main reason this episode is ignored (if not just by virtue of Clare being a heck of a wet blanket the whole time) was that, for all of its smart moves, it was a very low-key, downplayed episode, and I think that definitely hindered people's enjoyment of it. At the same time, though, I can't see it any other way. I feel like "The Others" is well-representative of the standards that the show holds: even if it doesn't go big to win you over, it's a solid episode regardless.

Not every episode of the show has to be as great as "The Money" or "The Disaster." That's one of the reasons I find it so hard to compare episodes on a scale: it's a show fully aware that some episodes will be more profound than others. "The Others" never set out to be something that it wasn't, and that's why it worked. It was aware that it would never be revered but wanted to be a quality experience regardless. I just don't want people to hold episodes like this to impossible standards set by more high-concept episodes because you have to learn to appreciate it for what it is. It's the same reason I think so highly of lighter episodes like "The Vase": everything is contained and clearly realized without the need to create some grandiose notion as to win you over. So please, if there's one lesson you should've learned from reading all of these articles, just give every episode a chance.

I apologize if this was a bit short, but I'm pretty burned out. Basically, I just want to clarify that I don't phone stuff in deliberately at all.

Anyway, next week's gonna be good. As a finale, I'll be covering one of the most universally-despised episodes of the series, "The Hero," but I'll be doing more than just defending it: Guy and I are going to be debating it. I look forward to seeing you then.

For the last week's article where I tackled even more user requests, CLICK HERE.

(For my personal blog full of comprehensive reviews, CLICK HERE.)