User blog comment:Mattalamode/A Second Opinion: The Dream/@comment-30307603-20170223231048

I suppose it does just come down to taste; personally, I much prefer Gumball in his current state - a slightly selfish and egotistical, but well-meaning kid with an irrational edge to him. "The Dream", therefore, just doesn't do it for me. I feel like I have mentioned this many times before, and I will probably say it again, "when the characterization is off, it's very hard to recover." Honestly, I feel as if this is too far even for Gumball's season 2 incarnation, who was a bit of d**k (not sure of this term is allowed on main or not).

Throughout the first 6 minutes of the episode, we are presented with nothing but Gumball showing his unjustified rage towards Darwin, and even later in, towards Penny. Both are characters who did absolutely nothing to deserve the treatment they're receiving, and the fact that Gumball is aware of what he's doing makes it worse. There's not even a cartoonish flair from it on Gumball's part unlike "The Saint" (which, by the way, made me not completely dislike "The Saint"); we're just subjected to a really mean guy being irrationally mean for 6 minutes with no comedic twist nor sympathy to give.

I've always been in the boat that if you're going to make a d**k character, you have to make them so exaggerated and unlikable that somewhere in the process, they become likable. This is what makes characters such as Ms. Simian, Jamie and Mrs. Robinson so likable. They have so many of these over-the-top exaggerated unlikable traits that it somehow undoes itself. Another route to take is to give the character a sympathetic edge; something for the audience to latch onto. Gumball in "The Dream" provides us with none of that; we are presented with an off-characterized Gumball (yes, even for Season 2) who isn't funny nor sympathetic being mean for 60% of the episode, and that just isn't fun to watch.

When people go around claiming that Gumball's too mean in episodes such as "The Promise" (which I find okay) or "The Sidekick" (which I actually like), it just baffles me how they don't bring up "The Dream".

I suppose the last 4 minutes of the episode with the dreams is sort-of-enjoyable, but my main gripe plus the fact that "The Night" does this concept much better makes the segment feel "meh".

This as probably one of my longer comments (probably could have been a decent blog post on its own), but I felt like this is the best way to articulate why "The Dream" is one of my least favorite episodes.

"The Picnic" is next week? Welp, you know you're in for a ride when even Mr. Bocquelet himself doesn't like the episode. Good luck!