User blog comment:Mattalamode/A Second Opinion: Gumball Wiki Individual Appeals: Part I/@comment-30307603-20170908234352/@comment-31194372-20170909052949

I feel so freaking lame for not having any further input to really put forth regarding "The Disaster" and "The Rerun," but yeah, I understand the appeal wholeheartedly. They're perfectly-written character studies that use all of the greatest components of the show to maximum effect, especially in the department of the show' increasing maturity, so for once, I can place my general disinterest (it's not strong, but it's there) in the episodes entirely in my own biases and not on the episode itself.

Interesting you should bring "The Ex" up, though, because that's definitely an episode I've struggled with properly landing an opinion on. I said it in the last batch of "Individual Appeals" and I'll say it again - Rob is now a lose-lose situation. Either the show never brought him up again or severely lessened his significance, making "The Disaster" and "The Rerun" feel strangely-placed in the show's run, or keep trotting him out while weakening the previous episodes' sheer emotional impact. I can surmise why the writers would want to reintroduce Rob, but if they fail to up the ante on how the character is being deployed, "The Ex" will be blatantly unforgivable. I'm optimistic - I'm trying to look at the show as playing the long-game as of late, so get ready for me to beat that phrase to death in the next seven weeks - but the bars have been set. Good luck, show.

At the rate with which everybody's been concerningly quick to declare "The Worst" some masterpiece of comedy, I'm surprised they didn't try to frame "The Catfish" likewise, in all honesty. Even I don't look at the show so deeply as to stick labels all over it to make episodes seem falsely important; I just stick to being monotonous and unnecessarily articulate to make people think I know what I'm talking about.

I do wonder, though, if "The Worst" is even remotely defendable on a level beyond typing out "Just watched 'The Worst' and I think it is currently the best episode of the series." I'm still bitter, Jesus [redacted] Christ