User blog comment:ThatGuy456/A Guy's Thoughts: "The Rival" and "The Lady" - Season Six's Solid Start?/@comment-31194372-20180114080007

First of all, welcome back! It's been a while. Always good to read your stuff even if you're low-key harshing on my buzz and stealing my job right now which I'm totally fine with, stop looking at me, I'm not crying.

At the risk of just copy-pasting all of my previous thoughts on "The Rival," I think I'll focus in on that one area you had an issue with: the ending. Doing feel-good endings in a way that doesn't make the product feel compromised, especially for a show like Gumball, is hard. (I mean, look at how terribly "The Weirdo" ended, and that's disregarding any number of other complaints that I don't want to get in a hissy fit over at the moment.) Ending "The Rival" at the hug just wouldn't gel because it neglects what's actually happening; it knows to savor the moment, and it does a great job at that, but reality still has to slam in at some point, and if it's not satisfactory by design, it's full circle. The potency of their moment, at least, far outweighs the ultimate ending because the group hug cements their relationship. "Gumball did it" merely reminds us that it'll be a whole process.

Meanwhile, the reason I don't complain too much about facial comedy is because the show's still not devoting itself entirely to them bearing comedic weight, and there's still some level of caution to their use. It's something so integral to other shows anyway (I mean, look at Spongebob), so just let it play around with the lack of limitation that comes with its medium for now; we haven't reached particularly dire territory yet.

There's not much more to be said on "The Lady"—it's simple and delightful—but I just want to talk about how much it hits the nail so squarely on the head of its source material but in a way that doesn't leave the audience feeling like they're missing anything. Even "The Console" got wildly esoteric here and there (though I greatly appreciated it, falling in its target demographic); "The Lady," meanwhile, is lovingly specific, but it never tries to make jokes about its source material so much as literally become its source material, in all of its sitcom knee-slapping glory. For all I know, the jokes were ripped straight from the show itself; that's how perfectly it worked.

Oh, and I can't wait for the Nicole article in 2-9 months :D