User blog comment:ThatGuy456/A Guy's Thoughts: (10-6) My 15 Favorite Season 4 Episodes/@comment-31194372-20170405023540

Petty agreeable stuff as per usual.

I'm pretty impatial to "The Scam." I get that it's objectively good, but Gumball relapsed a bit too much into Season 2 territory. I mean, I'm fine with it and I don't hate it, but it's a bit of a jarring turn compared to what the series was pushing at from Season 3 onwards to see him return to being purely cynical. The only real issue for me was how Gumball was static throughout the whole thing - even at the climax when Carrie's about to go away forever, he just sighs and finishes the episode. It just feels weirdly contrived, as if "The Hero" but without so much as even the most ineffective pivot. (At the very least, everybody else makes up for it, but it's a bit frustrating.)

"The Night" is one of those rare episodes that I enjoy while I watch them but instantly go back to dismissing as average right after. (I feel the same way about "The Parasite," for instance.) There's a lot of strong jokes at play (e.g. a Sussie joke that actually worked, some fun character dynamics with Richard and Nicole, the always-relatable Larry killing it as always), but the episode just feels really jumpy and inconsistent. I get that dreams vary in their intensity, sure, but the pacing was weird and disjointed, and some of the dreams just didn't work for me at all (the Mr. Small one was in dire need of a punchline).

"The Romantic" is honestly a perfect, underrated episode. It's kind of like the tried-and-true "comedy of errors" formula from Season 1 but with the characters actually immersed and involved, so it worked. The ending fireworks were great as well, and the ending was cute in a nicely subdued way.

Then there's "The Blame," which.... ehh. The episode's greatest success was in the punch of some of the jokes and abrupt cutaways (the plane crash and, of course, a good ol' book burning, which underplayed the episode so much that it kills). I also really liked the first half of the episode if not exclusively because of the manic competitiveness of the Watterson's playing the tennis video game. The second half of the episode just didn't work for me, though. I'm already pretty shaky when it comes to songs (which is why I like TAWOG - they, more often than not, know how to make songs that aren't groanworthy), but this one was lethargic, slow, had too much going on, and was a bit cringey. I get what they're going for conceptually, but I pretty much checked out at by the rap segment ("homie-o?" Really?). That being said, the "Tortoise and the Hare" joke was a delight.

Not sure if "cult classic" is the right term (probably better for episodes like "The Job" or "The Name"), but I will say that I'm pretty sure the show's gonna become one as a whole at some point down the line.