User blog comment:Jamesgrout/Top 5 Worst and Best Amazing World of Gumball Season 4 Episodes/@comment-31194372-20170319001142

I always thought that Season 4 was the most inconsistent as Season 1, but it certainly had its moments. My main issue is that it felt so much like an extension of Season 3, but that's probably only because it's the first season to not really carry some game-changing revelation (e.g. Season 2 and 3's massive characterization overhauls, Season 5's macabre pivoting and younger cast).

"The Slap" is actually one of my favorite episodes because it proved that the show could take any dumb premise and work magic with it. The idea is literally rooted in buttslapping but it's such a smart episode in how all the characters worked in the episode. (Admittedly, Tobias is one of my favorite characters, but I digress.) It also had two of the best songs in the series, which was unexpected to say the least.

"The Traitor" was great as well. It's really just a sequel to "The Saint," sure, but I always enjoyed Alan as a character and Gumball's blatantly irrational hatred of him as a joke. Further, the twist of the second half of the episode was so unexpectedly delightful - it just came out of nowhere and actually took a new angle with what it set out to accomplish.

I don't think "The Hug" is as great as "The Awkwardness," but for a one-joke episode, it did a shockingly good job at letting the joke continually evolve and unfold. It's a pretty divisive episode, but I think it works fine. Like you said, it's all acquired. I can't make you like it, but I can at least explain why I did.

For my money, "The Apprentice" is by far one of the worst episodes of the season, let alone the series. The issue is that 95% of it is all fine, but the ending was a huge mistake. I usually love the show undermining a feel-good moment for the sake of a twist ending ("The Gift" is my favorite example), but the issue was that the show sought to spite the audience. We think that there's going to be some permannent change in how Patrick feels about Gumball but there's not because absolutely none of that happy stuff even happened. Terrible, terrible writing.

Conversely, "The Nest" is really good in my opinion. I really don't care for Evil Turtle as a character because he only serves one purpose - being a pain in the neck - and it's not a particularly inventive one, but there was actually enough going on. It's so rare for TAWOG to actually tell a full-fledged story that I have to respect it.

I found "The Pest" and "The Points" to be good, but not great, because there wasn't anything that great to come out of them. There's a lot less of a lasting appeal for me. I feel sort of the same way about "The Blame" because the song was a bit too long and weirdly-paced, though Gumball trying to educate Felicity on the benefits of video games (and bombing) as well as the shock ending (book burning!) salvaged it for me. I can't say the same for "The Compilation," though, because aside from the song at the end, it was an episode that needed something else to actually happen. While I don't care for "The Uploads" that much, it at least hard Gumball and Darwin to frame it. This episode doesn't and it feels inferior.

I think I've typed enough. I will say that I'm writing about "The Others" next week, and my argument lines up pretty well with what you thought of it, so that shoud be interesting enough.