User blog comment:ThatGuy456/A Guy's Thoughts: Slight Shortcoming's Sequel/@comment-9300845-20191207010329

Long time no see! I would’ve loved to comment sooner, but I had English finals to take care of first.

As you’ve probably known, I’ve read your original essay over a year ago and left a long comment there. My thoughts still stand, so it’s not worth repeating them here.

There’s something cruelly ironic about the way Penny is handled post-”The Shell.” A character who’s chock full of potential for interesting storylines and exploration of her interactions with other characters besides Gumball and her family, only to end up being severely underused and coming off as one of the blandest in the show’s vast array of wacky and wonderful characters. How did her classmates react to her being out of her literal shell? Why was her family’s reaction (“The Transformation”) dealt with so late in the show’s run? What even was her personality, independent of her relationship with Gumball? Why have the writers never (or at least insufficiently) capitalized on Penny’s potential?

I’m on the same page as you regarding Carwin, but I’ve seen somebody on r/gumball make an interesting take on the pairing and why its underutilization might not be necessarily a bad thing. According to that user (paraphrasing because I can’t be bothered to track down their comment at the moment,) the point of “The Drama” was to show that there were no issues with Darwin and Carrie’s relationship in spite of their dissimilarities. Thus, a lack of episodes dedicated to the couple because their relationship was going relatively well. While I don’t quite agree with that statement nor do I think it justifies the dearth of Carwin, I can see where they’re coming from. Comparing the status of Gumball and Penny’s relationship to that of Darwin and Carrie, the former has had more conflicts throughout the show than the latter. Kind of disappointing in both aspects.

(By the way, Bocquelet has recently responded to a fan’s question about the status of Penball in the show. While it’s reassuring that they are still together after all the crap they’ve gone through, it still leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth.)

Would the Rob arc’s pacing haven been better if “The Future” had actually premiered as the first episode of Season 6 as originally intended? (Thus, “Future” → “Spinoffs” → “Inquisition”) Regarding Bocquelet’s statement about the very ending of “The Inquisition” not being his desired outcome, it certainly raises a lot of questions. He has yet to clarify on how or why it has ended that way, but I strongly suspect executive meddling may be at play. My mind is full of speculations on what went down in the writers’ room and their meetings with execs. One of these is: what if there were more episodes centering around Rob and the Void planned for the last season, but the execs nixed them? If so, then it’d at least partially explain why Cartoon Network seems to be acting as if Gumball hasn’t ended yet (what with its spinoff miniseries Darwin’s Yearbook and all.) This could be good or bad news for the future of the show, depending on one’s viewpoint.

There are certainly some subpar episodes from the last two or so seasons that I would love to swap out for ones dedicated to further flesh out Penny, Carwin, and Rob/the Void, as well as some of the more underutilized characters you haven’t touched on. Listing them would be too long, and I have no desire to do so here, so let’s just leave it at that. Still, for what it’s worth, at least the Rob arc has a sense of closure. One out of three isn’t a great look for the show in terms of commitment to major status quo changes.

I’d love it if the writers of Gumball could come together and hold an AMA or something similar. I’ve certainly got several questions for them, including the way they’ve handled Penny, Carwin, and Rob. I’m greatly curious for their justification.