User blog comment:Mattalamode/A Second Opinion: Individual Appeals: Part II/@comment-30307603-20170316212242/@comment-31194372-20170318020237

My issue with "The Advice" was that it was trying to be too edgy. Don't get me wrong, I love dark humor, but here it lacked subtlety and came across as unnecessarily cruel for no solid reason.

The more I think about it, it really is almost a redo of "The Sock," though with Gumball and Darwin more attuned to their present characterization. I at least thought that they were enjoyable enough and helped enliven the experience quite a bit, but again, the core of the episode felt contrived. I loved "The Vase" so much because, discounting the ending (which was shock humor at its finest), the darkness was subdued and served to embellish. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure the pitch meeting for "The Advice" was along the lines of, "Let's beat the crap out of these characters! Now we just need a thinly-veiled plot as a vehicle for it."

(The song was fine, if not a bit unremarkable. I didn't particularly care for the nonstarter ending either.)