Why do I keep doing this instead of having it sandwiched into the Bob’s Burgers review despite being a short one and I mean a short one because it has one plot in the episode that would’ve sandwiched into the Bob’s Burgers review and just saved myself the trouble. But here we are once more in having The Great North its own review. Plus, it’s easier when doing this on a Google document than on Microsoft Word with the Bob’s Burgers review. With Word, it’s smoother than Google Docs because it’s pre-installed but I would have to upload the document into Grammarly to go through every word and sentence. Here, it’s easier but can be a hassle when you’re on a browser that refreshes itself each time you go back to the tab. Probably a memory issue as if it serves as a snooze feature.
So in this week’s episode of The Great North in its own review, because we’re only a few episodes left in the season, it’s Beef’s birthday, and rather than wanting to celebrate his own special day, Beef spends his birthday in jail in hopes to not celebrate his special day with the family in my take on the eighteenth episode of Season 3 of The Great North, titled “Pa-shank Redemption Adventure”.
And honestly, who doesn’t like celebrating their birthday? Sure, celebrating the day you were born makes you the center of attention, pretty sure that’s how birthdays work, whether it’s from family, friends, or an unread email from a restaurant that you became a member as part of their rewards program and think that it’s a good idea to spend your cash on something through a birthday discount. Seems unfair when thinking of that, but hey, better than paying the full price. But for birthday celebrations, whether you like it or hate it, enjoy life as it is since we’re all one step closer to death each passing time for the 365-366 days a year from the date of your birth. At least there’s cake and celebration, along with being with the people who you knew to celebrate the occasion. Nothing wrong with that. But if your name happens to be Beef Tobin...
He is not a fan of birthdays. He is not fond of birthdays and as seen at the start of the episode with the Tobin kids and Honeybee in the panic room for a secret meeting to discuss Beef’s upcoming birthday without making things big that would make him uncomfortable and want to make things small like taking him to Maude’s, the place of the crime scene of last week’s episode with the bear, and just not do anything that would spook him as if he’s an emu or ostrich. That is what the family is planning by not making things too chaotic and going overboard with Beef’s birthday. But Beef on the other hand...well, he’s not a big fan of birthdays and it comes down to...well, the answer is right there the moment we enter a fantasy of what Beef would think would be his birthday through his imagination.
He walks towards the house and sees the family and the townsfolk in attendance, noting that it’s the adults of the town since this is a grown man’s birthday, and gotta have the entire adult population of the town in attendance in Beef’s fantasy that happened to be a nightmare. Like who wants to bring their kids into this to catch the occasion? Pretty sure no one unless they take a photo and that poor man into a meme. Beef comes into the house in his nightmare of a fantasy of the family throwing a surprise party, fully clothed outside but once he enters the house is where he becomes straight-up naked and sitting on the toilet as if he’s about to take a dump in front of everyone. And later in that fantasy, the toilet became a freaking bike, and have him sings a song to please the masses as if he’s being served as the entertainment for a cult. Yeah, I don’t know why I thought that Beef, being naked on the toilet, would take a dump in front of everyone as they’re fascinated to see how a person takes a dump like he’s being potty trained. I know that poop jokes are pretty much the show’s bread and butter, but uh...yeah, I don’t know why Beef would ever come up with that thought over his fears of having a surprise party. But it sums up that he doesn’t like surprise parties and that imagination of his of him being naked in front of everyone, even though it felt like it was unnecessary and sounds like something they would never do, especially if it’s from an imagination, Beef is treating is his birthday like it’s his Vietnam.
Trying to avoid everything birthday-related like the goddamn plague but everywhere he goes across town the day before his birthday but everywhere he goes, you see stuff that almost looks like party supplies, and think that it’s all for his big day coming up. Whether it’s a cake that Santiago picked up, only to be accidentally dropped that is not for Beef’s birthday and instead for a bar mitzvah, an adult bar mitzvah, so that clarifies that Santiago is Jewish, Londra with the balloons at the fishing pier, to find out that it’s for a children’s hospital, Cheesecake with the pack of beers...though, that’s usually Cheesecake being Cheesecake, as long as he doesn’t tangle with a bear again like with last week’s episode, or the bucket with party blowers with Junkyard Kyle, it’s everywhere and to Beef leading up to the end of the first act of the episode, it almost feels like the universe is telling him to face the facts and he should at least try to muddy the waters. Attempt to celebrate his birthday because...well, you only have one life and you’re supposed to spend it with family and friends. To come out of his shell and be around everyone, though just without the whole imagination thing doesn’t become reality...is what I would say if it weren’t for a light bulb to shine bright over his head and deciding to go through the whole nine yards to avoid celebrating his birthday. That light bulb was that one moment when the family is driving across town, coming out of the pharmacy, where they noticed one of the townsfolk, Pete, being arrested by Chief Edna over grilling. What’s so wrong with grilling? Nothing. It’s just because he can’t do that because knowing that it’s Alaska, the scent from the grill can attract wildlife, and that is considered a big no-no. And we’ll get to that later in the review about the weird laws that Alaska established. And this is one of them.
Whispering to a game warden that landed Beef in the slammer for 24 hours. All of this to avoid his birthday. Make you question what the hell is even Alaska with their laws. And again, we’ll get to the weird laws part soon, but whispering to the game warden and landing himself in jail in hopes of not celebrating his birthday is really doing Beef a lot of favors for the day to burn out so he can skip over to the next day. Did I mention that the answer of why Beef hated his birthday earlier in this review flashed before your eyes? Well, if you have a brain, you already know the answer to why Beef doesn’t like celebrating his birthday. As seen way later in the episode in the fourth act of the episode when being held hostage after being forced to break out of his cell.
The answer to why Beef hates his birthday is that he doesn’t like to be the center of attention. I mean...yeah, that does kind of make sense to some of the Earth’s population. Being the opposite of an attention hog and doesn’t like being the person under the spotlight, especially on birthdays. Which...yeah, that almost seems about right. Because birthdays are that one day a year when you’re the center of attention because it’s your special day, celebrating your day of birth. Though, not going too overboard as if you’re trying to take the perfect photo and put it on social media in hopes for the image to be the most liked. Pretty sure no one wants that. But to Beef, it’s different. It boils down to his parents and adds more to the sitcom trope of “sitcom dads have bad childhoods” because Beef used to like his birthdays when telling Pete at the bank while being held hostage by Danica but his parents didn’t even bother celebrating his birthday because they were too busy being shitty parents. Though makes you wonder if the same goes for Beef’s brother Brian. But other than that, Beef hates his birthday because his parents never celebrated and ever since, he just hates being the center of attention because of the sudden disappointment of people not celebrating his special day. Why else do you have the family trying to not go overboard and trying to pretend that Beef’s birthday is treated as another normal day?
Though kinda weird that Beef has to bring up the “biological” label about the kids when he said to Pete that he has four biological kids, referring to Wolf, Ham, Judy, and Moon. I think it’s mostly because of Honeybee and don’t want to mistake her for Beef’s own kid because she’s married to Wolf. That’s one way to put it unless you’re probably that person who still thinks that Moon is NOT Beef’s biological son thanks in part to Kathleen’s antics and sleeping with Marcus while being with Beef. Yeah, kind of weird for Beef to bring up the “biological” label for his kids unless he doesn’t want to mistake Honeybee as his own kid, even though she’s married to one of his kids, being Wolf. Speaking of Danica...
Oh yeah, she’s back. The walking negative Reddit responder is back on the show and has to share a cell with both Beef and Pete as she awaits her trial. Danica, of course, if anyone can even remember, was Beef’s cousin who was introduced in Season 2’s “Say It Again, Ham Adventure” when the family and Crispin visited her in hopes for Ham to have the perfect coming out, only to be held hostage by her into her basement that resulted in a standoff. So she’s back and apparently, she and Pete had some history. Didn’t expect Petey boy here to be a cougar and land someone as Danica like she’s Zach Wilson, though Danica isn’t a mom, so that’s been thrown out. And Pete did mention a few times in the episode that he’s a virgin at age 37. Almost completing “The 40 Year Old Virgin” arc if anyone remembered that movie. Though the idea of bringing Danica into the episode despite thinking that she would’ve been a one-off character while being sent away to prison...I feel like the writers don’t want to have the episode just be Beef being happily in jail and the rest of the Tobin family trying to find ways to bail him out, let alone trying to create trouble to share a jail cell for his birthday. And instead, they have to shoehorn Danica into the episode, just to make it a game. Whether or not Danica should’ve been added to the episode is up to you in your opinion. In my opinion, I get what the writers are doing to add some leverage to the episode, but... whether or not Danica should’ve been added into the mix should be up to your opinion. To me, it’s half-and-half but yeah, think shoehorning Danica into the picture would be even an idea to start but what’s done is done I guess.
And then, we have the Tobin family trying to get their father out and this is where the weird laws come into the picture. And this all started with Pete earlier in the episode getting arrested for grilling with Honeybee questioning what’s so illegal about grilling with the family telling her about the weird laws that were implemented into Alaskan state law. Grilling was a big no-no because it might attract wildlife. Not to mention, Beef’s case to get into jail to avoid celebrating his birthday by participating in the whispering challenge to the game warden’s ears. Alaska has a set of weird laws that make you question which of the laws even make sense. And it’s not just Alaska, every state in the United States has its own set of weird laws. In Alabama, you can’t have an ice cream cone in your back pocket because it’ll attract horses...to go full Grand Theft Auto on the horse. Also, you can’t put salt on the railroad tracks and the punishment for that is death. Kinda fucked up if you think about it. What if there’s an ice storm in Alabama and a train carrying shipment needs to go through the state? What about that? In Colorado, you can’t throw a missile at a car...which...why? Who even owns a missile? In Connecticut, you can’t sell a pickle that doesn’t bounce because there was some shady stuff regarding the pickles in the 1940s and the officials had to destroy the stash. In Hawaii, twin siblings can’t work for the same company. In New York, it’s illegal to throw a ball at someone’s head for fun. In North Dakota, you can’t sleep on the couch with your shoes on. And then comes the state where HQ is located, Texas. It’s illegal to shoot a buffalo from a second-story hotel. Quite ironic that the state that loves its guns and has a raging boner for the second amendment, being one of the few states to have a permitless open carry law, and you can’t shoot from the second-story hotel and get away with it. Not to mention, the entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned because it contains ingredients to homebrew beer. Kinda stupid if you think about it to ban an entire encyclopedia as part of the state’s stupid attempt to ban books. Onto Alaska...
Pete got arrested for grilling outside because of the Attractive Nuisance Law where the scent of the grill might attract wild animals and later Beef for whispering to a game warden that landed him in the slammer for 24 hours. The weird laws that Alaska adopted make you question what’s even considered legal. Like dropping a moose from the plane, that’s illegal over there. Don’t question how that’s even a thing. I don’t know either and I don’t even know why that’s even a thing. But here we are. But why stop there?
Because the Tobin family has to go the whole nine yards as well in hopes to be with Beef for his birthday by breaking a few weird Alaskan laws with the help of Roy with the rulebook and Edna to get them to their father. Giving a wild moose alcohol is considered a big no-no with Wolf giving the animal a jug of beer. How the fuck does giving a bear alcohol get Lone Moose away with it and yet, giving a moose one is not? Also, it’s illegal to occupy a moving trailer while it’s being towed on the open road with Honeybee on wheels and Judy inside the trailer. Bank tellers and robbers beware of thinking that taking over a trailer is a good fucking idea. Also, it’s illegal to build a snowman on school property and it can’t be over your current height. Yo, this is mads stupids for these laws to exist. Make your brain rattled when watching this episode with these laws. And also Moon turned himself in for placing a slingshot in a police car. Villain. That’s all I can say. All of this, while Danica broke her, Beef, and Pete out of prison and make their way to the bank for Danica to rob the bank. Beef out of prison, alongside Pete with Danica being taken away once more. The family giving Beef a heated toilet seat, didn’t even notice that was even a thing, and uh...yeah, just treat it as a normal day without going overboard...despite that everyone in the Tobin family now has criminal records because of this episode.
Reaction/Thoughts:
So...thoughts about this week’s episode of The Great North? It’s an interesting episode but felt average with how things panned out. Mostly coming from Beef wanting to avoid celebrating his birthday. And the ways he’ll take for him to avoid celebrating his birthday after being paranoid when picking up a stick of gloss that fell from Judy’s pocket as if he’s about to have an anxiety attack of celebrating his birthday, leading up to him revealing that he used to like birthdays but his parents didn’t even bother celebrating it. Pretty much fitting into the trope of sitcom fathers having shitty childhoods.
Shoehorning Danica into the episode is pretty much the writers’ way to make sure the episode shouldn’t just be Beef spending his day in jail and the family trying to do something to get him out or try to commit crimes to get to him for his birthday. Thought that she would end up being a one-off once she gets arrested at the end of “Say It Again, Ham Adventure” but here we are. I mean, nothing wrong with Danica, and introducing more members of the Tobin family isn’t a bad idea if the show plans on building its characters. It’s still a young series and they do have time to build everything. But shoehorning Danica for this episode felt like a random thing to put in for the episode than just having Beef enjoy his time in jail and the family trying their way to either bail their father out or join him in the cell. So you’re kind of torn on whether or not Danica or any other character that we haven’t seen get brought into the episode at random would work. Well, that and also Beef’s imagination of him being naked and sitting on a toilet in front of everyone.
Though no issues with the worldbuilding for the universe of The Great North by letting in actual stuff from the real world like the weird laws that were established. And even though the weird laws can rattle your heads when seeing the episode but hey, worldbuilding. Especially when we get to next week’s episode which it focuses on an event that once happened and yes, this was real, over at the next town over regarding...well...animal droppings. But other than that, it’s an average episode. A bit stale but it’s not a bad episode. So I’ll give “Pa-shank Redemption Adventure”...
A 5 out of 10. But that’s my opinion and I wanna hear yours in the comments below. As I said, next week’s episode is about an event about animal droppings that is actually based on a real event that happened from the 70s until the late 2000s in the next town over with the town of Lone Moose celebrating the event in the nineteenth episode of Season 3 of The Great North in “Rear Genius Adventure”. Only a few more episodes to go for the season.
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