The season is winding down, everyone. Only one episode left to go after the posting of this review. And for the first time in this show’s two-year run, we have a two-parter to close out the show’s third season. And this is the first time we have two series in the FOX Animation Domination block where we have a two-parter to close out the season. Bob’s Burgers did it last year with “Some Like It Bot” leading up to the release of The Bob’s Burgers in theaters. And now, it’s The Great North’s turn to have a two-parter of their own. Leading up to...well, questions being up in the air regarding if we’re going to have a fifth-season option on the tables.
So in this week’s episode penultimate episode of the third season of The Great North, it’s prom season for the high schoolers of Lone Moose with Judy and Kima scrambling to find dates of their own, as well as the duo wanting to put up the perfect prom their grade can remember, but it looks like a foul smell outside of town is going to have a say about that in my review of the twenty-first episode of Season 3, titled “For Whom the Smell Tolls Part One”.
So, this is according to an interview from the Animation World Network with the Molyneuxs about what to expect from this two-parter to close out the show’s third season. There’s a theme in all of this with the two remaining episodes by having it into one story before getting into the summer break. You remember that last week’s episode, “Barrel Be Blood Adventure” where the topic of the episode was on automation and the threat of robots taking people’s jobs as seen with Beef, Craig, and Londra doing the best they can by getting rid of the vending machine that is killing their jobs. Quite a topical subject with the rapid rise of automation and artificial intelligence like ChatGPT taking over our daily lives and could possibly pose a threat towards...well, jobs, which is one of the reasons why the writers as of this moment are on strike which resulted in the production of many shows and upcoming movies pressing the pause button to go on the picket line. That was last week’s episode when it comes to the topic of automation, whereas this week’s episode, as well as next week's since it is a two-parter, where the topic of climate change is being brought up and how it’s fucking everything up. I’ll leave the article link down below this text. So here you go.
>>> Link to the Molyneuxs' Interview with AWN <<<
So what Wendy is saying from the interview about what to expect with the two-parter is all about climate change. Because the state of Alaska is under threat of a changing climate as the ice caps are melting and the temperatures rising to dangerous levels the likes we have never seen before in our lives. The state is located up by the North Pole, where most of the activity, alongside the South Pole, is being affected by the rising temperatures that result in the ice caps melting and the sea waters rising up by an inch with each passing day. Villages and towns by the shore are being threatened by rising waters that could make the place they call home becoming inhabitable. And it’s not just Alaska being under threat by rising sea waters because of warming sea temperatures, but also a lot of coastal cities across the US and across the world, including many island nations. So this was pretty much the show’s best way to address the issue by throwing in a few jokes about the odd and suspicious smell plaguing Lone Moose all while addressing the situation about the planet getting hotter. Especially because, if y’all were living under a rock, we’re expecting to transition into an El Nino sometime later this year or sometime next year. And if you’re probably wondering about two things, what is El Nino? And why should we care about the patterns later this year? I’ll let this video down below to explain.
Basically, when it comes to the subject of climate, there are two types of climate that can affect weather patterns, an El Nino and a La Nina. The name “El Nino” came from a pair of fishermen from Peru from the Old Century who noticed the ocean waters being warmer than usual during the Christmas holidays and they dubbed it “El Nino”, which is Spanish for “little boy” or “Christ Child”. And all signs point toward the trade winds in the equator by the northwestern coast of South America and how they can affect the water temperatures. If the trade winds are weak, they can’t pull the warm waters to Asia, meaning that the water temperatures to bubbling up. La Nina is the opposite where the trade winds get stronger and the waters in the Pacific get colder. If you check on the map of the US when looking up for the two, El Nino: dry and warm in the north, wet and cold in the south. La Nina, the opposite with a cold and wet north and a warm and dry south...though the last few years that was a La Nina... begged to differ. Oh yeah, and it can affect the hurricane season and the activity. El Nino, a lot of activity in the Eastern and Central Pacific. La Nina, that activity goes towards the Atlantic. So here’s the second question, what’s so troubling about this upcoming El Nino? Well...this ties back to Wendy addressing climate change in this two-parter. Mostly because...
Yeah, it’s not great, Bob. It’s not great. Especially with the global temperatures getting hotter by the day. You’d thought the last decade was the hottest on record? Oh boy, we might be getting to the point of no return once we get to later in the decade. Mostly with the sea temperatures getting hotter and hotter. As well as storms becoming stronger and more devastating because of climate change. I mean, take a look at 2016 for example, each passing month had become hotter and taking the first place spot as if it’s a game of hot potato. Take a look at the Eastern Pacific season from 2015, notably Hurricane Patricia, which became the strongest storm on the planet with 215 mph winds. Yeah, it made landfall in a sparse area between two major cities, primarily resort towns in Mexico, and downgraded to a Cat. 4, but if that doesn’t tell you that climate change is the real deal, buddy...you don’t know what is coming later along the line. Yeah, that was quite a shift explaining what the haps with the topic of climate change when preparing to talk about the episode, let’s get to the episode with “For Whom the Smell Tolls Part One”.
And of course, knowing that it’s a two-parter, much like Bob’s Burgers with their two-parters, we have no intro to kick off the episode, so you know that shit is about to hit the fan with a random guy walking his dog in the middle of the night where he noticed a crack on the street and the rumbling of the Earth right out of the school where it’s rapidly cracking the concrete like a peanut. Real talk, when watching the episode for the first time, it almost feels like I’m getting some vibes from The Bob’s Burgers Movie last year with the cracks on the street (and sidewalk) that led to something big and sinister. Except with the movie, the cracks were years in advance with Seasons 11 and 12 being the Easter eggs that were served leading up to the movie’s release. This one was straight out of nowhere but was triggered to crack open following a series of small earthquakes rattling Lone Moose as if Eren Jaeger from Attack on Titan has brought the Rumbling to cross over into the Bouchard-verse. ♪ If I lose it all slip and fall I will never look away ♪ Nah, it’s nothing like that. Alaska can at times get earthquakes but noticing the series of mini earthquakes that rattle through the state, as seen throughout the episode, it comes down to either a random occurrence where the Earth just now had to rattle but doesn’t cause some damage to property other than being nuisances, a series of those minor earthquakes happened to be aftershocks caused by an earthquakes hundreds of miles away from Lone Moose, or maybe fracking as the way to go. Other than that, we have our setup for the two-parter with the guy at the start noticing something sinister is coming that could plague the city of Lone Moose. A series of small quakes and the stench coming out from the cracks to plague the air quality and...that’s going to be the subplot for the first part of the two-parter because...
It’s prom season! Whether you want to call it a fake out or not with the two plots and thought that the mystery of the weird stench would serve as the main plot but instead, it’s the prom plot with Judy and Kima. Besides, the first part of this two-parter was pretty much the show planting the seeds for what is about to come. The mystery of the weird odor that’s been spiraling across the town was one seed that was planted and the prom plot is the other. Expecting both plots to be intertwined by the cliffhanger to close out the episode. But for now, the focus will be on the main plot with Judy and Kima being served as the prom committee to make sure that the prom for them and their grade to be a night they’ll never forget. And I know that you’re questioning the logic being that knowing Judy and everyone in her and Ham’s group are eleventh graders because they’re 16-17 years old and that’s the average age range for a student to be a junior in high school and prom is mostly attached to seniors who are preparing to graduate. But...I guess fuck it and have the lower grades hold their dance? Guess that’s one way to put it. And also Judy being gitty with prom coming up by having the prom theme being based on the movie “Sixteen Moments” when talking to Alanis at the start of the episode with some people getting annoyed with Judy each time she’s preparing to sing one of the songs from the film. Though Bethany’s reaction to it by attempting to break her lunch tray in half when having to hear Judy singing was something. I don’t blame her.
Other than that, with the prom being set up and despite the series of quakes rattling the town, resulting in the event to move outside for safety procedures, all Judy and Kima had to do leading up to the big night is to find dates and boy...they ended up hitting a snag when trying to find their dream guys. They tried to find someone at the mall with a sign and confetti gun on the ready...nope. Would try somewhere across town but I guess that won’t work in their favor. Kima didn’t find her guy somewhere out in the blue. The same goes for Judy. Especially Judy when she thought that she’ll ask Gill to be her date for the dance as the last option...yeah, it’s not a pretty good look for Judy when finding out that the person who everyone in their circle knew that he has the hots for her found someone else to take to the dance. I don’t know what to say about that other than...um...ouch. Also, I’m sure that you can go to the dance without dates. I mean, I’m sure there are some who can go with just friends because prom is that one night when you might not see them right after school for a long time, and that one single night would be the night you have to make your life worth it. And hopefully not do anything stupid like going drinking that would result in your throwing up at a Waffle House bathroom at 3:00 in the morning as if it’s a weekend in Vegas.
But Judy and Kima...to them, they think that it’s the end of the world in their point of view as seen with Kima burying her dress that she was going to wear for the dance in the event before being stopped by Esther and trying to give the two girls a reason to think that them not finding their dates for the dance isn’t the end of their lives. And going off-topic with the episode for a bit, I got to give Season 3 some pointers on what the show has been doing. Mostly with how they’ve been expanding the lore and worldbuilding with the town. As well as giving some limelight with their side characters. Primarily, most recently, with Kima.
Because all we know about Kima leading up to this point of this season is that she had an on-and-off again relationship with some guy named Tab and also being Judy's best friend but was sort of shown in Season 2 but that's about it for her. Then Season 3 came in and the hits kept on coming. Knowing more about her. We get to meet her family and what her parents can do, her father Walter being an environmental scientist and her mother Esther being a smokejumper, and I guess some of her Alaskan Native heritage. I mean, we saw the Evanoffs doing somewhat of a prayer for a bit before helping the Tobins and Tuntleys to stop the Mayor of Ted's Folly to win the turd contest. Not to mention being a good, if not, best friend to Judy. And last week's episode and also this week's shows that with the two and that's something I'd enjoy. Building her character up and getting to know more about said character. And hopefully, this will continue going into the fourth season. Maybe, and this is just a maybe, we'll get somewhat of a flashback or backstory to how Judy and Kima first met, which I think it might be after Stacey B. stopped being friends with Judy and Kima swooped into the picture and the rest became history. Also, current co-vice champion in the voting tournament. The first native character to take the title thanks in part to Judy's victory in the Final Round last year.
Of course, with Judy and Kima being unable to find their dates for the prom, leave it to Kima's mom Esther to set her daughter and her daughter's friend up once arriving at a small dollar store on the outskirts of town, in Esther's home village and lo and behold, the two got their dates for their prom, a tall guy for Judy and a guy for Kima who has a detailed Adam's apple. And, of course, Judy's dream of her being excited for her prom now that she got a date and her being imagined as if she's in the film "Sixteen Moments" as the out-of-nowhere seventeenth sister, despite Judy noticing the smell and small quaking that can pose a threat to the night of the dance as if the universe is warning her that her night and everyone else's might become a living hell. Which later turns out to be true and found out that the dream that Judy had turned out to be a premonition by the end of the episode once the shaking gets stronger and the smell becomes fouler by the hour the moment Gibbons told Judy and Kima to move the prom indoors because of the odor. Though surprising no one has given some thought to delay or postpone the dance to a later date once the shaking stops and the odor goes away. Guess we’ll find out about that in next week’s season finale.
Although the moment Judy and Kima along with their dates enter the gym where the dance is held, and before leaving the Tobin household, yeah...you’re getting that feeling that sooner or later, Judy and Kima will have to switch dates. And the preview for next week’s season finale in the end credits showed that with one scene showing Judy dancing with Kima’s date. Whether it’s Kima laughing at Judy’s date’s joke or Judy having some similarities with Kima’s date, it’s bound that those two will have to switch dates once the next episode arrives. We can think of a few things that might happen. One answer being Judy and Kima realizing that they have their date mixed up. The second option being the boys realizing that they have their dates, ie Judy and Kima, mixed up from their perspective. The third option, and hopefully it doesn’t come down to that, Judy and Kima get into a fight because one of them falls for either date. God, I hope that doesn’t become a thing. Or the fourth option, which is probably going to the most likely option, the first option but Judy and Kima had to keep switching dates like they’re playing a game of hot potato.
Also don’t want to forget about Ham and Crispin before getting into the meat of the subplot, no pun intended with the root cause of the odor, with the prom plot because they want to compete in the prom couple competition, but to do that, they need to talk to Principal Gibbons to alter the titles of “prom king” and “prom queen” to make it gender neutral. Making things acceptable for same-sex couples to compete for the crown once prom night arrives. And right off the bat, Gibbons approves and the title of “prom king” and “prom queen” will be changed to “prom president” and “prom vice president”, which Ham and Crispin outright won later in the episode. And yeah, proms across the US and mostly across the world should adopt that to make things more acceptable for same-sex couples to compete. Fuck your so-called “morals”, this isn’t the olden times anymore. So choppy, choppy.
Getting to the subplot that will become the main plot as the two plots intertwine with each other by the end of this episode and going into next week’s conclusion for the culmination of the show’s third season, where it’s the townsfolk under Mayor Peppers’ lead to track down the source of the weird odor that’s been plaguing the town’s air quality. It’s pretty much the point of them searching for clues to where the origin of the smell is coming from or how it even got there before finding out the real cause and arriving too late as it's taking place on the night of the prom event. And of course, at a rapid pace because as if the smell of the foul odor plaguing the air and the series of quakes that’s been going on as of late, the threat of wildlife is also on the option if the smell doesn’t get contained. The fear of “pizzlies” is what the townsfolk say about a herd of grizzly bears being attracted to the smell as if they’re waiting for the buffet doors to open. Of course, you have two people who aren’t buying into what some of the people under Peppers’ watch thought the source of the smell is at. The first, of course, being the guy who first noticed what was happening at the start of the episode, Looney, thought it was Louie, but no, it’s Looney. Who knew? And of course, Moon being the second. Mostly because he’s trying to connect the dots about the odd smell that sort of reminds him of “gravy”. Don’t know why but he’s getting there and boy, he and Looney were on the money about the actual source of the smell.
Especially on the night the prom turns into a nightmare from hell once Beef and Moon, after dropping off Judy, Kima, and their dates, alongside Ham and Crispin, paid a visit to Looney at his house and get the details behind the rotten smell and what is caused it. Found out that the foul smell came from a pile of raw meat and I mean a lot of raw meat being dumped under the streets because the company Looney used to work and I know that this wasn’t mentioned but I might as well get this out of the way, deregulation. Because the company that he used to work for dumped hundreds of raw meat, most of which was spoiled and had to be dumped underground...to the underground bunker. Or rather, dropped the meat into the ground and without notice from the state’s Department of Transportation, pave the concrete over the area where the meat was dumped. Yeah, really getting flashbacks to The Bob’s Burgers Movie with Grover, after killing Cotton Candy Dan, puts his body into the pile of dirt and without that DOT worker noticing, it goes into the concrete where the site of the sinkhole would be in front of the restaurant once it erupted six years later. And wouldn’t you guessed it? The series of minor earthquakes (and a changing climate) is what caused the cracks outside of the school to be the epicenter to crack open and let out a foul smell like...well, I forgot the name but it’s a flower that whenever it blooms lets out a horrible odor. Setting up shop for the second half of the two-parter come this upcoming Sunday.
Reaction/Thoughts:
So all and all, what are my thoughts on this week’s episode of The Great North? Well, for one...it’s better than what happened in Bob’s Burgers this week...seriously, what the fuck, Linda? But for this being the show’s two-part episode and to close out the season no doubt...well, it’s slow, mostly because it was focusing on the prom plot than the situation regarding the odd smell that’s been invading the air quality of Lone Moose, but I have to give the show some pointers on what they’re doing. And that is planting the seeds and waiting for each plot in the episode to blossom.
The prom plot was the plot that stole the episode before both this and the foul odor situation gets intertwined by the end of the episode once the cracks on the street and the raw meat that was buried along with it, as well the arrival of the pizzlies coming out of the woods. Yeah, it’s not quote-on-quote “explosive” like what happened in the first part of the “Some Like It Bot” two-parter from last year with Bob’s Burgers, but it does have that feeling where you want to know what happens next, even if the credits at the end showcase the preview for the second half of the two-parter, even though we have to treat it as a teaser and some of the scenes might be omitted as trailer fodder.
Really adored Judy and Kima with their friendship with them trying to find dates of their own for their prom. And you have to give the show some credit in trying to expand their characters, especially this season and this late in the game in building Kima up. And while yes, it looks like a gimmie that Judy and Kima in the next episode will most likely switch dates looking at the preview at the end of the episode through the credits with one of the four options that I’ve put out would have to be the likely choice, but other than that, alongside Judy’s dream at the start of the third act of the episode where she imagines three of the sixteen sisters in “Sixteen Moments”, not knowing that the dream was the universe warning her about what is about to come once the night of the prom takes place.
Of course, the subplot that will be taking over the next episode to conclude the two-parter with the odd smell, it’s basically the idea of a group of people, primarily some residents of Lone Moose under Mayor Peppers’ watch, to locate the source of the smell, originally thought that the source is at Location A, that being the shore where the seals are at, only to find out that the actual source is by the place you least expect and by then, it exploded like a ticking time bomb. And yeah, you could say that what Looney and Moon, according to the townsfolk thought it’s nothing more than them crying wolf that ultimately bites everyone in the ass once the episode is over, and while it has some issues, primarily with pacing, it did take their time and setting up shop for what is to come and lo and behold, they did their job perfectly. Some hiccups but it was handled with care. As for what Part 2 of the two-parter holds is up in the air until this upcoming Sunday and whether or not it’ll stick the landing. But for now, an alright episode. So I’ll give “For Whom the Smell Tolls Part One”...
A 7 out of 10. But that’s my opinion and I wanna hear yours in the comments below about this week’s episode. Will the smell finally be ousted? Will the prom go without disaster? Which of the four options that I’d put out would be the pick for Judy and Kima? Hopefully, all of that might be answered in the second half of the two-part season finale, the twenty-second episode of Season 3 of The Great North in “For Whom the Smell Tolls Part Two”.
Follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Mastodon, and Instagram for updates and behind-the-scenes stuff. The third match of the Group C stages in the 2023 Battle of the Week Voting Tournament has already taken place between Quinn Ergon (Final Space) and Louise Belcher (Bob’s Burgers). Voting ends on Saturday, so cast your vote if you have the time. And of course, y’all should know the drill by now...
- PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/yahoo201027
- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/yahoo201027
- Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/Y8Y8K4OP
Donate over on PayPal, Patreon, and Ko-fi pages to help your boy out in both improving the page and help to pay the bills to keep the lights and hopefully, I do something for content. And until the next episode, the season finales of both Bob’s Burgers and The Great North, wash your hands, wear a mask, get vaccinated and boosted, and a reminder that you’re loved, you’re beautiful, ignore the haters, and I’ll see y’all later.
***The Great North is owned by 20th Television Animation, Bento Box Animation, and Wendy Molyneux, Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin, and Minty Lewis. Please Support the Official Release***
No comments:
Post a Comment