Getting back to the groove of things with the review now that we’re in April, meaning that the offseason is now right around the corner. Apparently, 2024 decided to do the darndest things possible during the Easter break. A spring snowstorm followed by a couple of earthquakes in the Northeast. Yeah, it almost feels like 2024 is trying to make an impression in wanting to be a bad year as if this being a leap year and an election year isn't frustrating enough for some folks. The last thing we want is another 2020 to take over our lives. It's more or less becoming like 2016 in my opinion. Once again, no new Bob's Burgers for this week...or next week...or the week after that. Yeah, it's getting annoying, y'all. Especially with the summer offseason right around the corner.
In this week’s episode of The Great North, the Beef/Carissa storyline is about to take effect with Beef planning on wrestling a bear on Fat Bear Week in hopes of impressing Carissa after being threatened by another guy who is hitting on her as Ham and Dirt visit a couple of gay bars for Dirt to get back into the dating game in my spoilerific review of the eighth episode of Season 4 of The Great North, titled “Bear of Beeftown Adventure”.
Much like the WWE when it comes to storylines, even though I don’t even watch wrestling, we have ourselves a storyline regarding one Beef Tobin and him getting back into the saddle throughout this season so far, or I guess the entirety of the series since accepting the fact that Kathleen left him and the family. This season so far for The Great North has been The Beef Show since "Risky Beefness Adventure" when deciding to get back into the dating game and for real this time around. Sure, we seen a few times where he made a hit on some women, as in trying to make an impression and hoping for things to go well, not the other around, with Del, Greta, and Alyson throughout the show’s first three seasons and again in this season with Greta for an episode as part of him wanting to do a one-night stand. But this season has been all Beef in the spotlight, aside from introducing Dirt to the show, and some of the characters, according to some fans, might have taken the backseat as of late, and hopefully, that doesn't cause too much of a concern regarding certain characters not getting the attention they deserve.
But it has been Beef throughout the season that the light had shined upon, especially when deciding to go back into the dating game. And boy, that didn’t take long and out of nowhere for him to find the right person for Beef to date, especially following what happened with Greta during the one-night too many stands a few episodes ago. I did say in my short review of “Cheese All That Adventure” that having Beef and Carissa having an interest in each other came out of nowhere, especially with the moment of them blushing during the mom's meeting at the Tuntley household. That moment, as well as Beef showing his support towards Carissa by visiting her at the coffee shop by the pier, led to her gaining traction with her business to make ends meet, that’s where you know that things are starting to become serious between those two that we have a new ship that came out of nowhere and is poised to set sail. And that’s what we got in this week’s episode with Beef planning to make Carissa his girlfriend, only for the scriptwriters to decide to go through his jealousy arc regarding a new guy during Fat Bear Week. And boy, we got an episode to unpack here along with the subplot with Ham and Dirt upon returning from a week’s break. We might as well go and break the episode down piece by piece in what might as well be a long episode to cover, this is “Bear of Beeftown Adventure”.
The episode starts with a news report from reporter Diondra Tundra about the biggest event that is taking place in Lone Moose, in comparison to the other events that took place in the rural town in the past seasons, and that is Fat Bear Week. For those who are out of the loop of what the event is, Fat Bear Week is an event that the US National Park Service had to organize to have everyone pick which bear is considered the fattest. As in judging on which bear is considered...
To everyone outside of Alaska, and also outside of the country, you'd probably pretend to care or not give a shit altogether because you question why people are often paying attention and judging each bear as if you’re watching a dog show competition you probably see on Thanksgiving after losing the remote following the Thanksgiving Day parade and hoping to change the channel to watch an NFL game. But to the people of Alaska, Fat Bear Week is pretty much their Super Bowl. Their March Madness. Their version of the World Cup. It's the World Cup of Bears. And every Alaskan placed their bets, watched the competition, and cheered on their pick on who would be declared the fattest bear for the year. The defending champion when it comes to the bear stack is named The Kid, which is a brown bear, though looking at the screencap when working on the review looks orange as if he should be the unofficial live animal mascot for the Chicago Bears, but according to the news, it looks like the bear may have some heavy competition when going up against a newcomer, The Hunk, along with some of the bears who are up and running in the race.
The Tobins, primarily Beef, have their pick on which bear should take home the crown, that being The Kid, hoping to win back-to-back titles and hopefully avoid an upset. And I'm guessing we know how the voting process works on how each gets picked to take home the title of champion of Fat Bear Week at the breakfast table...yeah, we're placing bets. The Tobins, by orders from Beef, go across the VFW where the viewing party is and go around every table to convince and manipulate the masses in hopes for Beef’s pick, The Kid, to win it all leading up to the final vote tallied. At this point, Fat Bear Week might as well get a sponsor from a sports betting company like DraftKings or FanDuel since a lot of the process for how Fat Bear Week works is putting on a parlay and that is what the rest of the Tobin family has to do to make sure everyone bet responsibly and play a game of wait-and-see in hopes for Beef’s pick to win it all.
Of course, Dirt is new to the event since coming out of the bunker, so the family has to give the rundown to her about the event and why the town is celebrating on selecting which bear should be on top. In comparison to how Dirt would treat a bear back in her day to what the townsfolk are doing nowadays when it comes to the treatment of the furry animal but times have changed since entering the bunker and there’s a lot to take up for Dirt to have the information of the event into her head, though she’ll probably not care for the whole thing (unless there’s one that catches her attention), hence why we got a subplot coming up with her and Ham, since you don’t see him at the VFW later in the episode. Of course, the Tobin family that Beef is happy. Too happy for their liking. And it's not because of him being optimistic about his pick for Fat Bear Week taking home the crown. No, no, it's something else that is causing him to be in extremely high spirits when cleaning his plate after serving the family bear-shaped pancakes. That's more than enough for the family to call an emergency family meeting. Usually with these meetings, they would be hosted in the panic room, which is the small walk-in closet upstairs. But instead of going into the walk-in closet that they usually go to when holding these meetings...
They decided to use Dirt's bunker once breakfast was done. I guess gone were the days the panic room may have to be used, though I doubt that they would ever use Dirt’s bunker or any other place to serve whenever an emergency family meeting had to be called. Anyway, the family calls for an emergency family meeting at Dirt’s bunker when noticing Beef’s positive mood as of late would draw some concern because they have never seen Beef that happy ever in their lives, aside from Ham’s comments that he did once in his lifetime when he came across Dionne Warwick at the airport. Aside from that, that’s the only time that any of the Tobin family had endured Beef being extremely excited and believed that Fat Bear Week may have something to do with it, but that's only the appetizer for why Beef is in high spirits. That is until Moon steps up to the plate and puts two and two together for the family to figure out themselves.
He tells the family about what he heard from Debbie to tell the family what's going on with Beef behind the scenes. According to Moon, one day, Debbie was at his dad's place, working on a diorama of how vaping is bad, putting on a couple of cotton balls onto the poster board to use as smoke from a vape pen when she noticed that she ran out of cotton balls. And because her dad is nowhere to be found, leaving her to her lonesome, noting that this is the first that we see Debbie's dad's place where she's at when working on the project, leading Debbie to wander off on foot to her house alone, which would've put her dad in a very tight spot if finding out that their kid walked from her dad's place to her mom's house on her lonesome, on foot, in the middle of the night. Once Debbie arrives, unannounced, enters the house and makes her way towards the bathroom to get the cotton balls for her to take, not steal because this is her place, and oh boy, this is where we get to the point where no kid wants to come across whenever their parent is doing something. And some of y'all had scarring memories of accidentally seeing your parents doing the dirty in bed whenever you storm into the room whenever you have a nightmare. This might as well be Debbie's nightmare and it would soon be Moon's as well by the end of the episode.
Catching both Carissa and Beef in the bathtub, bubbles filling the tub, and candlelight flaring by the window. Making out before getting caught red-handed by Debbie, who had a front-row seat to the situation and screamed in terror at what she had seen. Leading to her telling Moon the next day about what just happened. Solidifying that Beef and Carissa are getting serious to the point that Beef's youngest son and Carissa's only daughter put two and two together before the rest of the Tobins find out about the two being...well, at the moment of the episode, friends with benefits. Or in easier terms even though both Beef and Carissa hadn't gone too serious like lovemaking...yet, going with the Adventure Time reference, they're at Tier 1, which is hugging. Well, more of the line of small talk, blushing, talking about how great the other is, all that stuff. The bathtub scene has them go up to Tier 2, which is smooching. In fact, in that scene with Debbie coming into the bathroom with Beef and Carissa in the bathtub, those two have jumped over the moon from Tier 1 all the way to Tier 5-7 and are dangerously close to reaching Tier 8. Not getting to the point where we would have a Tier 15 situation for them and Beef may have done that a few times with Greta a few times a few episodes ago.
But man, that shot is going to traumatize Debbie for a while and the same goes for Moon after hearing it from her off-screen, and later at the end of the episode once Beef and Carissa doing the same thing that Debbie saw, you could say that those two (Beef and Carissa) should learn how to lock the door whenever they do those stuff like sharing a bath, I said it once a few episodes ago and I’ll say it again, if Beef and Carissa decided to take things seriously like dating (spoiler alert: they did at the end of the episode) to the point where the topic of marriage would be on the table, we got a long way to go, anything can change...embrace the possibility of Moon and Debbie being step-siblings.
Which would sound like an ideal pitch for a TV sitcom where a boy and a girl, the girl who is a friend who is also a bully to the boy, live in the same house because their respective parents decided to take things seriously. Though makes you question regarding living situation? We know that a married couple has to move into a new place with another spouse, meaning that the Vans would probably move into the cabin. How would that turn out? Where would Debbie sleep, Moon's or Judy's? How would the dynamic work? How would the relationship between Beef and Carissa affect the family dynamic? I know that we’re only eight episodes into the season and knowing that we have a Season 5 that is greenlit, anything can happen. And I mean anything. So, for now, we might as well let the scriptwriters do all the work and the family are in shock that they had to find out that Beef and Carissa are a thing.
This leads to what is pretty much an awkward ride to drop the kids off to school in the next scene with the family being quiet before Judy decides to not keep her mouth shut and blab about everything that happened back home regarding Beef's relationship with Carissa. So, Beef is surprised that the family now found out that he's dating Carissa behind their backs, but it's not actually a relationship just yet according to Beef at this point of the episode. Yes, there were moments where things between them, as I mentioned, them talking nice about each other and smooching nude in a bathtub that would signal that things are becoming serious between the two, but according to Beef, both he and Carissa have yet to change their status to "in a relationship" because either party has yet to confess their feelings. And that's where Beef is preparing to make the move first by telling the family that he is set and ready to go to confess his feelings and the visit to the VFW where the watch party is along with where the food trucks are stationed, where is she working at a donut food truck for the event along with the owner of the donut shop. Hoping that tonight would be the night Beef finally makes a move and declares his love to Carissa. Hopefully, nothing can terribly go wrong for Beef once the evening hits that could stand in the way for him as the family arrives at the school and for Judy, Ham, and Moon to get out of the van. Of course, you have Moon jokingly pretending to call child services over the facts that he had to hear what Debbie saw but it would be more of the possibility of him and Debbie one day being step-siblings but it's more of having the image of his dad and Debbie's mom sharing the tub that he wishes to use Men in Black technology, grab the Dragon Balls and wish for the memory to go away, or be like Superman and turn back time by flying across the globe backward. Otherwise, the image is going to haunt both Moon and Debbie for quite a while as a potential relationship with their respective parents is about to take things seriously.
Onto the starting point of the subplot with hours later into the day with Dirt coming into Ham’s room while Ham is doing some homework for his class. Telling him about a movie she saw called “A Walk to Remember” where she saw two women kissing in the middle of the town and got a light bulb shined bright above her head figurately on what she wanted to do. For anyone who is out of the loop, we know that Dirt went off the grid for more than 60 years after the Great Alaskan Earthquake, mistaking it as a Soviet invasion and the reason why she went into hiding and went through the Cold War paranoia to take over her head is because she had her heart broken by her secret girlfriend who ran off with a guy because remember, it was the 1960s and dating someone within the same sex back in the day was a big no-no. But, times have changed and despite that, there are still people out there who refused to adapt to today's times of acceptance, you know, being an asshole, there are some spots and events where you can be gay in public, ranging from pride parades to gay bars and that caught Dirt's attention because a bar, especially a gay bar, would be the perfect spot for her to find someone to date because despite being in her mid-80s, much like Beef earlier this season, Dirt wants to get back into the saddle. Even though Ham said to her great-aunt that even though he wants to help her find her special someone, he’s underage from laying foot into a bar.
Leave it to Dirt and Moon to create counterfeit IDs to get into any place that can fool anyone and use Ham's room to be turned into a hub to create these fake IDs, like the one Dirt is carrying to present to Ham for him to take. Yeah, nothing too suspicious about the fake ID with Ham's photo being photoshopped with a toupee and a fake beard that isn't coinciding with his hair color. Not to mention Ham in his fake ID being an organ donor or that having a fake birth date because last I checked, the date May 69th isn't even a real date, just like December 32nd and we all remember the memes of people thinking that the nightmare that was 2020 wouldn't end. Also, the state abbreviation wouldn't catch anyone's attention because last I checked, Alaska's abbreviation is "AK", not "AL" because that's Alabama's abbreviation. But aside from that, despite that, as Ham mentioned, underage from attending a bar that serves alcohol, but if it means helping his great-aunt to get back into the saddle after 60+ years of hiding, he might as well help out and thus, establishing the subplot to this episode. Hence, why you don't see Dirt or Ham at the VFW to convince everyone to place bets for the Tobins' pick for Fat Bear Week to win it all?
As seen going into the next scene at the end of the first act of the episode with the Tobin kids, mostly Moon and Judy, again, Ham is MIA because he has to help Dirt find a woman for her to date, whether it’s Moon adding pressure onto Santiago to place his bet for The Hunk to win it all to the same thing with Judy convincing Walter, Kima’s dad, to place his bets for the bear. Of course, because Fat Bear Week is a voting competition, that had to rely on creating parlays, the episode had to place Walter as that one person who would be the undecided individual who doesn’t know who he should be rooting for. Walter is looking at the screen at the table where Beef, Wolf, and Honeybee are sitting when seeing the bears on film, seeing The Hunk taking front and center with the bear for the town to watch with The Kid, the defending champion, deciding to take a nap in the background. Beef hopes for things to go his way as we are preparing to enter the second act of the episode: Hoping for The Kid to avoid an upset and win Fat Bear Week to keep his crown. And, of course, ready to proclaim his love for Carissa, who, speaking of the devil, enters the building with Beef ready to make his move...
Only for the guy who turned out to be Axel, the owner of the donut food truck that Carissa will be working at throughout the event, joining her side and sharing a laugh. Ending the first act and going into the second, it's not looking good for Beef as he begins to feel threatened that Carissa may have already found someone else just the way they act when coming into the VFW to grab themselves a drink. And going into the second act of the episode, Beef decides to walk up to where Carissa and Axel are, Beef, at the behest of Carissa, is introduced to Axel and oh boy, we might be seeing Beef reentering his down bad arc when seeing the guy. As if the guy looking hot with his facial structure, hairstyle, and the way he looks with his muscles and later with his abs wasn't bad enough for Beef, of course, Carissa getting a laugh from the jokes that Axel had to pull out with him doing a British accent once getting the drinks, that’s more than enough for Beef to start feeling jealous.
As seen later into the night with him getting distracted from what happened back at the VFW from checking on what’s going on with the bears on camera for him to check on the latest with The Kid. Leading Beef to open a new tab and Google search Axel's profile to see what he got that Beef doesn't. And the photos speak for itself when going through his profile in what is pretty much the show's version of LinkedIn. Going through the photos of Axel posing shirtless whether it's him at his donut shop with the trays of donuts behind him while carrying a giant donut, guessing would be a pool tube, him capturing a fish while holding a donut, even posing in the outskirts of town in a motorcycle while, of course, holding a donut that it's turning into pure glazing (no pun intended) to promote his shop. Yeah, quite the promotion right there by posing yourself looking hot while holding a random donut just to promote your stuff, hoping for the "sex sells" idea works to promote a business. Aside from that, Beef's jealousy is starting to grow even more when going through Axel's LinkedIn profile, being one of those people who stay up late at night and stalk an ex's profile on social media to see what is going on.
The jealousy gets into Beef's head when going to sleep later in the night when he imagines himself in the kitchen and sees a pair of animated objects, a cup of coffee that symbolizes Carissa and a donut that symbolizes Axel. Adding more pressure onto him would cause him to lose sleep when seeing the nightmare unfolding with the possibility of Beef not being able to get the chance to confess his feelings towards Carissa and about to lose her to him (Axel) when seeing them being friendly, and I mean "too friendly" in front of Beef. Not saying that it's at a point where Beef might be losing his shot and may have waited too long to make a move or that Axel's charm is causing Carissa in Beef's head to lose interest in Beef. Ultimately leading to Beef losing track in his sleep and seeing him looking like...well, himself last week after staying up overnight watching a reality show. And yeah, gotta add the moment in the nightmare of an Axel donut jumping into the coffee-filled cup that symbolizes Carissa and...I guess treat it as a sex scene even though it's supposed to resemble how most people dunk their donuts into a cup of coffee. I know some of y'all are saying that this season has been raunchy to the max, but the earlier season of Bob's Burgers had that tone and two of those episodes had vibrators and this season alone introduced a cloud in a shape of a penis. We're pretty much at that mark when it comes to these things that you might as well embrace while riding the roller coaster while at its peak.
Going into the next day, in the morning hours, and yes, Beef did lose sleep because of his nightmare that he decided to get his mind off of what happened the day prior by keeping track of what was supposed to be the mission at hand, hoping for The Kid to continue making an impression to the townsfolk when being filmed on camera. This catches Wolf and Honeybee's attention since they're the first who caught Beef at the table early in the morning with the laptop on the table, looking like yours truly after posting these reviews in the overnight hours, dead and cooked. Already concerned for Beef's well-being since starting to become jealous and the fear of Carissa not falling into his arms, Wolf and Honeybee have to intervene and help Beef with his situation. Giving him some rational advice to just make a move and tell Carissa how he felt and hopefully, what happened back there is all one big misunderstanding. That, alright, solid advice from Wolf and Honeybee to help Beef out with his situation regarding Carissa and Axel that would soon fall apart going into the next scene knowing that we're early in the episode.
Speaking of which, we get to the next scene, hours later at the VFW with Beef, watching the bears on screen in what is pretty much a big ass screen parked outside the building, makes you question what is even the town's budget to afford something like a giant screen for everyone to view during the week-long event, decided to take up Wolf and Honeybee’s advice to just go walk towards Carissa and confess his feelings. Hoping that what happened yesterday is all one big misunderstanding, not let jealousy take over his emotions and behavior, and pray it’s smooth sailing once he finally makes his move...except that once he’s inches away from the food truck is where the jealousy decided to go full force when seeing Axel’s arm touching Carissa’s shoulder. And that’s enough for Beef to turn away from the food truck and head back to the van before getting the chance to tell Carissa how he feels. And it has to get to the point where Carissa would begin to notice something is wrong with Beef since the encounter and should at least go and check up on him, but I guess we’re not doing that and instead, we’re now getting to the point where Beef’s jealous emotion is about to take him to new heights...and a dumb one at best.
He walks towards the van in emotional distraught, only to be followed by Walter with food and drink in tow, telling Beef that The Kid is starting to lose some steam in popularity, or at least in Walter’s opinion, when seeing The Hunk trying to catch a fish from the rushing river but ends up having butterfingers, rather, butter-paws, and The Kid not on the screen, getting to the point where Walter might be planning on changing his betting choice, enough for Beef to not let that happen while at the same time, dealing with jealousy taking over his mental and physical state over what he had seen regarding Axel and Carissa. The Hunk messing with The Kid’s chances of getting the dub causes Beef to come up with an idea while being in his jealous state, something that would be considered a bad idea for him to do once we get to the second half of the episode. I could say someone like Walter should put two and two together on what Beef is planning on doing and probably tell him what is going to happen later in the episode would be considered a bad decision to do and at least tell him that his newfound jealousy emotion is going to get him killed. I mean, you have Wolf and Honeybee being on the lookout for Beef and they do have the right to do so following what happened back there yesterday when seeing Carissa and Axel being “friendly” with each other despite being co-workers for a week, you have someone like Walter who has a few scenes with a speaking role and just being there as someone who is undecided in the competition and at least use his time to be on the lookout for Beef and his wellbeing. Check up on him but no, gotta have him there just to be the undecided voter. And aside from that, it looks like Beef is dead set on doing something that, again, would be considered a dumb decision to make.
We get to the subplot of the episode with Ham and Dirt driving across town to find which gay bar tickles her fancy, arriving at the first bar, which doesn't seem to impress Dirt, mostly because of the loud music, mostly because of the music of today’s time using the style of EDM, and the flashing lights that would fit Dirt's style. Not saying that she's somewhat developing sensory overload, but this is her first outing to a bar in a really long time, and adapting to the modern times is going to be something that she would have to get through. But the first bar doesn't tickle Dirt's fancy...and the same goes for the other bars across town whether it's a goth-themed bar, an Irish pub, or a ball-themed bar, which, you have to applaud Lone Moose for being an accepting town to show a lot of LGBT bars and events as Ham mentioned earlier in the episode, but can be openly accepting even though there will be a few who would be deemed assholes. So, a big round of applause for a rural town like Lone Moose in red state Alaska, that voted Republican in every presidential election (with the exception of 1964), to be accepted with open arms. Though I had to go through some research about the political ideology of the state, but this isn't a political page where you could say that Alaska would be considered more libertarian than the toxic waste dump that is going on today with the political party. Aside from that, none of these bars, the first three bars that Ham had to drive through across town, doesn't seem to impress Dirt, resulting in the search to find the right place to continue as the night continues.
So, going into the end of the first half of the episode and ready to go into the second half, Beef is packing his things and is poised to do something that would definitely bite him in the ass as he currently undergoes what is pretty much a jealous rage before getting caught by Wolf as if he was about to follow Dirt and Moon's footsteps of wanting to off the grid just because he saw him packing his things. Why do I get the feeling that this is what each Tobin family member is going to have to go through in case of heartbreak? But Beef doesn't seem to take that route in following the footsteps of his son and aunt because that would be considered desperate and instead...he's going to temper with Fat Bear Week to make sure his pick for the event, The Kid, to win it all and serve as a response to prove to Carissa that he can be more manly than Axel. As if planning on becoming an amateur bear trainer to temper with the results of Fat Bear Week has ever worked for anyone? Especially towards a wild animal like a bear? You might as well put in your signature on your death warrant just because the person you've been crushing on for quite some time is with another guy who you'd think is hitting on her and not having the confidence or the timing to confess you feeling as if you're reliving the days with Kathleen. Beef's little adventure causes Wolf to jump in, much to Honeybee's dismay once she comes in and spots him and Beef by the van. So, Wolf has to step in and try to stop him from reaching The Hunk or any other bear that is not named The Kid and temper with the event all because of Beef's jealousy towards Axel. And hopefully, thing doesn't come and bite Beef in the ass going into the second half of the episode.
Entering the second half of the episode, the start of the third act, with Beef and Wolf breaking into the forest where the bears are with the gate closed, only for them to go through the chained lock, quite the security the national park service had to implement to prevent trespassers from entering the forest. The security system in that one SpongeBob episode that was cut out seems to be the better use than a freaking chain to close the trail for the night. Beef and Wolf sneak their way into the forest with Wolf trying to be the voice of reason for once and attempting to convince Beef to stand down on what he is doing because what he is planning to do won’t help his case to get The Kid to retain his title or helping his case that tempering with the results of Fat Bear Week would help him score Carissa. But that’s not going to stop Beef from making himself look like a dumbass and risking his life just because his pick for Fat Bear Week is losing his popularity and the possibility of losing Carissa to another man. Beef and Wolf arrive at the station where the switches are for the cameras and decide to turn every camera off to avoid getting caught.
Pissing off a lot of people who were seeing the live feed back at the VFW who are now unable to see the event just as the parlays are currently being built. Getting to the point where everyone now had to make bets on how long the sudden blackout would last, not noticing who or what, or at least, who would cause the feed to go down and hopefully doesn’t grab the attention of the wildlife service to get to the forest and turn it back on, which would catch Wolf and Beef in the act. But aside from that, might as well improvise the blackout by creating bets on how long the feed will be back on. Though the way Moon says it the moment the feed gets cut off...tell me that doesn’t sound too suspicious as if any of the Tobins, primarily Moon and/or Judy, knew what Beef is planning on doing in the forest and have to play it through to avoid suspicion from the townsfolk. So, for now, while the feed is down, everyone has to improvise to avoid suspicion of possible tampering and for Beef and Wolf, the mission continues to tamper with the competition on their way to the river where the bears are.
Going back to the subplot to check up on Ham and Dirt and it has been a struggle for Dirt to find the perfect place for her to attend a bar and find someone that would serve as her significant other. Whether it's the loud music, the various themes, long lines, or people who are at least 50-60 years younger than her, Dirt, along with Ham as her designated driver, are caught in a dead end. This leads them to go to the pier to watch the seagulls, or in Dirt's case, throw a couple of beer bottles towards the seagulls, so...littering with a side of assaulting wildlife, where they come across with Londra who has just arrived back to the mainland and coming across both Ham and Dirt, the first-ever meeting between Dirt and anyone who the Tobin family are friends with...well, aside from Quinn a few episodes ago at the dance. Makes you question when we are going to a moment where Dirt meets her other nephew and great-niece, that being Brian and Becca, because they gotta be in the know regarding the notion of finding out that they have a long-lost relative in the family. And don't even get us started with Danica. We don't need to get to that plot hole. Ham tells Londra that he and Dirt have trouble finding the right bar for Dirt to visit so she can get back into the dating game and leave it to Londra to save the day because she mentioned the one place that should help them with their case and what's interesting about the place that Londra brought up is that the gay bar that Dirt is planning on going happens to be a speakeasy. And of course, the place is a speakeasy because Ham was brought up in Londra when bringing up the place, named the Wooly Ma'am, isn't on the locations that were searched on the map. Also, the patrons there don't even know how the internet works, meaning that it would be filled with old people and that should be more than enough for Dirt to catch her attention...as long as she gets more information on the place without threatening to blow up Londra's boat during the car ride to where the speakeasy is located. I mean, at some point, the Tobins may need to ask Dirt to dial down the violent threats or anything that would result in violence as a precaution for everyone's sake.
Already we’re at the end of the third act as we’re preparing to enter the fourth act with Wolf and Beef arriving at the river for Beef, now that the cameras are off, to enter tampering mode and make his way to the rock to get The Hunk off to avoid being the center of attention to get The Kid to retain his title. Beef does the job by pulling out a piece of fish along with a frying pan and bear spray for him to get The Hunk’s attention, throwing the fish into the nearby rock below the one that The Hunk is standing for him to eat. Mostly because, one: Bears often eat fish. And two, getting the idea from earlier in the episode that the bear didn't capture the fish with his claws that both Beef and Walter watched while Beef was turning himself into a mess. Things were going well for Beef after throwing the fish that it should be a mission to get the bear away from the rock and would be planning on playing the waiting game or doing something to get The Kid to get to the rock so that he could get a come from behind victory. Going into the fourth act and this is where we get to the moment where it sort of feels like something coming out of a Chappelle’s Show skit, or at least in the entire episode with Beef starting to become jealous and deciding to turn the episode into an installment of "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong".
Especially once the bear gets peeved off and decides to go on the attack towards Beef and knocking him off into the water to start the fourth and final act of the episode, not to mention, a scratched arm from the claw just as Beef was about to spray the bear spray. Though, tis but a scratch and no blood coming out despite that an animal's claw feels like you've been sliced from a few dozen Japanese kitchen knives and Beef would’ve been dead from what would’ve been a fatal mauling from the bear but ends up being knocked into the rushing river but he knew that it was going to be the result of him being a dumbass in trying to tamper with the process of the event. Just be lucky that Wolf has to come in and save his father, getting him to safety when trying to get to land and preventing Beef from becoming a statistic. See kids, this is why don't fuck around with the wildlife. Especially in the day of social media and thinking it's a good idea for clicks...don't. Just don't. That's all I have to say.
Ham, Dirt, and Londra arrive at the department store where they come across a cashier, telling her where the speakeasy gay bar is for them to take Dirt to land someone. The location of the speakeasy, according to the cashier, is located inside one of the fitting rooms, which the trio make their way to the fitting room and once inside, like something coming out of Scooby-Doo, the hanger serves as the lever to have the mirror on the wall open, and lo and behold, the trio has hit the jackpot and for Dirt, the time is now for her to find her special someone and it didn't take long for one of the patrons, named Denise, to step to the plate and walked up towards Dirt for a greeting...only to begin to feel nervous and storm out of the speakeasy. Feeling some butterflies in her stomach, and it had been a long time since she last made a move, but aside from that, Dirt stormed out and that would cause both Ham and Londra to go and follow her and tell what was going on.
Going back to the main plot of the episode with Wolf and Beef finally made it to land after swimming through the rushing river. Both men are drenched with Beef taking some damage, mostly with a scratched arm with no scratch that would result in his arm being bloodied, though just be thankful that it's not cut off that would leave him amputated, note when looking at the part of the scene with Beef and Wolf coming out of the water where you noticed a part of his pants also ripped off from the bear, either that or run into some branches, revealing his ass crack, but aside from that, Beef realized that what he was trying to do back there when coming across with The Hunk was considered a stupid idea and just follow the damn the advice that Wolf and Honeybee had to give him when it comes to the Carissa situation and not let jealousy take over the mental and physical state that would draw him to do stupid things. It pretty much boils down to Beef getting some PTSD when it comes to proclaiming his feelings to a significant other. He went through what happened with Kathleen and we all know that Kathleen isn't mother or wife material when going through an affair streak, and we know how heartbroken Beef was once Kathleen decided to fuck off and the moment he saw Carissa walking into the VFW building along with Axel being friendly with each other a few days ago...oh yeah, he’s reliving that moment and Beef doesn’t want to go through that with Carissa with what happened with Kathleen. I mean, Greta too a few episodes ago with the poem piece switching from him to another guy that caused him to go through a heartbreak.
But it's more of the line of Kathleen as if Beef, if not, the entire family...but mostly Beef is cursed. No matter how much they want to forget the past, no matter how they want to move forward and get on with their lives, it's like the spirit of Kathleen and her actions continue to serve as a barricade for anyone in the family but especially Beef. And wanting to date Carissa would be the moment for him to finally get rid of the monkey off of his back, well one of two on the list. And so, he finally decides to do what is supposed to do, head off and tell Carissa how he feels. Something that he should've listened to earlier before but yeah, now is the time to do that. You're probably wondering what's the second on the list. I get the feeling the show might mess around with something that would finally put the storyline to a close. The first of the two items on the list for Beef to finally achieve moving forward would be dating Carissa (unless the show decided to mess around and have him go for someone else in case we get renewed for another season or two) and the other...the show will mess around and finally introduce the viewers to Kathleen. The family believes at first that she may have changed but they would put two and two together and say, "bitch be lying" and would go on the defense but it would be the perfect moment for Beef to finally close the book on Kathleen. Saying to her that what happened was all in the past and what happened back there was heart stomp after heart stomp and her leaving would be the final straw. You know, saying that he moved on. He's happy with a new relationship. All that shit. Gotta get the ultimate monkey off of his back in order for Beef to finally move on from Kathleen and be happy with Carissa or knowing how long the show will go, they’ll mess around and find someone else, but now, it’s Carissa and that is what Beef is ready to make her become his girlfriend. Ready to head out, but not before turning the cameras back on for the viewing party to see...only to see Beef on camera, with a portion of his bare ass being caught in 4K.
Going back to the subplot with Ham and Londra finding Dirt hiding inside the skirt rack and telling her what's wrong and explaining why she ran off after coming across Denise the moment she took her first step into the speakeasy. Dirt tells Ham that if she found the right bar, like the speakeasy, she thought that she would make a move and flirt with a woman to land a date but ended up becoming scared and nervous. A change you could say. Or I guess she wants to express herself like an outing. And it didn't take long for Ham to connect the dots on what Dirt is saying about her situation. Realizing that Dirt never had an outing. She never came out of the closet and revealed herself as a lesbian. She never had a shot because, again, Dirt is from a time when any LGBT activity like being in a same-sex relationship would be considered taboo. To the point where she had a secret girlfriend before losing her to someone else, which resulted in her going into the bunker with a huge earthquake being served as her chance to get into the bunker and go into hiding for 60 years before being discovered by Moon and the rest of the Tobins. Dirt questions Ham about how he's so out and proud of who he is. He replied that he was proud about being out but it did take some time for him to discover who he really is and the perfect timing to tell his family that he's gay. Remember that he had his coming out in "Say It Again, Ham Adventure" despite a few times where Ham says to the family that he's gay and everyone in the family tells him in return that they love him just the way he is. And now, he decided to help his great-aunt to do the same by starting small by gaining the confidence that she needed and making her way back to the speakeasy.
Which the three did with Dirt come up to Denise by the booth, apologizing to her for storming out without warning because of her being nervous, mostly because she's from a different time, and decided to tell Denise about herself. Telling Denise that she hid in the bunker for 60 years, having to rely on non-perishable foods, drinking water made by petrifying her urine, enjoying throwing bottles at seagulls, you know...the usual Dirt stuff that the family had to endure since being discovered and re-entering society. You'd think that Denise would be creeped out by some of the things that Dirt mentioned but she doesn't mind all of that and lo and behold, I see things are starting to click for Dirt and Denise as the night progresses. And for Dirt herself, yes, it does feel like she might need a coming out and the family nowadays is accepting, especially since Ham, before the introduction of Dirt, had his coming out, it's nice for her to get back to the saddle and may have found someone for her to hang out at the bar.
And now, finally, already past the two-minute warning, Beef finally decided to grow some cajones and visit the Van residence, going by the door, and ringing the doorbell for Carissa to answer. Once she answers, she notices Beef in a mess, clothes tattered with a scratch on his arm. Telling Carissa that he tried to tamper with Fat Bear Week, attempting to cheat for The Kid to get the win, and all because he got jealous of Axel and afraid that he was getting heartbroken and dump his feelings into tempering with Fat Bear Week by trying to get The Hunk away from being the center of attention. And now, we get to the moment where Beef finally declares his love for Carissa...and as of, when the episode first premiered on TV, 9:30pm Eastern Time on Sunday, April 7, the year of our lord 2024, the ship has been sailed, right off the fucking bat. Beef and Carissa are officially a couple with Carissa telling Beef that Axel isn't even her type to begin with and tells him that he prefers big, hairy dumb types like him who nearly became a statistic of a bear attack. Might as well treat Beef and Carissa as if they're the show's version of Travis and Taylor...please don’t dox me, Swifties.
Ending the episode...Beef and Carissa might as well need to learn how to lock the bathroom whenever they decide to share a bath, this time around at the cabin that houses Wolf and Honeybee instead of the Tobin household, though the household had a shower instead of a tub when seeing the news that The Kid won Fat Bear Week, retaining his crown, and for Beef, he got two things that went his way, having his pick for the event to win it all and now, getting himself a girlfriend. Of course, gotta go full circle because if Debbie had to endure coming into the bathroom with the door unlocked and seeing Beef and Carissa in the bathtub, Moon has to do the same and we got that to end the episode. Tell me that doesn't sound like a potential sitcom now that Beef and Carissa are together and the chances of Moon and Debbie having to embrace the idea of them being step-siblings are starting to rise. Eh...that shit would last at least a season at best.
Reaction/Thoughts:
So, all and all, what do I think about this week’s episode of The Great North? No bullshitting, this was a pretty good episode. Sure, some moments turned out to be predictable, especially the ending with Carissa not being interested in Axel and would rather be with Beef, it was pretty much a good episode coming from both plots.
While yes, the ending was predictable, and knew that Carissa would not be interested in Axel and instead, want to be with Beef, as well as Beef embarrassing himself by tempering with Fat Bear Week, you have to at least give Beef something to finally move on with his life and poised to enter a new relationship and a second chance at romance, even though the Beef and Carissa romance came out of nowhere since "Cheese All That Adventure", but at least he found someone who he should at least be happy with now that those two are dating. The scenes with Debbie and later Moon seeing their respective parents naked in the tub were hilarious with the two not being good at boundaries that would've scarred them for life. Wolf being the voice of reason was interesting in this episode when tagging along with Beef during the second half of the episode. Normally, Wolf would have no problem with him joining his father to do some stuff but when it comes to romance, let alone Beef being jealous of Axel regarding the Carissa situation, he had to stand in and tell him that tampering with Fat Bear Week won't help his case and mind you, Beef nearly died from a possible bear attack if Beef just walk up to Carissa and be honest with his feelings. But it was nice for once that Wolf had to come in as the voice of reason and attempt to prevent Beef from doing the wrong way of keeping things real in hopes of impressing Carissa.
The subplot with Ham and Dirt was good. Nice to see the dynamic of Ham and Dirt coming along with Ham driving Dirt around to find the right gay bar for her to find someone she can date. It's nice to see Londra again, the first time this season and she was a big help in helping Dirt to find the right bar for her. And it's nice that she can finally get back into the dating game after being in hiding for 60 years when greeting herself to one of the patrons who walked up to her the moment Dirt placed her foot into the speakeasy. So it was a good subplot and an interesting main plot despite a predictable ending, but regardless, it was a good episode, not going to lie. So I'll give "Bear of Beeftown Adventure"...
An 8 out of 10. But that's my opinion and I wanna hear yours in the comments below. We got double episodes for The Great North this upcoming Sunday. Two days after my birthday, and we got two episodes coming up with one side of the plate with Moon and his friends checking out vandalized books that the library had to be thrown out, as well as Honeybee's mom paying a visit to Lone Moose in the ninth episode of Season 4, "Idita-Ruth Adventure". And on the other hand, you have Judy and Ham planning to get the school to get into the party spirit when noticing that the school doesn't know ball and would have to find an expert to help them out along with the adults competing in a competition at the bar in the tenth episode of Season 4, “A Chug’s Life Adventure”. Both are coming out on April 14.
Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Mastodon, BlueSky, and Threads for updates and behind-the-scenes stuff. Match 3 of both Group A and Group B of the 2024 Battle of the Week Voting Tournament is ongoing between Maka Albarn (Soul Eater) and Revy (Black Lagoon), along with Rin Okumura (Blue Exorcist) and Yuji Itadori (Jujutsu Kaisen) making his voting tournament debut. Both polls close on Saturday. And, of course, y’all should know the drill by now...
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