The Great North

Thoughts:

The Wet Wolf is disgusting, and man, I have to say it, I hate Wolf. He's super annoying. What pisses me off the most is how much I love Honeybee. He doesn't deserve her. But I told myself regardless of my distaste there I would give the episode five stars if it ended without Judy and Kima understanding they were high.

The damn show couldn't stick the landing there. That would have been amazing comedy with integrity. But television must be television, and even Alanis Morrissette is forced to do anti-marijuana PSAs at the literal end of the day.

Good to see Alanis. It's been too long. Judy is easily my favorite character, and also the funniest. I just love her. Bonus points for her bestie Kima being such a refreshing positive Native representation. That is SO cool and welcome.

But the so-so episode did NOT earn the five stars it would have gotten for the comedy bravery of Judy and Kima's obvious behavior being supposedly inexplicable. Not even close. 3 1/2 stars.

That was obnoxious. I hated the last episode where they were snowed in and went crazy, and I guess this is going to be a recurring thing. And I predict I will hate it every time.

This is so annoying. 1 1/2 stars.

I love Judy. But I have to say her taste in boys is alarming. She is going to have a DIFFICULT life as an adult for it. It's cute now. She's looking at a mess future when she grows up.

I love that everyone in the restaurant was on several dates at once. I love Honeybee telling her to do what she needed to do.

The show reminds me once a week why I dislike Wolf. When he's eating the snow-cone off the ground he earns my loathing honestly. Honeybee has to kiss his gross ass! Ugh!

Speaking of which, the whole thing with Beef not being able to be friends with a cruise captain is stupid. Because it's stupid, none of the conflict worked for me. I don't really care about bogus made up drama that isn't real. I get that's the joke, but I never find that crap funny. Ever since King Of The Hill, that specific shit has always pissed me off.

Most TV-14 episodes of this show suck. But that was mostly amusing because of Judy. 3 1/2 stars.

Honeybee's "Good for her!" is funny and a good capper to that plot.

But Beef's stuff is so bad because the conflict only exists because he's stupid. I don't respond to that being the obstacle for characters, especially characters I like.

Middling week. 2 1/2 stars.

I loved Carissa and Beef's fight because they worked through their problems. The refreshing thing to me is we kind of think Beef was not taking this seriously, but no, he was, and it mattered a great deal to him. He's just too clueless to understand that a woman would resent that the idea first came from an outside source. It's a wonderful, unexpected development that this actually meant a great deal to him. Even Carissa was surprised by that. Beef's honesty is so endearing.

The pool stuff is pretty much why I don't like the Tobin family as a group. They can take any nice thing and ruin it. It felt very true to their characters that it's Honeybee and Judy teaming up to fight that specific aspect to them. Both of those characters (especially Judy) seem to want (and actually deserve) nice things.

I don't think Debbie really understands how to behave. If she did she'd understand her behavior wasn't "good", it was unsettling.

Aunt Dirt is the worst thing to ever happen to this show. She makes each episode she appears in worse for it, and for some reason she now appears in nearly every damn episode. I don't understand what the show was thinking. They had a good premise, not running out of steam yet (not TOO much at least) and they Cousin Oliver things already with a totally obnoxious character. I don't understand the logic of doing that, much less saddling the show with a sucky character from apparently here on out. My fondest wish and best case scenario is Aunt Dirt is just a season long arc, and she either dies or leaves town in the finale. It seems extremely ill-advised to permanently mess with the show's relatively solid chemistry and status quo for a character I can't imagine anyone in the audience actually likes. I don't get it.

It's an all right episode though. Carissa and Beef are cute. 3 stars.

I'm an artist. And I've connected with a couple of fans. My experience was not Judy's experience.

It is scary to meet a person you don't know who digs your work. But Judy's work IS good. She deserves to have a fan who gets it who isn't a crazy person trying to get her to join a cult and kill her. Is that what the show's producers ultimately think of fans?

I get the worry about crazed fans. But for a small scale operation, I don't feel like this is a real worry. And if it is, it's not something Judy deserved to go through.

I love Beef totally abandoning the cabbage because Judy was the only vegetable that mattered. The whole family was being inane about it, and them just dropping immediately when Judy really needed them was cool.

Rose on The Golden Girls played dumb and was secretly manipulative? I haven't seen that show in ages but that's not what I got from it at ALL. Alanis is WEIRD.

I think Judy deserved a better and realer fan. Instead of an adult taking advantage of her and not respecting her boundaries. 3 stars.

Good and bad.

I'll start with the bad.

I have always hated Moon. The producers think watching him deliberately start trouble for the sake of starting trouble is cute. It's not. It's annoying. I feel the same way about Bart Simpson. Louise Belcher is a misbehaving kid who works because she always has clears wants and goals. She's not just a chaos agent. She's a person. And that's why Moon sucks, that's why Bart Simpson sucks, hell that's why Futurama's Bender sucks. Being an asshole isn't funny and lovable no matter how much adult animation tries to get me to think it is.

One thing I hate about the Tobins, and this was true of Honeybee tonight, is that they are individually good at telling the others what they need, but as a group they don't listen very well. I knew the moral with Honeybee all along and was pissed that she didn't understand Judy NEEDED to talk about it.

The good:

I feel like this is the first episode that used Aunt Dirt properly. I liked her for the first time ever and for the first time didn't resent her placement on the show.

Miami is funny. I love that when Wolf meets him and learns he's an erotic Merman, he doesn't get jealous, and takes it in stride. Wolf is another character that is often hard to like. Unlike Moon, this beat proves there is zero malice or ill-intention to the guy, which makes me forgive his creepiness a little. Just a little.

It was all right but it also had some parts I didn't care for. 3 stars.

Judy is actually crazy, but still I like her relationship with Alanis Morrissette. For an insane kid she talks to herself about insightful things.

Making Alanis mobile is probably something they should have done ages ago. I hope this is the New Normal for the character and premise going forward.

That puzzle plot was weird. I just... Sheesh.

Pretty good. I love Judy even though she's nuts. 3 1/2 stars.

On the one hand it's kind of cool Moon is useful around animals. On the other, the fact that he keeps a dead mouse in his pocket at all times is super gross. I mentioned I don't like Moon? That! That!

Beef was annoying in the episode. Also when you see a Wolf you should bring it in.

The Final Destination stuff was dumb (I think the show is making Honeybee dumber than she used to be) but I love that Security Pam played along. But what kind of Tarot deck has three Death cards? That's not how Tarot cards work. I was hoping that would turn out to be a plot point, and why they were wrong, but no, the show is just dumb.

I love that they sang "Goodnight Sweetheart" from 3 Men And A Baby over the end credits. This show has a lot more legit pop culture references than Bob's Burgers. Most of Bob's movies and TV shows are made-up. For The Great North, it's the other way around.

All right. But ick, dead mouse in the pocket. 3 stars.

I love Beef and Honeybee. She's so honest and real (and could be friends with Lego Batman) and I love that, surprise, Beef actually wanted this to work, and knew the rest of the kids hated it.

Ham's Bonesy scheme was genius, and the reveal was very old-school heist. Also, adults suck and can't do whatever they want.

The one downside was the flashback to Wolf with Bonesy and the prom, revoltingly called back in the end credits. Yuck.

The moment where Honeybee says she feels unnerved sitting at a table with a group of white people staring at her was great. I think the show is often a little TOO colorblind, and it's good to remind the audience the family is biracial.

Great episode otherwise. 4 1/2 stars.