Oh noooooooo. Season 7 can you chill for maybe 2 seconds? Please? Pretty please? Because why, why have I just gotten finished reviewing my most hated episode and another episode I can’t stand, and now we’re here at my second most hated episode???? Yeah, it’s “A Pal For Gary”. My hatred of this episode should come as no surprise, being the CEO of Gary the Snail that I am. This is one of the two episodes in this show that seem to be considered the worst of the entire series. I’m sure you can guess what the other one might be. And for once I’m gonna have to stand behind public opinion on this one. I mean, of course, I understand that this is a fictional show and so not worth getting legitimately angry over, but the general sentiment is the same.
What’s so especially heinous about this episode (lol Law and Order reference) is how the beginning of the episode really draws in viewers like me who are longing for some SpongeBob and Gary content. This first minute or so of the episode is actually pretty good. I love how SpongeBob clearly cares for Gary and it hurts to leave him alone, and I love Gary’s little hobby of watching Old Westerns. These two things are a great basis to build the episode on! And, the episode continues to be pretty entertaining when we cut to SpongeBob working at the Krusty Krab, and how he increasingly feels worried and guilty, and then when SpongeBob leaves and gets caught by Mr. Krabs, this part is great too. It really makes me start to wonder if perhaps I just misjudged this episode, because clearly things are going great! Well….see, just like every other disappointing Gary episode, I start out this episode with a glimmer of hope that I’ll finally get what I’m looking for. And then this episode proceeds to crush that hope quite thoroughly. So, unlike “Stuck in the Wringer”, this episode has actual potential. Which is why a lot of my displeasure with this episode stems from disappointment, rather than dislike (although dislike is still a huge part of it, don’t get it twisted).
And speaking of these first few minutes as the basis of this episode, when you really think about it, the direction this episode goes in doesn’t even make sense. The premise here is that SpongeBob feels bad for leaving Gary alone. That he is the one leaving Gary alone. So getting Gary a companion does not exactly follow from the premise. Like it’s logical enough that it’s not a glaring issue, in fact it’s a pretty simple solution to the problem, but the episode itself does not establish it as a solution until way late in the game, it more suggests that SpongeBob himself needs to be there for Gary. And I also mention all of this because this would’ve been 5 million times better than what we got, for sure. And not just because we’re long overdue for a simple SpongeBob-Gary interaction like in “Gary Takes a Bath”.
Well, moving on from musings about episode direction, the fact is the episode does decide to go this route of introducing a pal for Gary (ba dum tss). The best I can say about this story beat is that it does make the episode go in a different and unexpected direction…maybe it’s just because I never watched Gremlins, but I was not thinking “pet will turn out to be a literal monster” so. There’s that. Also, the fact that Puffy Fluffy ends up being a monster makes me ask a lot of questions about the father and son who had just bought one…And then one more thing, but did anyone here play on that Moshi Monsters website when they were younger? The members of Puffy Fluffy’s species all look like Glumps to me lol.
Once SpongeBob takes Puffy Fluffy, I can already feel myself growing annoyed because of how he ignores the very obvious signs from the shop owner. It’s here that I see another missed opportunity of this episode—making SpongeBob’s obliviousness an actual issue that the episode covertly revolves around. Because let’s think for a second. SpongeBob thinks that he’s doing a bad thing by leaving Gary alone, because he seemingly never asks Gary how he feels about it. If the episode wanted to make SpongeBob’s obliviousness a real trend, they should’ve shown Gary trying to tell SpongeBob that he’s fine alone, and SpongeBob thinking that he knows what’s best for Gary. This would make the notorious last third of the episode make more sense at least, and it would require that SpongeBob learn his lesson and make a proper apology towards Gary. That last part would exponentially improve my enjoyment of the episode, but I would still generally dislike it unless more significant changes were made. But at least this idea would give “A Pal For Gary” more direction.
It is once SpongeBob returns home with Puffy Fluffy that this episode decides to completely give up on making SpongeBob a likeable character, or this episode an enjoyable use of my time. SpongeBob is completely oblivious to how Puffy Fluffy is treating Gary, and I can tell that this is meant to be comedic, but there is no comedy here. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to laugh at, because Gary has done nothing to deserve this. And the way that this is coupled with SpongeBob just acting like an a-hole in general to Gary (just like in “Pet or Pests”) really begins to move my annoyance to true irritation and infuriation. And also, the whole part where SpongeBob makes Gary “share” with Puffy Fluffy makes absolutely no sense…why would he give Gary the same amount of food as always, and then expect him to share??? This episode gives extreme whiplash for how good of a pet owner SpongeBob is, and I hate it. And once we see that Puffy Fluffy is purposefully tricking SpongeBob into thinking that it’s innocent while Gary is not, the direction this episode is going in becomes much more clear, and I hate it. These kinds of plots, a kind of Cassandra Truth type plot, I cannot stand them. Top 5 worst tropes of all time because they are beyond frustrating.
For the sake of time and my own sanity, I won’t sit here and go through every repetitive iteration of this trope in the plot (because this episode is also just extremely repetitive in this segment, like we freaking get it my god). Just know that every time SpongeBob is a idiot jerkwad, I’m angry. Got it?
When Puffy Fluffy goes full monster mode, I’m struck by yet another idea that would’ve made this episode even better, and it’s my favorite kind of idea…use some horror! Okay walk with me. The episode begins the exact same way, except SpongeBob actually does have a conversation with Gary about his perceived loneliness, and decides to override Gary’s desires by getting a second pet as a companion. SpongeBob goes and gets Puffy Fluffy, but maybe he finds Puffy Fluffy out in the wild or something, looking cute. He goes to pick up Puffy Fluffy and boom, he turns into a monster and we cut away, only hearing SpongeBob’s scream when the episode goes back to Gary. Some time passes and Gary’s like “hey wait, where’s SpongeBob”, so he decides to investigate. We get some fun antics with this until he eventually finds Puffy Fluffy’s lair, where he sees SpongeBob. He saves the day of course, using those Old Western skills, and SpongeBob is apologetic for not listening to Gary, and grateful that Gary saved him. Is that not far better?
Unfortunately, I have to return to the actual episode now. Puffy Fluffy’s monster design is cool at least. And seeing Gary try and fight back against this thing is entertaining enough. I love how defensive he gets once Puffy Fluffy starts tearing SpongeBob’s clothes, because he clearly loves SpongeBob. I’m glad that this episode isn’t boring at least. But poor Gary deals with this all night, and SpongeBob doesn’t even wake up to it at all. And then when SpongeBob wakes up and sees the damage and immediately blames Gary, man all the good will I had been building towards this episode goes away just like that. Because are you serious?? And that’s not even the worst part.
No, the worst part of this episode is everything that comes once SpongeBob opens the door. Instead of defending his snail against the giant monster literally trying to eat him, SpongeBob berates Gary because he thinks he’s attacking Puffy Fluffy…what. WHAT?! How does that even make remotely any sense at all. In what world can SpongeBob walk into this scene and think Gary is the one causing this mess. A halfway decent episode would’ve had SpongeBob realize the error of his ways right here. It would still be awful but it would be redeemable. But this episode decides to have SpongeBob be 10 times worse, and for what? And we’re meant to find this funny!!! That’s the whole reason the fakeout was done, because this is supposed to be humorous. Well, let me break it to whoever thought this was a good idea: this is not funny. At all. It’s just beyond infuriating.
And then Gary, being the king he is, saves the day when Puffy Fluffy starts trying to eat SpongeBob. We get a nice callback to all the westerns Gary had been watching before, so this was nice to see. What’s not nice to see is SpongeBob immediately running after Puffy Fluffy and being angry at Gary for driving him away, as if he couldn’t realize that he was literally being eaten. The very end of this episode actually would’ve been good if it was in a different episode, because SpongeBob bringing Gary to work is actually fun, and Mr. Krabs is pretty funny here. But it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that after all the hell SpongeBob just put Gary through, from which he never learned, he is now forcing Gary out of his comfortable days spent at home, and into free labor???? No wonder Gary looks so completely done at the end of the episode. I enjoy a long-suffering character (Squidward), but this is beyond ridiculous.
“A Pal For Gary” is both better and worse than I remembered. Worse in that I forgot how much missed potential there was in this episode, and how much actually good stuff was here that was completely thrown to the wayside. It’s almost impressive how whenever this episode had a chance to be good/decent, or utterly abysmal, it chose the latter. It would’ve been so easy for this episode to be good. That’s why it was so easy for me to come up with improved versions of it! And I think that’s why I regard this episode is my second least favorite (at least at the moment, but this is unlikely to change). It’s not the least enjoyable episode I’ve ever seen, and there are some episodes I dislike more than it in some ways (”Someone’s in the Kitchen With Sandy” definitely pissed me off more). But never before have I seen an episode so completely sabotage itself when it had such a strong footing. I can’t understand it.
Episode Tier: Abysmal
Episode Score: 1/10
