For our last review of season 5, and wow can’t believe we’re already here, we’ve got “Stanley S. SquarePants”, an episode that continues (and ends) season 5’s trend of exploring SpongeBob’s family. I thought that was a pretty neat thread in some of these episodes, it's nice to meet more characters and learn more about this world. But anyway, let's get focused on this one family member, shall we?
This episode basically hits the ground running with Stanley being introduced like…10 seconds into it, in a pretty funny way. Once we learn why Stanley was sent to SpongeBob’s house, though, it’s pretty easy to guess what exactly the rest of this episode is going to be about. I think it’s funny that SpongeBob is seen as a responsible adult by at least one member of his family though. And that is one nice thing about this episode, that we’re leaning fully into the “SpongeBob is an adult” side of the line, which as we all know is my favorite side of the line. Another thing I like about this episode is SpongeBob’s pride in working at the Krusty Krab. His photo wall is so wholesome, and it feels a lot like the credits of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
One weakness of this episode is our eponymous character. He’s not even that annoying, it’s just that he keeps causing problems without having much of a character outside of that. Like he’s not funny or witty or anything, he’s kind of just a SpongeBob-Patrick hybrid without any of their charm. Speaking of reminders of other things, this episode feels a lot like “Big Pink Loser”, but again with less charm. Actually it’s kind of funny that this episode is like that one, given the whole scene with Patrick about learning from the master of doing nothing. And that scene with Patrick is good (I love how haughty he is) until Stanley tries to do nothing, then it just gets boring, predictable, and I get weird vibes from it (given how ADHD-coded Stanley is in that scene…yeah I’m not even gonna get started on that one). Stanley at the Krusty Krab is also…not great. I’ll talk about this more later though.
There’s lots of good in this episode though, such as some really funny moments. Like Squidward’s reaction to meeting Stanley is absolutely hilarious and gets me dying laughing every time, definitely the most memorable part of the episode outside of the ending. And the incident with Sandy was pretty funny. The way SpongeBob unwittingly roasts Stanley during the bit before the Krusty Krab was amusing as well (thank god Stanley’s crying was not super annoying). I also really liked the joke with Mr. Krabs’ nephews. There are also some neat writing things in this episode too. I liked that SpongeBob had some conflict in this episode about recommending Stanley to work at the Krusty Krab, because he’s seen Stanley’s incompetence and bad luck in action, and he doesn’t want that to infect his sacred place, but also he wants to help Stanley and doesn’t want to hurt him. So I appreciated the inclusion of that because it made the episode more interesting.
What I didn’t like about that conflict, though, was SpongeBob taking the blame for Stanley’s actions. Yes, it was a natural outgrowth of that plot thread, but it wasn’t pleasant to watch because we know none of these things are SpongeBob’s fault, and y’all know I hate to see the little square dude lose. I think what makes it worse is Stanley’s reaction…he’s not grateful at all and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and just makes him seem like a jerk when the episode had previously made him seem just fine. But it’s when SpongeBob starts covering for Stanley more explicitly, and Mr. Krabs starts crediting Stanley and blaming SpongeBob, that things start moving in a much more unpleasant direction for me. First off, this is like the 3rd episode of something like this happening, and so I'm feeling all the unpleasant feelings I felt in "The Original Fry Cook" or "Breath of Fresh Squidward", which is not a good look.
The ending of this episode helps things out immensely though. First off, it’s very gratifying to see SpongeBob finally lose it after his spatula is broken and Mr. Krabs blames him for it. And secondly, it’s also satisfying to see Stanley’s horrendous abilities be put to a use that benefits everyone (except Plankton and Karen), blowing up the Chum Bucket. It’s a nice end to the episode, especially with the great track Kalua Jubilee backing it.
“Stanley S. SquarePants” is…all over the place, honestly. It starts out good, then gets annoying, then gets good again, then annoying, then alright, then really unpleasant, and finally ends really well. It’s hard to rate episodes like this because it’s hard to form a cohesive opinion about episodes like this. But keeping everything in mind, I’d say this episode fits just barely in my “Good” tier. The frustration I feel throughout the episode is resolved nicely by the end, so I’m hardly even considering that aspect (although it is part of this because I still don’t like feeling frustrated). But the main reason this episode is going in that tier is because the episode is funny but not very funny, and it also has a few dull moments. But it’s honestly impressive how much the episode gets my opinions changing, because at some parts I was fully prepared to put this episode in “Okay” and maybe even “Mediocre”, but here it is, just barely up in “Good”. Not a strong ending to season 5, but not a bad one either.
Episode Tier: Good
Episode Score: 7/10
Well, that’s the end of season 5! Season overview will go up tomorrow, as per usual, and then I'll jump right into things in April as we begin season 6, because that season has 47 episode segments which is the longest so far, so...we're just going to see how that goes. I'll get 'em all done though, you can guarantee that.