Fresh off the heels of a kinda notorious episode, we’ve got “The Splinter”…oh boy. This episode has 7 pages of comments here on the forum. I don't think I need to say anything else about the infamy of this episode, which, in my opinion, is quite overblown.
I like how this episode begins, because it’s always nice to see SpongeBob so enthusiastic about his job. Not to mention they have one of my favorite little tracks,
Tripping Upstairs, in the background. There’s also some neat visuals in this segment too, like when SpongeBob takes out the ingredients. And once SpongeBob gets his spatula stuck in the ceiling, the bit where he takes it out just to say it’s stuck pretty good got a good chuckle out of me, that was a clever bit of humor. Honestly this first part of the episode is really good. It’s too bad it all goes downhill from here, once SpongeBob gets the eponymous splinter.
Immediately when SpongeBob gets the splinter, we’re subjected to some really uncomfortable images. And see, this is where this episode diverges from the toenail scene in “House Fancy” for me. To me, that scene hardly looked graphic. But in this episode, we get some realistic paintings as well as SpongeBob’s red thumb (and worse, later) the entire episode, so you can just
feel the pain just by looking at it. And it just generates this very uncomfortable feeling. I mean, on one hand it's somewhat impressive that the artists and writers manage to do this with such ease, but on the other it still makes the episode very difficult to watch.
The next problem of the episode (I’ll return to the gross-out after this, as it doesn’t become quite the issue until later) is the fact that it’s honestly pretty boring after the great first segment. SpongeBob’s attempts to get the splinter out are just not that entertaining to me other than a neat visual gag here and there. The interaction between SpongeBob and Squidward is also disappointingly dull. Squidward’s whole plot to get SpongeBob sent home just isn’t really entertaining at all...I feel like the episode would've been better if it was just SpongeBob struggling to do his job with the splinter and realizing he can't do it so then enlisting Patrick to get it out. Just cut all this Squidward stuff, it was unnecessary. I think the main issue is that there weren’t really any attempts for humor for some very large stretches of time. Not to mention, there’s no way in H Mr. Krabs would follow a workplace code like that LMAO. But seriously, this entire interaction is just dull, slow, and off. The phone call with Patrick is similarly boring. But I did like that we got a kind of call-back to both “Suction Cup Symphony” and “Suds”…even if again, it was
boring. Just so slow and quiet, I don’t know what’s going on here, but it isn’t working (the med school joke was actually funny though, so there was that). Also, another thing about this section, but it’s kind of nonsensical. Like, if Mr. Krabs is really that aware of things amiss at his restaurant, and SpongeBob is this worried about being sent home early, then why tf is he not, you know, actually working??? SpongeBob spends so much time trying to get this splinter out, so I’m confused about him actually doing his job?? But whatever, it’s all to comedic (or attempted comedic) effect, so it doesn’t really matter.
And now, of course, I must talk about the last issue of this episode—which I already started to address—the gross-out. And it’s true, the last 2 minutes of this episode are just freaking nasty. Luckily, there aren’t too many shots of the thing, and thank god there isn’t one of those close-up paintings of it, but there’s enough shots for us to get the idea. And maybe because it’s a hand injury, a common enough one at that (though I can only remember getting one or two splinters in my life lol), I get quite the visceral reaction watching this part of “The Splinter”, that makes me want to turn the whole episode off. I’m just glad the situation is resolved quickly. As for the actual ending of this episode, its attempted slapstick that doesn’t really do anything for me, much like the comedy in most of this episode. At least it’s kind of satisfying to see Squidward get hurt after all the emotional turmoil he put SpongeBob through, but it would’ve been better had this scene actually been funny.
I can’t tell if the biggest crime of “The Splinter” is being gross or being just plain boring. I’m leaning towards the latter, because how is an episode known for being so disgusting just so dull??? I think this episode is the perfect representation of a “Mediocre”-tier episode, because it completely fails at what it set out to do, but it also doesn’t truly offend me other than some gross shots. The beginning of this episode also for sure prevents this episode from going into “Tolerable”, but just barely.
Episode Tier: Mediocre
Episode Score: 5/10
