Yay, a Gary episode! Remember how for, like, 90% of Gary-focused episodes, I end up being disappointed? Well, you’ll never believe what happens here! Actually, you might be surprised, because I’m not disappointed. But I don’t love it either. And before I get started, there’s one thing about this episode that actually makes me a little sad, and that’s that this episode is the
very last episode to use one of my favorite tracks in the show,
Kamakani B. Gosh, I’m getting choked up just thinking about it. Bring it back!
This is such a small thing, but I like when the Krusty Krab has a TV in it. It makes it feel more like a real restaurant, considering lots of restaurants have TVs in them. I’m joking on that one, but the real reason I like it is again because it feels so much like a sitcom because characters gather to watch the TV. Just like in this episode. Idk how to describe it, I just like the vibes man! In this case, the TV is a set-up for the plot as SpongeBob learns about these Snail Bites treats that he decides to get for Gary (I liked how he shouted at Squidward not to change the channel too, it was funny and on second thought it reminds me of “Squidville”. Gary then gets pretty much addicted to these things, which is a woe of pet owners everywhere, I’m sure.
The entire sequence of Gary doing all sorts of tricks and stuff for treats is at least visually interesting, and I like the track
Bikini Bottom Bound, so that’s nice. It’s a montage, so I’ll mostly forgive it for that. It’s a good way of advancing the plot, and I love seeing how talented Gary is, so you know what, I like it. Gary manages to eat all the Snail Bites by doing this, and because it’s night, SpongeBob decides to hit the hay. I’m sure you can guess where the episode goes from here—Gary keeps SpongeBob up with his incessant meowing. And this is where the episode begins to lose me. I’ve said this before, but clearly they write Gary as a character with a brain, even though he is a pet. He can even talk, in his own way. So why does he not understand that they are simply out of Snail Bites, and SpongeBob wants to sleep so he cannot get them at that moment? You see how that doesn’t make sense? And it makes his behavior become slightly irritating, which I don’t like because how can
I, number one Gary the Snail fan, be annoyed by Gary’s behavior?
And another reason why Gary freaking out about this is just not even a good plot is because…there’s nothing SpongeBob can do. So it’s just frustrating seeing Gary demand these treats that SpongeBob literally cannot get because they’re sold out. At least SpongeBob is able to momentarily get peace at work…at least til Gary shows up. At this point I’m along for the ride, because like I said, being upset at Gary in an episode is not something I want to be, so I choose to try and let it go, even if it still does just annoy me lol. I did like the joke with Nat actually giving SpongeBob an idea for how to get more Snail Bites. See, seeing SpongeBob be an exhausted pet owner is actually not that bad. It’s everything else that’s annoying me. Anyway, SpongeBob is completely unable to get Gary any Snail Bites, but he travels across the world to see if there’s any (I liked the cameo of Twitch here too, as well as all the different locations we see), because he’s unable to say no. I do like this idea of SpongeBob being unable to say no to Gary. Other than the scene with Patrick, I feel like this was only subtly hinted at throughout the episode, and I think it could’ve been made more explicit. But that’s such a small nitpick, it doesn’t even matter. I really liked the last few minutes of this episode though, I will say that.
I feel like I’ve been ragging on “Treats!” a little too much. In general, it’s a decent episode, I’ve just got a number of problems with it, but none of those problems feel really big? I don’t know. I don’t dislike this episode, let me make that clear. I like it well enough. It’s just, I feel like it’s half and half on whether I would ever seek this episode out for a rewatch. And that’s a big metric when it comes to my ratings. So, I think I’ll put this episode in mid-Good, and hopefully that’s good enough.
Episode Tier: Good
Episode Score: 7.4/10