Seems I can’t go too far without another disliked episode rearing its head, huh? I wouldn’t call "Squid Defense" notorious by any means, but I always remember opinions toward it being on the negative side. Maybe this isn’t even true, but obviously I’m not looking at the discussion board beforehand to know.
This episode starts out with a pretty significant advantage—the prospect of Sandy and Squidward interacting in a meaningful capacity, something I don’t think we’ve seen before this (wait, we have in “Squidtastic Voyage”…my point pretty much stands though. We have all these interactions that could be so fruitful, and then only see them for one episode…do more!)? Have we even seen them interact much after this??? Writers get on this immediately. Anyway, note that I’m saying that the prospect of this is interesting. And I say prospect because the actual execution is…flawed. This episode is more of a SpongeBob and Squidward episode than anything, and Sandy’s role is very limited, only giving Squidward the karate know-how, not actually spending time with him in the episode outside of that, in any kind of meaningful character way. So that’s for sure a disappointment, and I don’t understand why this happened, we were doing so well with different characters interacting!
Moving onto the episode proper, well first things first,
gorgeous background alert! Okay, second things second, the idea of Squidward doing karate is an interesting one, way more interesting that Patrick doing karate (hehe, “Karate Star” lashings), because it’s like “Squidville” or “Bubblestand” or “Jellyfishing”—it’s interesting to see Squidward partaking in one of SpongeBob’s hobbies. Again, I think this could’ve been done better in this episode (such as in a “Squidville” kinda way), but I’m glad it was done at all.
There’s some small things in this episode I like too, as I always seem to have these kinds of likes. I love that this episode once again shows that Bikini Bottom is a walkable city. I just wanna be able to walk home with my groceries and feel good about my life, that sounds like a dream come true. I also love how SpongeBob and Gary are watching a movie together when Squidward comes to them, that’s so cute! Gary is also just cute in this episode, I love him. I also think that this episode makes some more improvements upon “Karate Star”. SpongeBob’s smugness about being Squidward’s karate teacher is actually pretty funny here, and Squidward’s training scene is also much more entertaining than whatever “Karate Star” had to offer. I’d like to think of this episode taking place after “The Way of the Sponge”, because I think these two episodes fit together nicely. Sandy is also great in her short appearance in this episode, though she definitely should not have trusted Squidward with any karate knowledge lol.
This episode is basically about not making assumptions about the people around you, right (yeah there’s the whole ‘no revenge’ thing too, but it doesn’t quite hit all the nails on that kinda plot, and that’s not the focus of what I’m about to say so it truly doesn’t matter)? There’s more I can say about that but even I balk at the idea of introducing real discourse into this forum lol. “Sun Bleached” was it for me! But anyway, yeah Squidward is kind of an a-hole in this episode, which I do suppose is in character for him, but I do think this episode takes things too far even for him. Definitely not to the point of “Little Yellow Book”, but enough for me to take issue with it. And I’m sure that it has to do with the moral of the episode being don’t judge the people around you, given the kind of issue it is in society (cough cough racialized cough). I don’t like being reminded of bad things in real life. So perhaps I’m being unfair to Squidward here, but hey, I have the right to do that lol.
One other thing I’m not a fan of in this episode is the pacing. We spend all this time with Squidward learning karate at Sandy’s place, yet without the two having an actual meaningful interaction (almost impressive), and only just at the very end get to see Squidward confront that person from last time before we get the predictable reveal that he was just an innocent guy trying to help Squidward out. Maybe it’s because the part with Squidward learning karate isn’t that funny, but I feel like we spent too much time with this part, especially the scene of SpongeBob trying to instruct Squidward, that was unnecessary.
"Squid Defense" was...alright. It was kind of just a disappointing episode because of the promise of Sandy and Squidward actually interacting, which was then squandered imo. And then the episode was just shy of being dull in many places, which did not help matters at all. But there was good here too, so all in all kinda a mixed bag.
Episode Tier: Okay
Episode Score: 6.8/10
