Another Sandy episode? For me? Oh the gifts just keep on coming. And yes, I am aware of how this episode has been received. Frankly, I have no strong opinion on this thing prior to rewatching it, so you’ll just have to wait and see how I feel it seems.
We begin with Sandy hanging out on the beach with SpongeBob and Patrick. And they’re doing this ever so slightly annoying thing of saying dribble a bunch of times without actually shooting the basketball. This could’ve been a lot more annoying, so I’m glad about that, but also it’s not particularly entertaining to me either. Sandy becomes very impatient with these two, and so she makes her own ball out of barnacles and shoots. Before watching any more of the episode, I’m going to guess that this episode is about either her competitiveness or her impatience, or some combination of both. All I can say to that is that this first example was very justified, so if they’re going to make her impatience a problem, they’re gonna have to do it with another example.
Lo and behold, I’m correct, as we see Sandy grow impatient once again, but it’s more of a competitive thing in this case. Then we see Sandy playing volleyball with Larry, Mr. Krabs, and Squidward, which is a very interesting combination but I like it. SpongeBob is concerned that Sandy is playing rough. Which, I suppose that’s fair. But so far I’m not seeing much of an actual problem with her behavior…yeah, she’s rough compared to everyone else, but I don’t see her as being malicious, I just think she’s trying to have fun?
SpongeBob says that Sandy is stressing him out, so he and Patrick decide to go jellyfishing. And we got a too long joke out of that, by the way. Once SpongeBob and Patrick are at Jellyfish Fields, I realize what exactly is about to happen. Also, SpongeBob is woefully out of character in this episode so far. Ain’t no way he’d be subtweeting Sandy like that, I refuse to believe it. Anyway, Sandy follows them to Jellyfish Fields, and yeah, we all know where this is going. “Pre-Hibernation Week” meets “Jellyfish Hunter”. SpongeBob explains that jellyfishing is about catch and release, and although she says it’s boring, Sandy says that she’ll play by their rules. Which she struggles with. And then she starts getting competitive. So finally, her behavior becomes legitimately problematic (within the episode, I don’t dislike her or nothing).
Sandy comes up with idea for making jellyfishing more exciting—use fish food that makes the jellyfish literally deadly. So now it’s become an extreme sport. The chaos this causes is fun to watch, I’ll say that. Well, I guess Sandy was right in that the sport became more exciting, but it’s more disruptive to the jellyfish this way. And it ends up causing the destruction of Jellyfish Fields. Which is when Sandy realizes she’s gone too far. And she decides she needs to do some self-reflection about her aggressive ways.
Okay I’m gonna take this time to say that the solution for this episode has been obvious the entire time—be direct with Sandy and tell her to knock it off and why. It’s just like “Pre-Hibernation Week” that way. But even at this point, literally 10 minutes into this 16-minute episode, no one has directly told Sandy anything. SpongeBob has hinted at it at most, and while that might be direct enough for some people, clearly Sandy needs a more direct approach. And so it’s lowkey kind of annoying. But I just wanted to get that out there.
We then cut to a Sandy who has cultivated an inner peace. And then we hilariously cut to a panicking SpongeBob and Patrick who are being chased by a giant monster jellyfish, the result of Sandy’s shenanigans from earlier. SpongeBob and Patrick try telling Sandy to fight the jellyfish, which breaks into the treedome, but Sandy refuses, saying she’s peaceful now. That lasts for just a couple minutes though, as eventually Sandy has enough of being brutalized by the thing, but more importantly, it brutalizes her friends. Now it’s time for a good ‘ol fashioned butt whooping! This fight is fun. It’s camp. And in the end, it ends with Sandy having learned her lesson…mostly. She wouldn’t be Sandy if she didn’t have a temper. And then the episode ends with my least favorite joke, the ones where Patrick doesn’t know who Sandy is. Why?
“Squirrel Jelly” was alright. Some parts of it were really good, and some parts of it were…not. So it’s very middle-of-the-road. I’m trying to decide if I would rewatch this episode or not, which would be the deciding factor as to whether it is Okay-tier or Good-tier. I’m leaning towards yes, because although some things about this episode annoy me, it was really nice to have this episode be about Sandy in this way. I think the writing for her was mostly pretty good, but for everyone else, it wasn’t.
Episode Tier: Good
Episode Score: 7.3/10
