Why do we have two hand-themed episodes in a row?? I’m starting to think someone on the team has a thing for hands. Even
Hans appears both in this episode and the previous one. This is so weird LMAO. Well, even if these two episodes have very…coincidental hand themes, everything else is pretty different, all the way down to the characters, as this episode is about Mr. Krabs and Plankton, who were both absent in “SpongeBob’s Bad Habit”.
I love how this episode begins with a secret underground arm wrestling ring at Larry’s Gym (I also love that that’s become a recurring location). Mr. Krabs being a champion at arm wrestling is great. And I love how he does it in his business clothes. Plankton challenges Mr. Krabs to an arm wrestling competiton, which of course Mr. Krabs finds hilarious. And of course, Mr. Krabs wins using what I like to call the
Skips maneuver, even though Plankton’s been working out for months.
So what does an utterly humiliated Plankton do? Well, he finally remembers the existence of the glove of his Chum Bucket, of course. And so he makes it alive. Why he didn’t just make it a robot, I have no idea. But you know, this reminds me of the end of the Truth or Square game, specifically for the DS because I don’t know if the DS story differed in this regard from the other versions too. In that game, Plankton turned the entire Chum Bucket into a giant robot. Now I want to see an episode with that. with that design specifically too. It would be fun. Anyway, Plankton demands a rematch, and so Mr. Krabs accepts…not knowing that he’s gotta arm wrestle the giant living glove. Which beats him handily.
Considering how badly Plankton treats his glove, I think you can tell where this episode’s probably going. But first, Plankton’s gotta try and steal the Krabby Patty secret formula (I feel like this rendezvous is the only reason this episode is 16 minutes long LMAO, like this coulda been cut. But I’m fine with it being here, since the episode is this long). Anyway, the glove is over Plankton’s treatment, so before Plankton can get his hands on the formula, the glove rebels. Good for it!
And so now the glove goes on a rampage, which makes Plankton get worried about being sent to jail lol. But he knows he can’t stop the glove by himself, which means he’s gonna need help…you guys know what this means?? Not reluctant Krabs-Plankton team-up, sadly, but we do get the next best thing, which is a Plankton-SpongeBob team-up! Which has some kinks in it at first, like this beginning scene with the rockets. SpongeBob and Plankton’s opposite demeanors work well together here, as they usually do. SpongeBob proclaims that they can’t defeat the glove with hate, but love, and of course Plankton’s ready to send it everything but a nuke. Though he does actually agree to defeat the glove with love (ha), but only because it would be brutal.
Love, in this case, is the romantic kind, as SpongeBob and Plankton pretend to be another glove to get the glove to fall in love with it. Yeah…I’m just going to move on. This scene takes entirely too long though, which again makes me feel like this episode coulda and shoulda been 11 minutes long.
Anyway, after that plan fails, SpongeBob and Plankton commiserate, until SpongeBob comes up with another idea. And this idea…requires him to sing his theme song? yeah, that’s right, because his idea is recruiting another hand that we all know, Hans! Yeah, I love this breaking of the fourth wall. As this is a hand-themed episode, we of course have got to visit Glove World. Again, weird that there’s two episodes like this back-to-back. It leaves me with questions. Seeing Hans and the glove fight is pretty entertaining, I love how Hans used a random person wearing a glove costume like a glove to slap the, uh, other glove. Huh. Maybe I should’ve given the wild glove a name. Oh well.
Hans tells SpongeBob he needs to create a diversion. So then we get SpongeBob and Plankton trying to think of a diversion. Okay, is this scene a direct reference to “To Save A Squirrel” or what? Because it’s basically the same joke, and it even uses the same
music! This isn’t to say anything poor about this segment though, I liked the joke. I just clocked that immediately. What’s funny is that “To Save A Squirrel” was the first time this music was used, and this episode so far has been the last. Anyway, SpongeBob and Plankton make that diversion, and so Hans swoops in and uses the wild glove as a glove. You know, I’m not even going to think about the mechanics of this.
“Handemonium” was a fun episode. I think that the 16 minutes didn’t really help here…this wasn’t an episode that needed 16 minutes to tell its story. I think 13 would’ve been enough, and I think 11 was certainly feasible. But I suppose this episodes’ sister wouldn’t quite have made sense being 11 minutes long either. So. Anyway, I liked this episode beyond the problem I had with the timing of it. I thought it was funny and enjoyable, especially once we reached the last ~third and we got about that action. I didn’t particularly like how Mr. Krabs completely disappeared from the episode after the beginning though. He shoulda gotten his lick back smh. But this wasn’t too much of an issue for me. I really liked the inclusion of Hans in this, and the complete lack of care for the fourth wall. This is something these last couple seasons have been doing a lot, and I love it.
Episode Tier: Great
Episode Score: 8.8/10
