Coming up next, we've got "Driven To Tears"...man, season 4 has kind of been in a rut these last few reviews, because you'll never believe how I feel about this episode. All you have to do is remember my golden rule—do not frustrate, irritate, or secondhand embarrass me if you want me to like your episode. I'd like to think those are some very simple rules to follow. But clearly not, because guess what this episode does?
Now this episode begins real nice. It reminds me a lot of "Help Wanted" and, to a lesser extent, "Boating School" because of Patrick's encouraging pep talk towards SpongeBob. It's nice to see them be best friends like this. I mean we typically see them be best friends, but they're more...doing things together, instead of supporting each other in their own endeavors, which is just as important to a friendship. But anyway, Patrick peps SpongeBob up for his driving test, which he ends up failing like usual. And I love how Patrick is far more outraged about this than SpongeBob is, to the point where he's like "I'm gonna take this test myself and get to the bottom of this". I like when Patrick is outraged on SpongeBob's behalf lol, because SpongeBob is not one to frequently get angry about anything. What is it with these boating school episodes and having Patrick lose his pants? First "Mrs. Puff You're Fired", now this episode lol. And I like Mrs. Puff's correction with Patrick saying she's not the judge of him. But also dang, you can just show up and get a boating test?
Anyway, this is where the episode starts going sideways. Because we get all this lovely camaraderie, all of this support...only for Patrick to end up getting a perfect score on the boating test, and one of the first things he says to SpongeBob being "I thought you said it was hard"...okay dude. From here, I can tell exactly what kind of episode this is going to be, and I'm not going to like it. At this point, I'm thinking we're about to be down here in "Dumped" and "I'm With Stupid" territory when it comes to Patrick's behavior. Now of course, SpongeBob is clearly jealous and unenthusiastic about Patrick getting all this praise and all the things he wanted, but unlike some people he smooths over his feelings in order to be a supportive friend.
As the episode goes on, Patrick keeps making slick comments that increasingly annoy me, to the point of true irritation. That is a place I never want to be at when watching an episode, so you can imagine how unhappy I am with this episode's performance at this point. Once Patrick finally drops SpongeBob off, and SpongeBob imitates him, I thought that was pretty funny. Because that's another issue. Up until this point nothing really made me laugh. I understand that Patrick acting like an a-hole is meant to be humorous. It's been done often enough that I can see that now. The problem is that kind of thing has never been funny to me, particularly when it's a character acting like an a-hole to their friend for no real reason. So I just sit there feeling annoyed. I cannot stress enough how much SpongeBob has not been even a fraction of the jerkwad Patrick has been in this episode. The ways that he was even close to one weren't even noticed by Patrick, so none of this feels remotely justified. And then Patrick just continues to be egregious as he wakes SpongeBob up at 3:00 AM working on his boatmobile, and then at 4:00 AM he wakes SpongeBob up by showing up at his house telling SpongeBob about things he was there for, before dropping another slick comment about SpongeBob needing to get his own life. Please tell me where the humor is...I'm not finding it. At least we get a Gary appearance, that always cheers me up.
Because SpongeBob got no sleep, he is in no condition to walk to the Krusty Krab. I did think his defiance followed by him falling over was amusing, at least. But of course my enjoyment is soured almost immediately as Patrick keeps laying on the slick comments that get me feeling as close to exploding as SpongeBob is. And see, I like when we get to see SpongeBob mad, but this is just overkill because now I'm feeling as mad as him. Luckily, at this point we arrive at the Krusty Krab, and so get to take a short break from this annoyance. And we get a pretty enjoyable interaction between SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs. I love how SpongeBob's like "I used to have a dream", reminds me of "One Krabs Trash". And then Mr. Krabs' kidney stone joke is so unexpected it's hilarious.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end as Patrick returns, now looking even more like an a-hole with his racing gear. The only thing that saves any of this is seeing SpongeBob so miffed about this whole thing, because I'd be even more upset if SpongeBob wasn't. And then, because we just couldn't get enough of it apparently, we get more slick comments, to SpongeBob's parents of all people, complete with Patrick flat-out lying about SpongeBob asking for rides. Things at least get more...interesting as SpongeBob starts backseat driving. Usually I hate backseat drivers but in this case it's completely justified. If Patrick is gonna be a jerkwad, then SpongeBob can dish some out too. Of course nothing goes right for SpongeBob and the cop is a jerkwad, as is typically the case for Bikini Bottomites when an episode is about insulting SpongeBob for some reason.
And then finally, finally, SpongeBob snaps and...it's not as gratifying as I wanted it to be. At least the chase scene is fun. But then SpongeBob asks to go to jail in Patrick's place, which I think is undeserved personally, but the little guy is happy about it so whatever. Once SpongeBob pays his debt to society, the best friends reunite in an admittedly heartwarming reunion. And this scene is cute, as is the ending to the episode...until I remember that Patrick never got any real consequences for his behavior and didn't apologize to SpongeBob, so now I leave this episode feeling unsatisfied. Literally I think the ending is fine but they should've added an apology somewhere in there, for the audience's sake. So I can't even have this good moment without it being contaminated by the bad.
"Driven To Tears" is just an irritating episode. I can't tell if it's better or worse that Patrick's behavior was primarily relegated to slick comments rather than big actions or not. At least there are some enjoyable and funny moments that help make up for some of the worse aspects of this episode. But those aren't enough for me to even consider placing this episode in a high tier. I'd say "Mediocre" fits this episode just fine. It's actually an improvement to "I'm With Stupid", believe it or not, because the insult to SpongeBob is not as bad, and we get some kind of resolution, even if I don't think it's enough. I'm giving it the same score as the previous episode, but it's interesting to see how these two episodes receive the same score for wildly different reasons.
Episode Tier: Mediocre
Episode Score: 5/10