One Coarse Meal (Season 7, Episode 11a)
Original Airdate: March 25 2010
Episode 263 in standard order, Episode 261 in airing order, Episode 262 in order of general release
Plot: Mr Krabs taps into Plankton’s fear of whales by dressing up as Pearl
Written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas and Mr Lawrence
[titlecard]137A[/titlecard]
Title Card Music: SpongeBob History Song
As far as the most hated episodes of SpongeBob go, you can’t get any more infamous than this. Sure A Pal for Gary may have more attention from the mainstream, but this is the one that seems as though it was designed to annoy fans of SpongeBob. The big word often used to describe how bad this episode is, “sadistic”, is a pretty strong word when describing a show that’s meant for children, but given how the episode plays out, the characters’ actions and its unmistakable themes, I don’t think there’s any way I can defend this episode. Strap yourselves in with some duct tape, because this just might be one of my most important reviews.
It begins with Plankton attacking the Krusty Krab with a missile, with Mr Krabs and SpongeBob fighting back with peas. As far as action scenes go, this one is pretty decent, but that quickly changes when Plankton captures the two in a giant robotic hand coming out of the missile. The speed of the episode slows down immensely as Plankton tickles Mr Krabs’ butt with a feather and SpongeBob reveals where the secret formula is- behind a painting in Krabs’ office. I akways assumed Plankton’s struggle was just getting the formula, not knowing where it is. He’s always had the option to steal a patty since day one, so why is this a big deal?
Before Plankton’s able to make a good move, Pearl comes in (conveniently into the kitchen and not her Daddey’s office), scaring Plankton away. This is a reference to how whales eat plankton and other small organisms like krill. You might be wondering why Plankton’s now scared of her after being fine with her in The Algae’s Always Greener in Season 3, but a plotpoint is that Plankton’s developed a fear of whales after some of his family was eaten by one, and they’re hillbillies as established later in the season with Plankton’s Army. How they flawlessly ignored one earlier episode while referencing another is beyond me, but Mr Krabs gets an idea of how to keep Plankton away from the Krusty Krab.
Once he’s back home fearing for his life, Plankton talks to Karen, but she seems horribly unco-operative for a computer. One of my biggest gripes with this episode is how she now hates her husband just for being scared, which is the polar opposite of her being considerate and trying to make him succeed (not wanting, but giving him plans and such). This is only made worse when Plankton starts seeing Pearl everywhere, between putting out the trash and inside his lab, the latter of which is most likely a hallucination. After 16 days, he goes well and truly mad, resfusing to step outside his home and having nightmares of being eaten by Pearl. Aside from the hillbilly joke in Pearl’s stomach, this is all treated very seriously, with little comedic exaggeration. The only thing it tries to play up is how genuinely horrific the situation is.
He eventually gives up on life and lies on the road, waiting to be run over. I’m not sure what made them think this was okay to do, portray suicide in this realistic a fashion. I myself am not enraged or “triggered” by the suicidal themes, as the series has occasionally made a few passing jokes about it, but there’s a reason they’re passing jokes. Nobody really wants to see their favourite characters in such a poor state of mental health, with nobody caring about them anymore (Karen certainly doesn’t, Krabs is gleeful that Plankton’s given up and SpongeBob’s neutral) and their lives ruined. With that, I can see why Plankton lying on the street waiting for a bus is a scary, sickening thing for some viewers. I’m not that easily sawyed by emotions in a cartoon, but I think it was a dumb idea to put this in a series that’d be watched by kids of all ages.
When people try to say this episode has some redeeming elements, they’d point to SpongeBob being a voice of reason and trying to temporarily help Plankton. Unfortunately, what he does to end the episode very well makes him its worst character. Essentially, he lets Plankton tap into Mr Krabs’ supposed fear of mimes, while also projecting some whales onto the Krusty Krab windows. What he’s essentially doing is leaving both parties frightened for their lives, or at least giving Mr Krabs a newfound fear of mimes that Plankton can exploit, which pretty much destroys any thread of friendship they might’ve kept. When you look at episodes like Welcome to the Chum Bucket and Best Frenemies, although Mr Krabs and Plankton are business rivals, they seem to get along nicely when that’s pushed aside. I can’t call their chemistry after this episode anything but a battle between life-threatening enemies.
Once again, this is a terrible story that isn’t balanced out by good comedy. The funniest it gets is Plankton thinking about how his family got eaten by a whale, which has enough of a Plankton’s Army vibe for me to think of it as a call-back, but that’s where any and all joking ends. I wouldn’t say the themes in the episode were even trying to be played for laughs, because I think even the writers at this point knew there was a limit to how dark the show could get, and making light of suicide and bitter hatred for a chuckle was their definition of “too far”.
The animation is all over the place, but not in a good way. The first thing that’s pretty darn bad is the scene in which Plankton’s let his hair and fingernails grow long and wears tissue boxes as shoes, which is a reference to Howard Hughes. The worst thing about it is how it’s never shown agaain. They just reference Hughes for a scene, and that’s it. Even the worst pop culture references in a show like this don’t break the story whenever they want. The second is some gross-out in Plankton’s nightmare, but not many people would expect a whale’s throat and stomach to look nice. The third is Mr Krabs’ Pearl costume, which is much more inconsistent. As the episode goes on, it seems to fluctuate in how convincing it is, and Krabs can do a good Pearl impression for virtually no reason.
Given everything I’ve criticised so far, it should be obvious that every character is terrible here. Even though Plankton’s meant to be the victim here, he fails on a technical level due to him always being the villain of the show. To break that aspect of him for an entire episode is an admittance of defeat from his mad scientist side and turns him into a 100% boring everyman. I’ve already explained how Karen giving up on her husband is out of character/programming, so I’ll skip to Mr Krabs. He’s easily the most infamous element of this episode, seemingly being fine with Plankton trying to kill himself, but SpongeBob never tells Mr Krabs point-blank that he’s attempting suicide, and Mr Krabs has his reasons for driving Plankton away. That doesn’t excuse him being a terrible, heartless character here, but he isn’t the worst element. The worst for me is SpongeBob and how he seems to ruin everything between Mr Krabs’ and Plankton’s friendship because the episode needed a wacky ending. It’s ironic how he says killing Plankton would go against his good nature right before he makes his rivalry with Mr Krabs even worse.
I can definitely see why this episode gets so much hate. One Coarse Meal goes in a grim direction and never does anything clever, subtle or entertaining with it. It’s not the worst episode in the series, but it’s among the least fun to sit through, between its soulless characters and touchy themes in today’s society. Even though I get why it’s hated, I wish some of the more mindless fans knew the reason why instead of using buzzwords like “suidide” and “mean-spiwitid”. Things need to be infamous for a reason, you can’t just hate something because it’s the cool thing to do. If these kids hate One Coarse Meal because they’re too scared to watch it themselves, I implore them to watch it all the way through, and fully understand why they’d hate it.
Question of the Day: Have you watched every episode you hate?
Tomorrow’s episode is about as attractive as disposed nacho cheese. Until then,
iv suidide iz a badd thing I nwo haet thiz song, trolololololololol!
:sbthumbs: