Mr. Krabs spots a giant bean growing in Sandy’s treedome and is curious about it, so he asks for a tour of her treedome. During the tour, Sandy tells him that she enlarged the bean with some growth serum, and Mr. Krabs wants to use the serum on a Krabby Patty to make an unlimited supply. He calls SpongeBob and asks him to bring a Patty, and with Sandy’s guidance they pour a few drops of the serum onto the Patty. Nothing appears to happen, so while Sandy goes to the little squirrel’s room (her words, not mine, gotta love puns) Krabs pours the whole bottle on the patty. It still doesn’t seem to work, but on their way back to the Krusty Krab the Patty starts to grow. It keeps growing in the restaurant, eventually consuming it and then going on to consume the rest of Bikini Bottom. SpongeBob and Patrick run to Sandy’s house, thinking that she must have a solution, and of course she does. She tells SpongeBob that her artificial intelligence cube told her her he needs to “make direct contact” with the Krabby Patty, which basically means he needs to absorb it. Yeah… we’ll get to that cube. Anyway, SpongeBob absorbs the Patty and Bikini Bottom is saved. But… would the Patty just keep growing inside him? Or was it done growing by the time he absorbed it? Whatever.
This episode reminds me a lot of Whelk Attack. It’s another parody of old, cheesy monster movies, specifically The Blob in this case. This one is weaker than Whelk Attack, though. The story isn’t put together as well, and it’s perhaps a bit too similar to Whelk Attack, particularly the second half. But I do want more episodes like this, where some sort of epidemic comes to Bikini Bottom, so I do appreciate this episode for that fact.
I was rather pleased at the beginning of this episode, when it seemed like this was going to be a Sandy-Krabs episode, which we’ve never seen before. Unfortunately that got forgotten pretty quickly and the episode returns to the usual dynamics. In fact, Krab just disappeared during the second half, which I found odd. Since he was the cause of the giant Krabby Patty, I kind of thought he would be more involved in the solution. Okay, fine, he didn’t just disappear for no reason, he got consumed by the Patty, but I still found it strange that he wasn’t at least mentioned in the second half. We see him again at the very end, but it doesn’t amount to anything. Am I the only one who finds it weird that Krabs isn’t more involved in the story?
And Sandy’s cube thing. Just… what. What was the point? When Sandy showed Krabs the cube at the beginning of the episode, I thought it was just a throwaway joke and forgot about it until it was brought up again. She describes it as a Rubik’s Cube that can solve itself, it sounded like a joke. Turns out it was a plot point, but… why? Couldn’t the characters have figured out what to do without the cube? Sandy figures things out all the time. Why add in the cube? It’s really baffling.
Anyway, this episode does have a few funny and entertaining bits, and I liked the idea, but it’s too weirdly put-together and it comes off as somewhat of a poor man’s Whelk Attack.
Rating: 6/10
SpongeBob gets a letter from Bubble Buddy (yes, that Bubble Buddy) asking him if he can watch Bubble Buddy’s son, Shiny, for the day. Well, “ask” isn’t the right word, as it implies that SpongeBob had a choice. Bubble Buddy sends the letter to SpongeBob’s house with Shiny, so it’s not like SpongeBob can say no. It doesn’t matter anyway because SpongeBob is perfectly happy to watch Shiny, but personally I’d be pissed if someone ambushed me into watching their kid. Anyway, SpongeBob needs to keep Shiny away from sharp/pointy objects that could potentially pop him, but Shiny keeps wandering off to dangerous areas and ruining people’s day (like father like son?). And people wonder why I don’t like kids. Anyway, that’s basically the whole episode. Shiny wanders off, SpongeBob rescues him and scolds him, rinse and repeat until Bubble Buddy shows up at the end to pick up Shiny.
So, this is the first episode to directly reference a previous episode and can be considered a “sequel” of sorts to said episode. The closest thing we’ve ever had to this before was Prehibernation Week and Survival of the Idiots, which are sort of related but not directly. Bubble Buddy Returns actually is directly related to a previous episode (it even references the fact that Bubble Buddy owes Mr. Krabs money!), though why it’s called “Bubble Buddy Returns” when it mostly features his son is beyond me. Bubble Buddy is only in the episode for, like, two minutes total.
I was really skeptical about this episode at first. Not because I thought it would ruin a “classic” or anything like that (I don’t even like the original Bubble Buddy episode that much, honestly), but because the idea of a direct sequel to an episode was off-putting for me. This show has never had continuity (besides small, indirect references to other episodes that would probably fly over the casual fan’s head) and I actually like that. It gives the writers more freedom, and it’s a lot easier to pretend episodes that I don’t like don’t exist when they don’t have any lasting effect on the show or characters. It’s also nice for newcomers to the show. They don’t have to start from the beginning of the show to understand what’s going on. I like that each episode is its own separate entity.
So, I had reservations about this episode the moment I saw the title of it. I didn’t like the idea of a direct sequel to an episode, I kept wondering what it meant for the show, whether there was some weird timeline to it after all. Now that I think about it, I have wished for one-time characters to reappear before (though Bubble Buddy would not have been one of choices), which would require some reference to previous episodes, and Friend or Foe actually did provide some continuity to the show. Krabs and Plankton’s relationship had been hinted about before then, so it wasn’t exactly a new addition, just expanding on something that was already there, but still, that episode did have a lasting effect on the Krabs-Plankton dynamic, it wasn’t just a one-shot thing. So, I suppose a little bit of continuity is okay to an extent, but I still wouldn’t want a concrete timeline to the show. This episode actually doesn’t do much for continuity anyway. It’s a sequel, sure, but it could also exist on its own. You wouldn’t need to watch the original episode to understand this one.
All that being said, good God this episode is boring. It was easy to forget my hang-ups about direct sequels to episodes when the sequel in question was putting me to sleep. It’s way too repetitive, the only interesting thing to happen in the episode was the ending when SpongeBob accidentally popped Shiny. Is it bad that I was kind of relieved when he got popped? It probably is.
I just thought of something. If Bubble Buddy has a son… does that mean Bubble Buddy has had sex? How can bubbles have sex anyway? Can they… can they pop each other when they put it in? Ugh, why am I thinking about bubble sex this much?! I’m too dirty-minded for my own good. Shiny was probably the result of bubble-blowing, just like Bubble Buddy was. Though that also raises some questions. Was Bubble Buddy “born” when SpongeBob blew him? Oh dear, I shouldn’t use the word “blow” or participles of it when I’ve just been talking about bubble sex. I don’t even know where I’m going with this anymore. Never mind.
To sum up, I’m still on the fence about direct sequels to episodes, and this episode is a bore. Luckily I’m not a big fan of the original episode, so I’m not too disappointed by this one.
Rating: 2.5/10
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