First time in this series that we have a double billing as we’re now pretty much burning the season as the offseason is right around the corner. Can y’all believe that we are nearing the offseason now that we’re in the middle of April? It’s insane. But yeah, middle of April, the offseason is right around the corner. Won’t be soon until we get into later in the month and going into early May, and that means that it won’t be soon until polls will have to be created for the MVP for this season of The Great North and also Bob’s Burgers…as we still waiting for a new episode to drop.
In this week’s episode of The Great North, the first of the two new episodes that came out this week, we got three plots to settle here with the first plot having Moon and his friends come across a pack of books that were thrown out due to them being vandalized, the second plot with Honeybee’s mom paying a visit and Wolf struggling to not make an ass of himself, and then the three with the rest of the family making something for the upcoming Iditarod race in my spoilerific review of the ninth episode of Season 4 of The Great North, titled “Idita-Ruth Adventure”.
Kind of like last week, we have an event that is an actual event that took place in the state of Alaska takes a backseat, and any of the Tobins’ dilemmas having to take the steering wheel as written on the script. Last week’s event was Fat Bear Week and for this week in the first episode of the doubleheader, it’s the Iditarod race that is taking place in the town of Lone Moose. And this time around when it comes to who in the Tobin family would be getting the spotlight, it’s Wolf would be the center of attention. Especially once Honeybee’s mom Ruth decided to pay a visit for the Iditarod race, but ended up making an ass of himself when trying to greet her and also trying to make an impression. And meeting the in-laws if you’re a married person (or meeting the parents if you’re dating) is not that easy, though how the fuck should I know? I’m not the one in a relationship, single af, and I don’t know how would that work but I know that making a first impression isn’t an easy task. Though, this is Wolf we’re talking about, we’re talking about a married man, so he would have no issue with the matter but apparently, the scriptwriters decided to have Wolf make an ass of himself and Ruth, Honeybee’s mother, in time of the town’s upcoming Iditarod race, would be the perfect event to do the job.
Oh yeah, there’s also the subplot with Moon and his friends Henry and Russell coming across a pack of thrown-out vandalized books and the C-plot, which would be coinciding with the A-plot with Wolf since the two plots would tie in with the upcoming Iditarod race, with Ham, along with Judy and later Beef with the cake and uh…yeah, they can’t resist on eating it. So let’s dogsled through this episode even though the dogsledding part doesn’t happen until the end of the episode, this is “Idita-Ruth Adventure”.
The episode starts with a news report from Diondra Tundra, yes, we started last week’s episode with a news report with her telling the viewers of the town about an event, with last week being Fat Bear Week, weeks ago with the special election, and now, in the first of the two episodes for this week’s installment of The Great North, we got the town preparing to one of other events that you’ll only seen in the state of Alaska, and that is the Iditarod race. Now, if you don’t know what that is… go watch the movie Balto, you’ll probably get some sort of understanding. But anyway, the Iditarod race is an annual race for the race of Alaska where you have to use dogs and a sled as a mode of transportation from Anchorage to Nome. A race that lasts for almost three weeks relies on dog travel through one location of the state to the other where you have to rely on a pack of dogs and a sled and make a pit stop in the middle of nowhere throughout the assigned trail from one location to another. I mean, I live in Texas and in Houston, leading up to the opening of Rodeo Houston…
You have what is known as the trail riders that, sort of like the Iditarod race, having to go weeks from one location in the state from the town of Brenham to Memorial Park deep in the heart of Houston which would signify the start of the town’s annual race. Though that shit started in 1952. The Iditarod race started way back. We’re talking back when Alaska was a territory. A couple of decades before it became a state. That and also having to rely on cold weather. But yeah, the Iditarod race is happening and for the town of Lone Moose, just like last week with Fat Bear Week, they’re in celebration mode.
And we already have the side plot to the main plot already established once we switch over to the breakfast table with Ham ready to bake a cake for one of the dogs that is the center of attention, named Toast the dog, with him having the supplies and ingredients ready to go once the kitchen is open for him to bake. Of course, with the dog-friendly ingredients so that there wouldn’t be any issue that would create a major news story. And it looks like the Tobins have some history with Toast when it comes to the Iditarod race… it’s mostly Beef being bitten by the animal and rather than having to create problems and have animal control do their thing, especially during one of Alaska’s major events of the year, it’s pretty much a badge of honor, and because Toast had made a name for himself, think of the dog bite (and probably some blood spewing and bite marks anywhere in the body) as an autograph. Yeah, let’s go with that.
The event, of course, has Honeybee excited because her mom Ruth is coming to Lone Moose from Fresno to stay for a few days as the town is prepping up for the Iditarod race. Mostly because Ruth likes dogs, especially hounds that are used for the event. It’s mostly because of her love for country music with one song that is more than enough for her to fly to Alaska to see the race herself, that being the song “Night of a Thousand Dogs” by Iditarod Rod. Whether or not the song is tied with the annual event, mostly because I don’t listen to country music, I’ll dabble, but not full-time, it’s more than enough for Ruth to fly to Lone Moose and visit her daughter for a few days for the event. That includes visiting the in-laws and even though the Tobins don’t mind having Ruth visiting them, the problem lies with Wolf because according to Honeybee, whenever he and Ruth are in the same room, trying to make an impression, things go bad between the two. Bringing up the last time he came across his mother-in-law when they visited Fresno where he had to give Ruth a noogie that would damage her hat. So, it looks like there are some issues going on with Wolf whenever he’s around Ruth, and can’t control himself that he feels like he accidentally shot himself in the foot like he’s Plaxico Burress, metaphorically of course. Although…
Take a look at “My Fart Will Go On Adventure”, the last time Ruth paid a visit along with the rest of the family for Wolf and Honeybee’s wedding, there was no problem between Ruth and Wolf as if things were normal. And now, the issue with Wolf having trouble keeping himself together out of nowhere? I would say that when did all of that happen or did that happen the first time Wolf met the Shaws while they were dating or engaged way before their wedding, you already know where Wolf’s problem whenever he’s around Ruth is coming from but for now, don’t question it. That’s pretty much the answer to everything.
We switch over to the subplot later in the day at the school library with Moon, Henry, and Russell trying to find something from the shelves, mostly books since it is a library, where they notice the books that they were looking for, the ones that were vandalized with scribbles in each page, are not on the shelves. Whether it’s the book version of “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” with dongs being drawn or “Charlotte’s Web” where the dialogue changed from “some pig” to “some buttholes”, gone and gone. Moon asks the school librarian Mrs. Rodenburg what happened to the books and, to no one’s surprise, the books that were vandalized had to be thrown out because, well, they were vandalized. And instead of calling in or going to the store to find the same books, the librarian decided to replace the vandalized books with some religious books because her husband is a priest. Really slitting the throat on the separation of church and state that it almost feels like we’re taking a jab at the ongoing culture war bullshit with the book bans in school libraries. With the vandalized books thrown out to… where else? The dumpster.
Moon, Henry, and Russell make a dive to retrieve the vandalized books and there are a lot of vandalized books inside the dumpster that they’re treating it as if they may have found treasure. You know saying, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, though that didn’t apply during the pandemic, and Moon and his friends may have found the jackpot with the vandalized books inside the dumpster that the librarian had to throw away. They got stopped by Quinn, who notices them at the dumpster to retrieve the books and wants one of the books in the dumpster, and just as Moon is about to give the book to her, he gets stopped by Henry and decides to make a profit out of it by charging Quinn a cost of $5 to get the book, in which she paid the guy to get the book. And thus, the boys decided to open up a business and use the vandalized books that they found at the dumpster to create a get-rich-quick scheme with the books. Usually, in my opinion, I would imagine someone like Moon to do something like scheming for profit, I mean, where else that he and Dirt have to create the counterfeit ID cards in last week’s episode, but no, it’s Henry Tuntley, the person who I would the least to expect to make the call. Quite interesting that a side character would be the one who would be making the call to create a scheme like selling the vandalized books for profit.
We reach the end of the episode’s first act with three plots already established with the Tobins putting in the finishing touches as they await for Honeybee to return as she picks up Ruth from the airport. Wolf, of course, is already feeling anxious about the fear of making an ass of himself once Ruth arrives at the cabin with Beef telling Wolf to calm down and try to be on his best behavior since he promised Honeybee to do that once Ruth arrives. And speak of the devil, Honeybee arrives with Ruth greeting the rest of the Tobin family before getting to Wolf. Though, no Aunt Dirt in this episode but production code has been out of whack and out of order, and if you haven’t looked at the production code at the end of the credits of the episode, or at least the rating and episode info graphic at the end of the review, “Aunt Misbehavin’ Adventure”, which was the episode that introduced us to Dirt, has 04 at the end of the code and this episode is 03, an episode based on production code alone would be before we got an introduction to Dirt. Though I’m sure that the Shaws by now should be aware when finding out that the Tobins had a long-lost relative that was living in their property.
So, Wolf greets Ruth by the doorway despite being anxious and lo and behold, he does so without making a fool of himself when going for the hug like the rest of the Tobins did earlier. A huge sigh of relief for everyone, especially Wolf, and also Honeybee that Wolf greeted Ruth without any problems while trying to keep himself together when going for the hug, and hopefully the next few days during Ruth’s visit shouldn’t be an issue… except that we’re only at the first act of the episode, the end of the first act and going into the second, we are way too early for this issue to be locked up in a box. No sir, Wolf decides an ass of himself. Going for a kiss on the check, which I guess it’s fine in some Spanish-speaking countries like Spain for example on how to greet someone, even though a certain former soccer team president in Spain decided to be a dumbass on that after the country’s first Women’s World Cup win last year, and yeah…it looks like the foot shooting has already begun for Wolf whenever he’s around Ruth and so begins what might as well be a rough next couple of days leading up to the Iditarod race. Yeah, y’all kind of forgot that was going on, huh? But aside from that, it’s going to be a rough couple of days for Wolf.
Especially when going into the second act of the episode with the family sitting at the breakfast table with Beef telling Ham that the kitchen is open for business once everyone is finished with their plate for him to bake a cake for Toast in time for the Iditarod race. There’s your update on the side plot and changing the focus back to the main plot, Ruth hopes that what happened back there with Wolf already shooting himself in the foot when trying to greet her at the doorway is a one-time thing. You know, showing some concerns for the guy since he’s not at the table. Because he’s not at the table and instead, for “safety precaution” according to Wolf himself once Honeybee leaves the table and joins him outside, standing by the window and watching the family, especially Ruth, as if he’s stalking her while eating a pop tart. Yeah, nothing creepy about that when trying to avoid your mother-in-law like the plague to avoid any more embarrassment whenever you’re around her. But as I said, this is only the beginning of what might as well be a rough couple of days for Wolf during Ruth’s visit.
Whether it’s going through a historical marker, a visit at the VFW with Mayor Peppers giving a history lesson of the race, and, of course, Toast to the Shaw women, or shopping at the mall, Wolf keeps on avoiding Ruth because of fears that he’s going to something up whenever he’s around her. We saw what happened earlier in the episode during the greeting with Wolf making an ass of himself when trying to give her a simple hug and he doesn’t want to continue embarrassing himself during the visit leading up to the Iditarod race. Already drawing concern for Ruth when seeing his son-in-law acting very weird whenever he’s around her. Again, looking back at “My Fart Will Go On Adventure” where we had no issue between those two but then with this episode, you have Wolf participating in social distancing a few years too late with no explanation whatsoever, though y’all already know where this is heading when it comes to Wolf’s little issue when being around Ruth, mostly because Honeybee brought up Kathleen back at the breakfast table at the start of the episode when comparing his interaction to her with Ruth. So, while Wolf continues to avoid his mother-in-law, and not in the typical sitcom way of a husband avoiding the in-laws because whacky hijinks, but more not wanting to embarrass himself as if he just saw a ghost…
We check on at the school, rather, the forest portion of the school with Moon, Henry, and Russell selling the vandalized books to the students and spending their money to get their hands on said books where we have a sales pitch going on between Moon, Henry, and Gill when trying to get his hands on the vandalized book but working on trying to find a suitable price for Gill to spend, hoping to lower the original price of the book at $10 per book that would be suitable for him to spend. Moon was about to accept the offer and hand the book to him, only to be stopped by Henry, telling him to pay the original price because these books were just found and they can’t replicate the damn thing. I don’t know anything about how haggling works to get the price down, but boy, Gill was not doing his best in trying to convince Moon and Henry to lower the price and ended up paying the full price that he was saving up to get a locket of his face for his mom. Weird thing to give as a present but can’t blame the guy for being the definition of a momma’s boy, especially with Mother’s Day right around the corner…he seriously needs to learn how to haggle without getting into crap. And this boy once created what was pretty much a bucket list in wanting to kiss Judy in the dance and he can’t try to lower the price unless it’s a sale. Aside from that, the boys are living big with their business booming.
To the point where they become the talk of the school once they enter the cafeteria. All because they had to sell the vandalized books that the school librarian had to throw out because…well, they’re kids. They don’t know crap and would be amused with whatever they are drawn to, regardless of age and no matter how inappropriate it is. Tell me that doesn’t sound like the show is taking a jab at the current political climate with the ongoing book bans. Moon, Russell, and Henry live out their lives like kings with them selling the vandalized books. Getting the attention of the other students into and out of the cafeteria, giving Gibbons some money so he could butt out of his business, hell, Russell got attention from someone, but that’s pretty much the power of being popular after running a successful business of selling vandalized books. Too bad that they’re about to hit a snag because they’re running low on supplies, that being the books, and the demand is currently on the high, which would make the business to go through a roller coaster from riding high with the success they’re having to currently sitting on top of the ride, ready to go down. Leading Henry to come up with something to get more of the supplies and meet the demand by getting the books from the thrift shop and reselling them. But even if the supply has been restocked later in the episode, vandalizing the books would be a hassle. Mostly because the writings and drawings on each book they sold are at an expert level, both in creativity in both the writing and the drawing, but also some comedic aspects that would get a laugh out of it. So, they’re pretty much at a dead end… or so they thought because while they inspect the drawings when realizing that they don’t have the talent to vandalize each book, Henry noticed that the double set of boobs that was drawn by the bottom edge of the book, guess what? If you flip it horizontally, the double set of boobs happened to be initials. The initials “BB” are written on the book and it take long for Moon to put two and two together to find who’s the culprit behind the writings on almost every book.
And it’s none other than Bethany Bones, or rather, Bethany Bupatutti. We got an actual full name revealed in this episode and, no lie, when trying to search up the last name, you know, to find the origin, met with a dead end because all I got when searching up the surname “Bupatutti” is the transcript to this episode and also Moon’s wiki page. So, knowing that Alaska used to be a Russian territory before Russia, back when they were a monarchy under the tsar regime, and sold it to the US, it has to be a Russian or at least an Orthodoxian surname. Aside from that, Moon, Russell, and Henry knew that Bethany was the one behind the vandalization of the books and would ask her to join in, but Bethany refused and her reason for it… well, in the most Bethany way possible, she got in trouble for vandalizing the books and her drawings caught her parents’ attention and asked her to pursue art, but she refused and thus, gave up on messing with the books altogether. Hanging up the pen on the books because she wants to keep things secretive between her and herself only and treats it as if she’s in her Celtic Shaq era. Of course, money has to be involved and that’s more than enough for Bethany to get back into the drawing game. And thus, the business is saved. But for how long this will last? We’ll see what is about to come with the outcome later in the episode.
We check up on the C-plot of the episode for a bit with Ham putting in the finishing touches on the cake for Toast the Dog to consume for the Iditarod race with him, along with Beef and Judy, marvel at Ham’s craft, before planning on storing it for the day of the race. The ingredients, according to Ham, are as follows: almond flour, heavy cream, sugar, liver, shrimp, coconut, two cow hearts (hopefully it’s not like the actual cow heart), ground pork, baking soda, baking powder, pig lips…a lot of stuff that is edible for dogs being made into the cake. So, with the cake now done, you’d think that now, all they have to do is to store it until the day of the Iditarod race arrives for Toast to eat…
Only for the rest of the family to end up eating the whole fucking thing moments later. The whole fucking thing from top to bottom. Ate the whole thing with their hands (unless they have utensils involved) but they all the whole fucking cake regardless. A cake that was made with ingredients that was made for dogs that three humans had to eat.
Yeah, this is sort of like with the whole issue with the cat food in Bob’s Burgers from the episode “There’s No Business Like Mr. Business Business” with Tina, and later Gene and Linda and the rest of the family consume a box of cat food and this was during the whole situation was taken place with Gayle’s cat Mr. Business trying to get a gig for a commercial for the said cat food that the family had to eat. I swear, this is going to be a potential episode for TLC’s My Strange Addiction. But if you think that’s enough after this scene… buddy, something tells me this is only attempt number one with this bitch. Nasty bastards eating what appears to be dog food.
Later in the day during the outing at the end of the first half of the episode and going into the second, Wolf, Honeybee, and Ruth arrive at the restaurant to dine in, and with nowhere to hide or make excuses to run away, Wolf has no other choice but to at least man up and join both his wife and his mother-in-law at the table and hoping that Wolf couldn’t fuck this one up. Especially once we got to their tables and got themselves milkshakes to celebrate the event. I mean, while yes, Wolf’s behavior has been erratic as of late following Ruth’s arrival to the point where she would already feel uncomfortable with everything that is going on, she has to draw some concerns for her son-in-law. I mean, she has no beef with Wolf. She’s glad that Honeybee found the right person and is from a loving family… well, aside from the whole Kathleen thing, but still. Getting to the point where Ruth wants Wolf to stop calling her by her name and wants to call her “mom”, referring to her being Wolf’s mother-in-law. Oh boy… this is where things go from bad to worse and this time wasn’t on Wolf this time. Apparently, Ruth wanting Wolf to call her “mom” instead of her name was the trigger to crank the embarrassment meter up to eleven for Wolf to grab the shake, and rather than drinking it to control himself… he ends up dunking the milkshake over his head. Why? Because he did when Kathleen was around and wanted to make an impression and he thought that the same would go for Ruth. And oh boy, Ruth did not buy it one bit. To the point where Honeybee feels embarrassed about what happened and decides to call it night to close the first half of the episode. And man, this was hard to watch for Wolf. Having to make an ass of himself in front of his mother-in-law. And we’re now halfway through the episode. This shit isn’t over with.
We enter the third act of the first of the two episodes that came out this week with the aftermath of what happened earlier at the restaurant with Wolf finally coming out of the bathroom after cleaning himself up, so I’m guessing it was a quiet car ride back home since Wolf accidentally embarrassed himself in front of Ruth, and shooting himself in the foot. To the point where she no longer feels safe sleeping with the Tobins and instead, checked herself into a hotel. That’s how bad it has gotten for Wolf. And you already know, y’all should know by now where this issue is going regarding Wolf’s ongoing situation of making an ass of himself. Because Wolf brought to Honeybee that Ruth’s sense of humor is as different as Kathleen’s when it comes to…well, dumping a milkshake over his head and making an ass of himself as if he’s some sort of court jester. However, that should draw some red flags that should’ve been drawn when Kathleen was around. Honeybee thinks that it should be a good idea to just have him and her mother to just talk things out while visiting the family tomorrow with Jerry in tow. In which Wolf agrees and takes up the offer, giving Honeybee a sigh of relief… only for him to not use his words and instead, decide to use Ruth’s love for country music and plans on creating his own song at a nick of time before Ruth’s visit. Wolf…Wolf, already bad enough. It’s already bad enough that you had to make an ass of yourself in front of your mother-in-law that she had to sleep at a hotel rather than over at the cabin… pretty sure making a country song would be the last thing that anyone, primarily Honeybee, wants once Ruth decides to pay a visit the next day. But knowing that we’re already in the third act, we’re pretty much going to watch through what might be the next 36 hours of him shooting himself in the foot that there are a lot of bullet wounds and all that’s left is an amputated leg.
But that’s not going to stop Wolf from working on a country song and hoping that what happened in the past few days would be nothing more than a bad memory that needed to be locked up when, already at the next day, with him having Beef, Judy, and Ham in attendance to help him with ideas he should use for the lyrics. Whether it’s Ham’s expertise in the matter because he’s with a band or Beef’s experience with heartbreak in the romance department, mind you, production codes are out of order, this was way before he started dating Carissa, but yeah, Beef’s expertise on what’s it like getting his heartbroken and their ideas, along with Judy’s, when sharing their ideas to Wolf is more than enough for him to use it to create the lyrics for his upcoming song rather than having to go through second thoughts with some ideas and hoping for better ones but no, first come, first serve is what Wolf is going for with him now racing against the clock. So, as Wolf is going into the writing board to get the lyrics written down in time for Ruth’s visit, you have the rest of the Tobins back at their side story with them finishing setting up the new cake for Toast to take a bite…
Only to end up eating the damn thing once again… why?! Like… y’all do know that you guys are eating dog food, right?! Freaking dog food baked in a cake?! But they can’t help it because the cake that Ham made for Toast becomes irresistible that they have to grab a bite… or a lot of bites until the plate is empty. And already you have Ham, Judy, and Beef feeling a lot of regret in their conscience because of what they did. Eating the cake that was supposed to be for the dog in the upcoming Iditarod race. This means that, yes, it would put Ham under pressure to bake yet another backup cake for him to bake with the day of the Iditarod race coming up, even though the rest of the Tobins will find a way to get the backup, backup cake to be made just in time for the event.
We go back to the subplot, and yes, this is how the subplot came to a close, where we see a successful business that was going on throughout the past few days with the selling of the vandalized books come crashing down. Especially once Quinn comes in and returns the book when noticing that something is off about the vandalized book in question, mostly because one of the drawings on the book smeared off onto her hand. Case in point, the business has officially jumped the shark and Henry is in complete damage control in trying to tell everyone that the books are the same as the library’s and the wording and drawing on each one is top-notch, but knowing that we’re about to enter the fourth act of the episode, all things must come to an end, much to Henry’s dismay. The ink of the pen is not completely dry, the jokes are starting to become stale, and also Bethany’s hand starting to cramp from all the drawings on each book. Case in point, the business has seen better days and Moon thinks that it’s a good idea to shut it down. But greed can be a pain in the ass and we see that with Henry because he wants to keep things going if it means making money, that, and clout chasing, much to the dismay of Moon, but also Bethany and Russell. To the point where all three were given the pink slip and decided to run the operation for himself…and that’s how the subplot ended. The harsh reality of running a business and enjoying the lifestyle of being popular and gaining an X amount of money, only to let greed and pride take over. Congrats everyone, you just figured out how capitalism works.
Going back to the main plot as we prepare to end the third act of the episode and going into the fourth with Ruth once again visiting the cabin with Jerry this time around with her alongside Honeybee with Ruth continuing to learn about the Iditarod and the history of the whole kit and caboodle but it looks like Ruth’s day is about to turn upside down once more once Wolf enters the house, dressed up in cowboy gear as he prepares to perform his song to her… while drunk. The motherfucker had shot his foot one too many times around Ruth that it has already become amputated and this isn’t helping his case to impress his mother-in-law. Whether it’s him singing while drunk, him looking wasted, not to mention him not wearing any underwear underneath that resulted in the Shaws seeing his bare ass from the back of his pants… this was hard to watch for Wolf to continue to make an ass of himself whenever he’s around Ruth. And this moment right here has to be the straw that broke the camel’s back to know what is really going on here. And that’s where we get to the fourth and final act of the episode, well, aside from Wolf’s drunk version of his song now being stuck in Jerry’s head but aside from that, might as well get to the root cause of Wolf’s situation.
Once we get into the cabin with Ruth picking the pieces of the broken guitar off of his ass and telling Honeybee to leave them be because Ruth wants to talk with Wolf and y’all already know where this was heading. I mean, the clues were right there when comparing apples to oranges, or in this case, Wolf’s behavior around Ruth when being compared to being around Kathleen. Wolf has no issue around Louis. When it comes to the father of the family, he acts normal because he’s around a father like with Beef. But then it comes to Ruth, that’s a different story. Ruth was a normal mom and Kathleen… well, she’s Kathleen. She was a mess of a mother figure that she didn’t deserve the title. You might as well admit that the family is cursed with Kathleen’s spirit restricting them from moving on with their lives if they have the chance. We saw it last week with Beef fearing that he might be going through another heartbreak with the possibility of losing Carissa and now to this week, Wolf struggling to get ahold of himself when being Ruth because he thought doing the same things as what he did to get Kathleen’s attention would apply to Ruth, but it didn’t and instead, it made her uncomfortable. But that didn’t stop her from being concerned about Wolf’s well-being and wants to be on the lookout for her son-in-law as if she’s now the mother figure to him now that Kathleen is out of the picture. Telling him that he doesn’t have to act crazy to get her attention because him marrying Honeybee and making her happy is more than enough to get her approval. Wolf finally comes to an agreement with what Ruth is saying and per Ruth’s instructions, put on some underwear, gets some rest, and write a better song for the event tomorrow. And speaking of the event…
The day of the Iditarod race has arrived with a small scene with Beef, Ham, and Judy ready to prepare the backup, backup cake that they had to muster as they wait for Toast to arrive while at the same time, trying not to fall into temptation into eating the damn thing for a third time. Especially in a public outing of all places to do the deed that they wish they should never do.
But the main event, or at least in this episode as we enter the two-minute warning of the first of the two episodes that came out this week, and this is, of course, Wolf’s redemption song that he has to perform with better lyrics and not being drunk when having to perform in front of the public crowd and, of course, Ruth. And, yeah, the song isn’t bad for Wolf to have himself a redemption for his mother-in-law and the one shot with him facing sideways with the sun glaring in the background was nice, giving it the feel of what a country music video would look like just as Wolf was performing the song, but the song was nice and it’s more than enough for Wolf to redeem himself with his mother-in-law to the point where he asks Ruth to join him on stage to make it a duet and putting away what happened throughout the episode with Wolf’s erratic behavior behind them. So, thankfully, what happened earlier in the episode won’t happen again in the later episodes the next time the show decides to bring Ruth or the rest of the Shaw family back.
Of course, we end the episode with Toast and the other dogs racing towards the finish line and nearing the cake that Ham is holding with him and Judy trying to contain themselves, mostly because of the raunchy smell the cake was given out because it is out of stuff that is suitable for dogs. Hence, you see Judy and Ham trying to control themselves, mostly because of the smell of the cake but it’s probably because they don’t want to take another bite of the dog cake. But that’s not going to stop Beef from taking the cake like he’s the Trix Rabbit taking the box of Trix cereal and making a break for it, only for Toast and the rest of the dogs to take a detour from the supposed race track where everyone is at and bites Beef in the ass for him to lose his grip on the cake. Case in point, it looks like Beef might have gotten himself another “autograph” from the dog if it means planning on supposedly eating the cake himself. Nasty fuckers for eating dog food that I swear I feel like it might as well be a future episode of My Strange Addiction.
Reaction/Thoughts:
So all and all, what do I think about this week’s episode of The Great North? It was an okay episode, to say the least for either of the three plots. Sure, there’s some predictability by the end of it and the subplot having to abruptly end other than seeing the consequences of what greed and pride can do to someone, but an okay episode to say the least.
The main plot with Wolf trying to impress Ruth during her visit was okay but man, that was hard to watch shooting himself in the foot one too many times throughout the episode. Whether it’s him doing a proper greeting like a hug only to end up switching up a bit by trying to kiss her on the cheek only to land on the lips, pouring a milkshake on himself during an outing, or trying to perform a country song while being flat-out drunk, yeah, it was not looking good for the guy. And, of course, everything has to come railing back towards Kathleen with Wolf believing that him trying to impress Ruth would be the same way he did with Kathleen when she was around, only to find out that it’s not the same. And even though Ruth did feel uncomfortable throughout the episode whenever Wolf did something idiotic that would make an ass of himself, you do have to give her some credit for her being concerned about Wolf’s well-being and remind him in the end that Kathleen is not there anymore and doesn’t have to the same thing that he would do in the past. Pretty much putting in her application to be the mother figure and that him being with Honeybee and making her happy was more than enough. So, that was something. And the song at the end was alright as well.
The subplot was okay even though it had to abruptly end by showcasing how greed and pride when selling the thrown-out vandalized books can corrupt someone like Henry. The subplot was okay. Do enjoy the little misadventures with Moon and his friends. Bethany getting a bigger role was interesting, especially when finding out her actual last name that was sprouted out from Moon’s mouth. The subplot with the vandalized books does feel like the show’s way of taking a jab at the ongoing book bans that are going on across the country. But aside from that, it was an okay subplot that had to abruptly end and also a bit predictable on how long the business will last.
The C-plot with Ham, Judy, and Beef was giving me flashbacks to one of the subplots from Bob’s Burgers with Tina and later Gene, Linda, and the rest of the family eating cat food and we saw it with Ham, Judy, and Beef eating not one cake, but two cakes that were meant for the dogs of the Iditarod race. They were eating dog food for Christ’s sake. Yeah, it was giving me mad flashbacks to that subplot. So, all and all, final thoughts, it was an okay episode but God, that was hard to watch for Wolf to embarrass himself one too many times during his mother-in-law’s visit for the Iditarod race. So I’ll give “Idita-Ruth Adventure”…
A 6 out of 10. But that’s my opinion and I wanna hear yours in the comments below. But that’s just the first of the two episodes that came out this week and coming up later this week is the review of the next episode where we switch over from dog sledding to beer-chugging and partying with the adults of the Tobin family partaking in a beer drinking competition and Judy and Ham, along with their friends, attempt to locate a former student who is known for partying in the tenth episode of Season 4, “A Chug’s Life Adventure”. That review should be out sometime either late Wednesday/early morning Thursday or midday Thursday at the latest, though midday Thursday seems to be the likely choice for the release of the next episode. So stay tuned for that.
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