David, what happened at the Cheesecake Factory?

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Displeased with the…less than ideal lunch choices available at the camp, Max stumbles upon the straight-edge Dolph disposing of candy sent from him by his uncle and manipulates him with the promise of friendship into running an underground candy mafia. Everyone literally wants a piece of the action, so business is good for a time. That is, until David starts sniffing around and someone or someTHING steals the box. Dolph tracks it to a cave, where it is revealed to be a fur-covered Cameron Campbell, who reveals to Dolph that Max has been using him. Max also finally feels guilty for his manipulations and turns himself in to David, possibly allowing the two to maybe become friends later.

OUR TAKE

Dolph gets to play guest protagonist for the first time this episode, similar to Ered earlier this season. Like her, his first focus episode in the first episode was really more about him being the cause of the situation while the main cast reacted to it, but here he is actually given character to flesh out. Though it is becoming more and more clear that the show is slowly phasing out the original one-joke idea for his character in being “hey look it’s tiny Hitler saying Nazi stuff in a precocious way”, and defaulting him down to just “the German kid”. It’s a little bittersweet, as the Nazi jokes have a lot more range to them, while just making fun of a character for being the foreign kid can get stale fast (especially since they kinda did it way better with Vira in the episode earlier this season ENTIRELY ABOUT FOREIGN KIDS).

Dolph DOES have something else to him at least, and that’s his pension for following rules, being very naïve, and being very desperate for a friend, which are all used to its fullest this episode. His lack of understanding boundaries leads him to staying in Max’s bunk and makes it clear how mismatched this team really is. This also allows a chance for Max to get called on his shit for using someone so good natured and putting him in danger for his own gain. This is pretty overdue for him and may be part of a pattern going into the finale of him being especially mean to…EVERYONE lately. It’s kind of concerning that the writers might not even know what to do with him besides be a dick to everyone without much in the way of clear motivation, so hopefully that’ll be addressed in full. That and Cameron Campbell still hanging around is probably pointing to what the plot of the double length Episode 12 might be.

Although, the fact that Max gave himself up off screen and with little push makes this episode pretty anti-climactic, but other than that it’s pretty solid. Use of a character that was in danger of being pushed into the background, a proverbial spanking in the feels for Max, a good message about not taking advantage of people, and a bunch of good gags sprinkled in for good measure (Poor Scotty). Just an okay and well executed premise to kick off the final third of the season.

Score 7/10