Contents show]

The Introduction

Hello! My name is not Thinker227, but that's my nickname anyways. I've been around this community since somewhere around June of 2017, and in that time I've been mostly active on this show's subreddit, writing short reviews and my general thoughts on a few episodes (mainly "The Laziest," "The Party," "The Cage," and "The Refund"). Those reviews are not my proudest nor the most well written, and that's why I'm here. A few months ago, I read some of the great and lovely reviews of the legendary Mattalamode, which ultimately led me here. This is my first ever serious review, so please don't judge me too hard!

With that out of the way, it's probably about time to actually get on with the review, and in what better way than to talk about the first two episodes of season 6? Oh, and by the way, if you want to have any sort of chance of following this review, please go and watch both "The Rival" and "The Lady" like, right now..

Okay, everybody on board? Good? Good.

So, "The Rival". Yet another flashback-episode akin to the critically acclaimed "The Origins," "The Origins: Part Two" and "The Choices!" This one, though, I have a harder time wrapping my mind around. Here's the thing about "The Rival": flashback-episodes are usually meant to provide a deeper look at the relations between certain characters or provide a deeper story, yet "The Rival" doesn't do any of this. Instead, it chooses to put its focus more on the side of comedy rather than story, which is conflicting with me. I'm sure this very concept could've been done in a much better way without the addition of it being a flashback-episode.

But looking beyond its questionable choice of being a flashback-episode, you'll actually see a moderate and well-written episode full of unique comedy and character-development. The comedy consistently got me and managed to stay funny all throughout, and none of the jokes felt quite as repetitive and/or recycled as they definitely could've been, although some jokes are (as expected with such subjective topics as comedy) of course slightly less funny than others.

And now for the elephant in the room: Anais. I've danced around her involvement for long enough, especially since I've already dedicated an entire section of this review to critiquing and questioning the episode's choice of being a flashback one, so let's dive in. Anais, in my opinion, is what gives this episode its character, charm and purpose; without her, the episode would've just been a lifeless corpse of an episode stuffed to the brim with meaningless jokes. This episode, for once, stops and takes a moment to explore Anais' character. Of course she's always been "the smart one," but this episode paints her in a completely different light. Just moments after birth; she knocks the boys out of the car and gets them each stuck in a solid block of cement. Now that's how you introduce a character!

Her... let's say "trait" of being unreasonably evil and malicious, also explains Gumball’s and Darwin’s behavior toward her in previous (future?) episodes. And then we have the ending, which manages to bring the episode full-circle with Anais exhibiting her more passive-malicious but still loving side she shows in many other episode.

The Conclusion

So, that's "The Rival"— an excellent blend between comedy and character development but not going without some questionable choices which, even though I praise Anais' character, doesn't save it from the inevitable pit it dug itself into. So, to finally bring this beast to a close, I'll give it my personal score of 6.5 / 10. Should you watch it? Absolutely. This episode is an excellent lesson in the power of storytelling that The Amazing World of Gumball possesses. Is it necessary to watch to understand the overall narrative of the show? No.

And now for "The Lady," probably the episode I was most excited to watch out of these two, and I honestly don't know why that is. I guess the synopsis just really intrigued me. Granted, it's not the first time Richard has dressed up like a woman, and all of those other times really made for some fantastic humor, so this episode rightfully got off on the right foot.

When talking about the start of this episode, I can't avoid mentioning the start of another episode, "The Question". The start of that episode barely had me intrigued, and while it packed a lot of jokes into the first two minutes of the episode, it took two minutes for it to get on with the actual plot. And at first glance, the same case may seem true for "The Lady," though in my opinion this episode handled its seemingly unrelated start heaps better, with both comedy that hit home much harder and the fact that it didn't take two entire minutes off the episode's runtime. In my eyes it more or less serves an extended joke meant to introduce the episode's style of comedy, and since this episode is the second of Season 6, it also helps introduce the style of comedy that'll most likely be present all throughout the entire season.

- What's that? - The bombshell that just got dropped on us.

1 of 2 Add photo

The episode plays out to be very dynamic, in one scene it could play off the joke of the century while in the next it manages to be heartfelt and emotional, and even when it's supposed to be emotional it still packs lots of comedy into the mix. With that being said, it's quite clear that this entire episode is an emotional roller-coaster both for the viewer and for the characters. This is most prominently demonstrated when Gumball and Darwin go from having plain suspicions about Richard, to thinking that he's literally cheating on Nicole, to wanting to give Richard their biggest of support and to not let him lose his friends.

Now, whereas this episode mainly chooses to focus on Gumball, Darwin and Richard, it also introduces three "new" characters (excluding Samantha), Violet, Angela and Maria. These three characters are introduced as completely new ones with separate and unique personalities that actually lead to some fun and amusing interactions between them, though in the end it's revealed that everyone except Maria actually finds themselves in the same position as Richard and they were all too men dressing up as women. And who knows, seeing as how this episode ended, it might be well within the realm of possibility that we'll see these four comedic ladies at some later point in the season, which is something I hope for waaay more than I'd actually like to admit.

The Conclusion

Speaking from a personal perspective, "The Lady" is definitely up there amongst the ranks of "The Game" and "The Matchmaker" for me as some of the best this series has to offer, both in terms of comedy and dynamicity. As previously stated, it never leaves only a single element standing in any scene; and there's always comedy to accompany the emotional value, for example. I could probably spend days upon days trying to come up with something this episode actually did wrong, though I'd probably just come up with about two or three things, it's that good in my eyes. So what's my score for "The Lady?" To keep it short, a 9.5/10. I'm glad the writers actually decided to make this episode a reality, it could very well have been put on the shelf for being "too controversial" or "too weird," but they decided to pull through and tackle it.

The all too cheesy outro