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This is my second post I will ever made, and also it is the exact opposite from my first post. Where my first post was about something I love, this post is something I hate.

I am a fan Cartoon Network’s Gumball, both the original series and the new series “The Wonderfully Weird world of Gumball”. It has a really unique style which incorporates kind of realistic backgrounds, combined with both 2D and 3D characters at the same time. Its characters (at least most of them) are lovable, especially Gumball himself. He is one of the cutest cartoon protagonists to exist. He is witty, fun, adorable, has a cute face (he is a cat after all) and I adore his relationship with Penny Fitzgerald. Penny Fitzgerald is my personal favorite female character of the show (yes I like her more than Nicole), especially after she breaks her shell in the episode “The Shell”, which is one of the best episodes of the entire series. But then, two episodes after “The Shell”, “The Bros” appears.

To be fair, since Gumball is a cartoon (and like every other cartoon), of course it has its bad episodes (The Mess, The Bffs, The girlfriend, The Rival, etc. I am sure there are other bad episodes I’ve missed mentioning). Today though I wanna talk about “The Bros” episode, one of the worst ones of the series. After the great episode “The Shell”, as well as the okay episode “The Burden”, this stinky, wet fart of an episode airs on TV. The plot of this episode revolves around Darwin being jealous over Gumball and Penny’s relationship, and he tries to break them up. Keep in mind, this episode is part of season 3 and after the episode “The Shell”. It does everything that was great before about Darwin’s character, and wipes its whole butt with it. The scenes where Darwin gets angry, especially in the basket scene where he sabotages Penny while she plays basket, is freaking awful and gross to look at. I am not the only one who says this: Darwin was really out of character in this episode. If I was Darwin, I would obviously be completely happy for my brother Gumball who has a pretty and cute girlfriend like Penny. There’s nothing strange about that. Even at the ending of the episode, darwin doesn’t seem to learn from his mistakes, and the ending of the episode is really dumb.

I always hated that “jealousy” trope even when I was a kid. Jealous over things that don’t even matter is frustrating, especially when it becomes toxic and even dangerous. I can’t describe how many times similar tropes like these exist in cartoons/anime or films/tv shows. There are many annoying cartoon tropes that I dislike, and the toxic jealousy is one of them. Out of character moments is also one of the worst (if not the worst) things I have ever seen, I really hate seeing characters I genuinely like acting like complete jerks to their friends, just because of things that don’t even matter. I am aware that a lot of people will agree about how bad the “out of character” moments is, and I honestly don’t understand why someone would defend it. I am the type of guy who supports healthy friendships and relationships, no matter what. I have a younger sister and she does have a boyfriend too, and both have been hanging around for a while the past few months. And you know what? I have absolutely ZERO problem with that. I am happy for my sister that she goes to have fun with her boyfriend and her friends as well. I will never, ever, be jealous of her for that. If that makes her happy, why should I sabotage it? It does make sense, doesn’t it?

I know, not every cartoon episode has to be a gem. I am not that mad about the specific episode since it’s a cartoon, because in my heart I consider it not canon (as well as other bad episodes of Gumball). I have experienced bad episodes of SpongeBob when I watched the show as a kid, from season 5 onwards. I have seen the infamous “A pal for Gary” episode when I was little, which it is indeed a pretty bad episode and deserves all the hate. There are so many bad episodes of Spongebob from season 6 onwards, but at least I can boycott them, just like I can boycott “the bros” from Gumball, as well as other bad episodes like “The rival”, “the mess”, “The bffs” and “the girlfriend”. For my personal experience in entairtenment, these specific episodes of Gumball are not canon to me. I will never watch these episodes because of the bad writing, and some out of character moments.

In my opinion, “The Bros” is easily one of the episodes of Gumball that you can skip and you won’t miss anything. If you are a fan of Darwin, skip it. If you are a fan of Gumball x Penny (like I am), absolutely skip it and ignore it. Now, if you like the episode, fine. It’s just a cartoon episode, but I just really dislike it. That’s all I could say. I am going to study for my final examination today at my University. Have a nice day.