Season 2

**Season 2** is the second season of *SpongeBob SquarePants*.

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Doc's=

Hi, everyone! It's me, Doctor Patrick, and today, I am going to continue my season reviews with Season 2. As I already stated in my previous blog post, I started rewatching the show to form more stable opinions on episodes which would prevent me from just randomly changing my opinions for no reason and just to watch one of my favourite cartoons again after a rather long time of not watching most episodes, other than the newest ones. So now that I have finally rewatched Season 2, I think it is time to review it in the same way I reviewed the previous season, Season 1, and see if it is as good as that season, even better than it or sadly worse than that one. With that said, though, let's get to it!

## Review

But now to see the season itself, let's first talk about what the season's general reception is. Unlike Season 1, which is actually rather controversial by most people, Season 2 is generally viewed as an amazing season. Many people consider it the absolute best season of the whole pre-movie era (some of them even think it is the best of the whole show), and even the ones who prefer some other seasons to it, still really love it. Now I am sure that just like the previous season, this one has its fair share of haters too, since opinions generally tend to be rather varying on different seasons and episodes, but I have actually barely seen people who outright dislike this season, which is something I have seen a lot about Season 1. Even at worst, people consider this season to be still somewhat good and while not as outright amazing as some others think, still nowhere near mediocre or bad. But does that actually apply to me? Is this season really as fantastic as people say or will I actually find it very overrated and maybe even something lower than an average good? I mean, there actually was a time when I really wasn't fond of the season (despite still giving it a good rating), even going as far as making a Season 2 rant, so even though I changed my opinion about it sometime after my rant, it is possible that I might not be that fond of the season after my rewatches, just like earlier. So is that the case? Or do I consider this season to be something astounding as many other people do? Well, this is what we will see today.

Just like with Season 1, the first thing I want to start here is the animation. Oh boy, the animation. You know, I think even the people who absolutely adore the season and love nearly everything about it, can admit that this animation is a huge downfall from the onbe we had in Season 1. And this is actually rather weird considering that this season switched to digital animation, a type of animation which is viewed as something more advanced than Season 1's cell animation, so people wpuld expect this season to look more professional than that one. Well, guess what, this is not the case at all. But to be very nice and understanding towards S2, I will admit that there were a couple of things this season's animation actually IMPROVED IN compared to the previous one. Yeah, you heard me right. This season's animation, something which is not really that liked, even by people who love the season, actually has some improvements compared to S1's, which is the season with one of the best animation in the whole show. The best way to notice it is easily the colouring of the season.... well, MOST of the season. The thing that I always found weird about S1's animation is that despite looking very nice, the colours were noticeably dark. I know that I am sorta biased here as most of post-sequel and S5 have my favourite type of animation in the show, which are all seasons with brighter colours, but I just think that rather bright colouring fits this wacky and zany show more than really dark colours. This season isn't a complete stepup from that as I still wish sometimes that it would be a bit brighter, but it is certainly an improvement from the previous season, which was rather confusing to look at, considering that it set up this wacky world and still had rather dull and dark colouring.

Another improvement from the previous season is the expressions. Now before all of you people attack me, I will say that I am not the biggest fan of overexaggerated expressions when they are really overused (looking at you, Season 11). However, I do think that as a rather zany show, SpongeBob needs some wackier expressions for the comedy and style to truly work so as long as it's controlled (ahem... CONTROLLED), it does more good to the show than harm. And switching to digital animation from the more limited cell animation actually allowed us to have expressions more. Now, don't get me wrong, S1 also tried with some exaggerations, but thanks to the animation, it always looked a bit weird and while it could be sorta charming and nostalgic, the more advanced style of animation here could create better expressions than the ones in Season 1. However.... this is where my problems start. Even though the season improved in some things like the expressions or colouring, it sometimes went.... too far in those territories. And I think you perfectly know what I mean by this, since even though the season had brighter colours than S1 which was an improvement, it sometimes went too far and created the most obvious problem in the season.... PaleBob. Oh my goodness, I hate PaleBob. But to offer some actual criticism here instead of just whining about the fact that SpongeBob is legit WHITE in some episodes instead of yellow (which is really, REALLY not easy to do), I want to say that at first, I didn't really notice that. When I watched the first episodes, I didn't get what the complaints were because I thought that the colouring of most characters, especially SpongeBob's, was mostly normal. It was only around Dumped when I noticed that something was off about the animation, and it took full effect in Gary Takes a Bath. In some episodes, the colours are so incredibly bright that SpongeBob is not even yellow and legit looks white in most of the frames. As I previously stated, Gary Takes a Bath is a huge offender of that but it is not the only offender as some other episodes, especially Procrastination also suffer from this problem. And speaking of Procrastination, the animation there is the WORST. There is legit one scene, only ONE SCENE when SpongeBob looks yellow and it is the scene when he is talking with the mailman. That scene lasts for like, one minute and in every other scene in the episode, he is not even close to yellow. And this is a huge problem since it affects a lot of episodes from the season and sometimes, even the best episodes suffer from this problem. Look at The Smoking Peanut, an episode I otherwise adore. It does have normal animation for the most part, but the scenes when SpongeBob is pale really stand out in a bad way and make the otherwise awesome watching experience somewhat worse.

But it is not just SpongeBob who has this problem: other characters can be rather pale in some episodes, too. In Dumped, Patrick's colour feels very off and in a lot of other episodes, the background characters also somewhat weird to look at thanks to their pale colouring. And even though this season was a stepup in terms of having brighter colours, they can still be rather dark sometimes in the episodes when the characters are not pale. Bubble Buddy is a great example for that as Goo Lagoon in that episode looks kind of unsettling and strange compared to the episodes we have seen before. The best way to describe the animation of this season is that it is really trying hard but cannot always succeed. I guess I will give points to that for trying as it is obvious that the animators weren't used to digital animation at this point and they had to experiment, but I will only call the animation good because of that, and I do feel like I am being too nice to it. The animation is close to be as incredibly lame and average as the animation in S7 and while it is not quite there, it is still one of the weakest animation in the show and definitely the weakest in the pre-movie seasons.

But now, to move on to the stories and the writing. And oh boy, I am gonna be a lot more positive here for sure. While I found the plots in Season 1 to be more hit or miss as they really felt like the show was experimenting on them, so some of the stories felt a bit like an afterthought, this season is a big improvement. For the most part, this season really knew what it was doing in terms of plots and while it wasn't entirely perfect as just like Season 1, it had some stories which stood out as something really lame, it was a lot more rare to happen in this season than in Season 1. A lot of people believe that this season is full of jokefests, episodes with really great comedy but rather weak stories to go along with them. And while this does apply to some episodes, even to some of the best episodes from this season (as much as we all love Sailor Mouth, I think we can all admit that the story of that episode wasn't really anything to write home about and it was the comedy which made the episode so masterful), I think that as a whole, a lot of great stories in this season are overlooked. One of the best things this season does is taking plots which seem really simple and repetitive and turning them into something amazing. This was something I noticed with Season 1 too, but since this season can be a lot bolder than that one an can even take something which seems like it has rather bad pacing, I prefer this season in terms of this. The best example for that is possibly Pressure. The plot of that episode at first glance seems very repetitive. It mostly just seems like an endless competition between land creatures and sea creatures without anything too interesting about it, but the way it executes its story is nothing sort of amazing. The beginning when SpongeBob and Sandy compete in both running and climbing shows it best as even though we know which one of them will win, there are still so many great variations they put on these that it is just amazing. Even though it is obvious who will succeed there, the episode puts so many twists on these, like Sandy trying to purposely kick SpongeBob down or SpongeBob flying with an umbrella, that it still manages to keep our attention and maybe can even successfully trick us into thinking that the other side will win this competition. Even the segments in the Krusty Krab, which all sound very repetitive, are great because of all the different insults they come up with that and all the different things the sea creatures can do. They are all very great variations to an episode that sounds like it does the same thing for 11 minutes, so when the characters actually reach the surface, we are just so excitred and invested in the story that it is not even noticeable. And those are the surface segments in general. They are all very creative with the different puppets they use, have a very great atmosphere and are just simply very funny to see, with some amazing jokes, like everyone cheering for Squidward and suddenly stopping when he actually comes out because of his weird appearance or Patrick saying that he just wants to get over it and suddenly becoming very enthusiastic and joyous after that.

But there are some other examples to this in the season. One of my favourite stories in the show is Squidville. While that episode is not in my Top 10 of S2, thanks to offering less comedy than most other episodes, it is undeniable that its main story is amazing. It does a fantastic job at establishing why Squidward wants to leave Bikini Bottom and why he finds SpongeBob and Patrick so annoying, so even people who haven't seen any episode before can perfectly understand what's going on. It also really functuates as a great setup for the episode, and something that the episode will call back to later on, so nearly everything about it works very well. But the rest of the episode is even better. Once Squidward gets to the new town, the episode spends a decent amount of time on showing why he enjoys his new life and what it really means to him, since it is clever enough to know that the emphasis on that will be very important. However, it also has some entertaining humor and sequences along the way to make us still invested in the episode. And then, after all of these, it shows very well through a montage that this life can be tiring for him, so instead of spending a lot of time on that which would make the ending seem rushed, it spends just enough time for us to feel it but not so much that it would seem dragged out. I love how the episode shows him living a great life in the town, but since that one needed more emphasis than something which was kinda inevitable in the story, I think the time spent on most of these was just very great. So when we see Squidward returning to Bikini Bottom and actually being zany and wacky like SpongeBob and Patrick, it is perfectly understandable and doesn't make it seem like he is being out of character here, even appearing as rather satisfying in the context of the episode. But the best episode in terms of stories in the whole season, by far, is The Smoking Peanut. OH BOY, THE SMOKING PEANUT, WOW. Let's talk about the main twist in that episode. Let's just talk about that because the twist ALONE proves how wmazing the story is in that episode. In the beginning, the episode perfectly sets up that there is annual free day in the zoo so it shows Mr. Krabs taking stuff away, which perfectly fits his character and doesn't really feel forced or hammered in just for the twist to happen, since you could expect something like this happening thanks to the main character trait of Mr. Krabs. It also really greatly tells us that the oyster is famous about her PEARL, something which will be the main reason for her crying, but since it happens rather naturally, it doesn't make anything too obvious and doesn't feel forced at all.

But the true geniusness of the twist starts right after that. I don't know if anyone has noticed that, but after SpongeBob throws the peanut at Clamu, awakening her.... she doesn't instantly start crying. No, she looks on her left and on her right, which at first, seems like she is just confused what happened, but after you know the twist, you realise that she does that because SHE DOES NOT FIND THE PEARL. I mean, just wow. Such an incredibly small detail like this, and it works wonders. It doesn't reveal anything too major to let us know the twist, but it makes the twist still feel sensical and not just something completely random thrown into an episode because it needs to justify Gary going to Patrick instead of SpongeB.... I am getting off topic here. But the twist in The Smoking Peanut feels truly genius and even though that episode also sounds a bit repetitive, the characters react differently enough that it is still enjoyable, like Squidward actually wanting to team up with SpongeBob, Sandy wanting to find and punish the person who did that, which is a neat subversion on the way we usually know her but still makes sense in the context of the situation, and Patrick acting like a detective to find the criminal, which is probably the most entertaining and hilarious part of the episode. Another episode, Life of Crime also makes the story progress very well and gives the perfect amount of time for every scene to happen, such as SpongeBob and Patrick popping the balloon, them feeling sad but then happy that they need to be out of town and them learning their message, which is actually a very great moral and works really well in the episode. Since it has some hilarious comedy along with the beautifully written story, it is even better than The Smoking Peanut, since even though that episode has a somewhat better plot, this one has way better comedy and a better message (even though the message of that episode was really good too), so it is actually my favourite episode in the season.

But of course, not every single plot works well. And while the bad plots don't stand out as much as the bad plots in S1, they can still be very bad and can make the experience of watching the season somewhat worse. The worst example for that is Dumped, which is also my least favourite episode of the season. It tries so hard to shove all of the emotions down your throat that it cannot be enjoyed at all, and the twist of Gary being attracted to Patrick just because of the cookie in his pocket is just the worst twist I have ever seen. It was not built up or even mentioned in the slightest, and it is just there to make Gary and SpongeBob reunite but not because it actually wants to serve as something interesting. On top of that, it also shows Patrick in a really jerky way and shows SpongeBob as someone who did not even do anything wrong, so it cannot even have an emotional weight since we just watch one character suffering for 11 minutes who did nothing to deserve it, unlike in Have You Seen This Snail?, a much superior episode where it was actually SpongeBob's neglect that drove Gary away but since we realise that SpongeBob has seen the error of his ways, we really root for him there. But here, considering that he didn't even do anything wrong and Gary going to Patrick feels very forced, even the justification of it by the lame twist, it cannot have any emotions whatsoever, so it functuates as 11 minutes of nothing interesting happening, just watching one character suffering with no real comedy whatsoever. There are also episodes like Welcome to the Chum Bucket, which do start as very strong and emotional, but just forget about their main plot in the second half and decide to throw unfunny, lame and predictable jokes at us, killing all the emotions in the episode. I mean, you can create a nice balance between emotions and comedy, but considering that that episode had almost no comedy in the first half, randomly switching to nothing but comedy in the second half really destroys everything for me. There are also some jokefests in the season, like the aforementioned Sailor Mouth and even Band Geeks, but since those ones could offer actually good comedy and even some other great things, they cannot be put in the same room as these pieces of trash.

And speaking of comedy, wow. Just absolutely wow. The humor in this season is not only a stepup from Season 1, but it is so incredibly amazing in every single way that this is probably the funniest season in the whole show. Like, it is somewhat tied with S3 there, but other than that season, nothing can even come close to this season in terms of jokes. Just like Season 1, it really experiments with humor like random humor (examples for this are the drum joke in Band Geeks when the people with the drums start to put the objects in their mouth to create sound out of nowhere or the forehead joke in Patty Hype, when Patrick just says out of nowhere that he can't see his forehead) and ironic humor (like Patrick saying that "the inner machinations in my mind are an enigma" and us seeing milk getting spilled in The Secret Box or Patrick saying that he will starve in Life of Crime), but thanks to the season's more upbeat tone instead of the calmer tone in S1 and the more bouncy expressions, this season can exaggerate the gags a lot better, so that almost every single one of them hits hard. This season uses a lot of dialogue humor to amuse us, and in a lot of episodes, just keeps throwing jokes after jokes at us, which can result in the episode becoming a jokefest, but it is still so enjoyable thanks to the comedy that I cannot even complain. And as a whole, the episodes tend to tie their comedy and story together really well in most of the season, especially in Life of Crime, which is my favourite of S2 for this sole reason alone, but even if they can mostly just offer jokes, they still try to entertain us with some different things as well, such as the characterization. As a whole, the jokes in this season are outright hilarious and unlike the rather amusing gags in Season 1 which mostly just make me smile, they make me laughing on the floor for minutes straight, they are so incredibly amazing in every single way.

And now to close off this review, let's talk about the characterization. And unlike some other things, like the stories or the humor, when the show clearl improved from S1 or the animation where the show somewhat had a downfall compared to S1, the characterization here is almost the same. The characters behave in similar ways, they have mostly the same traits and even the development we see is similar to a lot of episodes in S1. Now, this is not an issue at all as I still really love seeing these characters, but since the characterization mostly succeeds for the same reasons, there isn't a whole lot to talk about here. One of the best characterization in the whole show is Band Geeks, where even though the episode has somewhat of a basic plot, I can still understand most of the love surrounding it since not only does it have splendid comedy, but also some top notch characterization. I love how the episode brings all of the most important characters together and makes them all have some very great lines and scenes. Plankton has the harmonica gag, Patrick has the mayonnaise line, Mr. Krabs has BIG MEATY CLAWS, Sandy has the kicking joke, SpongeBob has the fireman scene, Squidward is the main center of the episode, even Larry has the moment when he is reading the invitation while showering. This episode also makes all of the characters vey likeable and builds up Squidward's struggles very well, so when he finally succeeds, it doesn't only feel good because he suffers a lot in the show, but it also feels very good in the context of this episode alone, too. There are some problems in the characterization, like in the aforementioned Dumped or I'm with Stupid where characters (mostly Patrick) can act rather uncharacteristically cruel and jerky, but the characterization in the season is mostly still very good, just not really that different compared to Season 1.

So as a whole, these are my main thoughts on the season. And if you read the entirety of my review very carefully and in detail, you can perfectly see if I agree with the general consensus here or not. Because the case is, well.... I mostly do. I do consider this season to be really strong, especially with the comedy, the stories and some of the characterization, but at the same time, I cannot pretend that it is free of flaws. And this is why rating this season is incredibly difficult once compared to Season 1. And that is thanks to the fact that Season 1 had the same mean and median rating, and both of those perfectly described my main thoughts on the season, so it was not really hard to pick a rating. Here, however, it is incredibly hard to pick one. Statistically, this season has the same mean rating as Season 1. But choosing that rating would be outright insane considering that this season was a major stepup in almost everything except the animation. Even the characterization which was very similar was somewhat of an improvement. However, the median rating is the exact opposite here, since if we go by that, that means that the season as a whole is something amazing, and I am not sure if it deserves to be called that or not. I guess the best way would be somewhere in between, so a Tremendous, since that is the rating between Neat, the mean rating and Fascinating, the median rating, but since I don't really want to choose a different rating than those two, I cannot give that to the season. So if I really have to rate the season, considering how much I praised this one compared to Season 1, it would be unfair to give it the same rating as that one since even though I would still rank this season higher, it would suggest that the two are the same quality, and I don't feel like that is true. So even though this season does have some flaws, I am gonna be really nice there and go with the rating I feel fits the season more: the median one. Therefore, I can safely say that Season 2 is a very low **Fascinating (4.5/5)** season. Stay tuned for next time when I will review Season 3 in a similar style, and until then, take care of yourselves.

## Bottom 5

**#5. Welcome to the Chum Bucket**

An episode with a really promising concept that sadly ends up completely butchering it. While it starts off well with a really emotional segment with SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs and a song that still gives me feels to this day, it turns into an unfunny mess of an episode in the second half which is basically the same thing repeating over and over, which tries to be humorous, but ends up failing thanks to the repetition and because it completely kills the emotional tone that this one had at first.

**#4. Grandma's Kisses**

A really poor way of handling the concept of growing up. While it has its moments here and there, most of it feels completely stereotypical and just completely cruel to SpongeBob for no real reason, to the point when even his freaking grandma is unbelievably mean to him. The moral here is also kind of questionable, even if it tried delivering it well. Not a terrible episode by any means, but it sadly still cannot avoid to be bad.

**#3. I'm with Stupid**

Similarly to Welcome to the Chum Bucket, this episode starts off well promisingly with some really good jokes, but the second half ends up butchering everything with some of the lamest and most typical stupid gags that just fail to make me laugh and a characterization of Patrick that, while making sense, still feels way too quick and out of nowhere just for the sake of the plot. The ending is also really weird and unsettling, so even if it is not the worst of pre-movie, it still deserves its hate for the most part.

**#2. Bubble Buddy**

A completely repetitive episode where it is basically the same joke repeated over and over in the first half and another joke repeated over and over in the second half, which instead of being actually funny, makes me really annoyed and makes me question why this was the episode which had two sequels in the later seasons, even though it is easily one of the worst episodes of the first three seasons.

**#1. Dumped**

I absolutely despise this episode. It has a really sad and melodramatic tone that instead of working naturally, just feels super forced into the episode, it has zero idea whether to be comedic or serious, offering almost no jokes whatsoever and making me fail to get into its plot at the same time, and if that wasn't enough, it also wraps everything up with a completely stupid twist that feels like a giant slap in the face to everyone who watched it. While most of Season 2's worst episodes are not nearly as bad as Season 1's, this one easily is, to the point that it is one of my least favourites of the show.

## Top 5

**#5. Sailor Mouth**

An episode tackling the concept of swearing sounds absolutely hysterical, and luckily, it is definitely the case here. While the jokes could have been repetitive, the episode carefully avoids that and instead makes them so great that it is memorable just for its amazing humor alone.

**#4. Band Geeks**

While not necessarily the best of the show by any means, I still think that this episode is mostly deserving its praise. With a genius parody of the most clichéd and generic band movies ever, bringing all characters together and making them all have a really memorable role in the episode, topping it all off with an absolutely masterful ending, this is a true classic that defines SpongeBob as a show for me.

**#3. Pressure**

Welp, Cmc is right about this one. This episode has one of the most creative ideas of the show, making some amazing use of the characters and having some really unique ways about how the sea creatures and land creatures compete with each other, while also having a masterful moral about how everyone is good at something and that there is no use of trying to decide who is better. A real underrated gem.

**#2. The Smoking Peanut**

An episode with one of the most cleverly written twists of all time which manages to do a fantastic job at storytelling while also having some killer jokes that you will definitely remember. Similarly to Pressure, this is easily one of the most underrated episodes of this season, let alone the whole pre-movie era, and I personally really wish it got more recognition, as I feel like it completely deserves it.

**#1. Life of Crime**

An episode that perfectly knows how to be really funny while also caring about the plot as well. With a genius structure that is really surprising for a simple story like this, some of the best comedy ever and possibly the greatest moral of the show which still doesn't feel on the nose, this is definitely a true masterpiece and one of the best episodes of this whole series.

## Season ranking

Egor's=
**7/9 - Low Great**

 #11
 #16
 #21
 #26
 #31
 #36

9/17's=

BSponge's=

## Review

So, season 2 has known reception as one of the show's popular seasons. It's considered the best season by a good amount of people. The most notable aspect of the season is the humor. Almost every episode in this season as at least a few memorable jokes in them, whether that be dialogue jokes or visual jokes. Some episodes are straight-up jokefests, which are episodes that don't really have amazing plots but have a ton of jokes in them, such as Something Smells and Sailor Mouth.

Some episodes in this season do have amazing plots, though. Your Shoe's Untied and Procrastination both have plots that are extremely relatable to real-life issues, while some episodes have absolute genius plots, such as Squidville, which showcases that Squidward secretly needs SpongeBob and Patrick's wacky antics in his life after he gets bored doing the same thing over and over in Tentacle Acres. Some episodes manage to combine amazing plot and humor. Take Christmas Who?, where Squidward gets some character development throughout the episode, from being down on Christmas at first, but actually gets into the spirit of the holiday later in the episode. There's also Band Geeks, which is one of the most famous, if not the most famous, SpongeBob episode. The main aspect that's mentioned about that episode is the climactic ending with Sweet Victory, but in general, I really love the plot as well, in which Squidward is the underdog to show up Squilliam, and he walks out on the band at one point, but then SpongeBob gives a speech out to the band to make it up to Squidward, and that leads to that iconic ending.

Unfortunately, this season's not all that perfect. The animation in season 2 is really good for the most part, now using digital animation unlike the cel animation in season 1, which allows the show to look more bright, but it just seems to be... off, in some episodes for some reason. For some reason, some characters' coloring just doesn't look right in some episodes. Also, the worst episodes in this season are just downright trash. Grandma's Kisses has such a cruel tone to it, in which SpongeBob gets laughed at by everyone for getting kissed by his grandma, and is denied of what he wants by his grandma when he acts like an adult. And then there's Dumped, which is so melodramatic that it hurts. We also get Patrick not caring at all for his best friend's feelings when Gary leaves him, and the episode also has a complete lack of humor and a stupid twist ending.

That being said, though, when season 2 is at its best, it is absolutely phenomenal. There are four episodes that I give a perfect rating, and in general, over one-third of the season is in the amazing range. Only 6 episodes fall below the good range, and there's only four episodes I dislike.

The mean rating for this season is **Great (15/20)**, while the median rating for this season is **Superb (16/20)**. Since the best episodes of this season are absolutely fantastic, with 11 episodes ranked 18/20 or higher, and only 6 episodes out of 39 are not good, I think it's perfectly fair to give this season the latter rating. Therefore, I consider season 2 to be **Superb (16/20)**.