Dale Squires

Dale Squires

    Do you ever watch some youtube account from 4 years ago that does covers of songs and wonder what that person is doing now?

    Sikowitz hasn't been in an episode for a while. Maybe his actor thought it was a part time gig. Instead there is a teacher with a massive Hot Topic belt buckle introducing another man (who is apparently a hot shot director) also wearing a massive belt buckle. The director is making a short film with the students. Not all of them are actually acting though, just the popular 6 or so that we normally follow around. The rest of them presumably have to do calculus and actually learn things in their spare time.

  So they make some horror/romance/drama movie. It looks bad, but we're told it's good. The director (Dale Squires) takes all the credit despite not doing anything and the gang is upset. This lasts for about 5 minutes until the director goes on a Jimmy Fallon parody and gives everyone credit before Andre's cousin assaults him on live TV for $50. 

  The B-Plot is Beck and Robbie fixing Robbie's car, which is then stolen. It's a pretty weak B-plot and basically rambles with the premise that girls like mechanic guys for a few minutes throughout the episode. It seems like it could be funny but it's ultimately uninspired and feels like Dan just reached into a jar of B-plot ideas and pulled one out at random.

  I think the biggest problem with this episode is time. The main conflict isn't established until some 15 or so minutes in (note that episodes are maybe 26 minutes total), and when it is established the gang comes up with a scheme in about a minute that ends up not paying off anyway. It makes the episode feel very inconsequential. Without the scheme to have Andre's cousin beat up Dale Squire the plot is essentially a minor inconvenience that the characters go through.  The idea of the gang making a movie is interesting, but the show doesn't have enough time to cause us to be at all invested in it, and it feels much more like they made a 5 minute youtube video for fun.

  The premise seems like it would be much better served for some season finale movie episode with Dale as the antagonist, but as it is it ends up being ultimately forgettable. Despite this, it has one of the only lines that made me chuckle- which is Cat asserting that a dry political joke the Fallon parody made was 'so off the cuff'. So I'll give it an 8/10.