Who Did It To Trina

Who Did It To Trina

       Hey. This isn't the next episode on the list. But I'm not feeling great today- so I wanted to watch this one instead, as this children's show is my only respite I have from thinking about my demons.  

 It's a nice premise, being more or less a bottle episode. I've always enjoyed bottle episodes, they always end up really relying on the main characters and there's a lot of simple dialogue and conversation as opposed to more physical or situational humor.

    To mention to anyone who might be reading this [there are none], a bottle episode in TV is one that takes place nearly entirely in one setting and often utilizes only the main cast and maybe a couple extras. They're often done to save time and money, but they have a special charm about them.

  ok- back to it. Tori is making some play, which even in show is alluded to as being quite bad and nonsensical. Trina is the star, at midway through the play the entire set collapses on her after a harness breaks. The rest of the episode is a whodunnit featuring the main cast (minus Beck, who is absent in this episode) where everyone tries to piece together who sabotaged the harness. 

  I won't go through all of it, but it's funny and pretty good. Everyone's flashback is humorously warped to some degree- with Tori and Jade seeing themselves as kind and beautiful (while the other  is rash and angry), Robbie sees himself as a debonair pined over by the female cast, and Cat's flashback isn't a flashback at all- but simply a scene from Drake and Josh. 

   The episode largely concludes with the mystery going unsolved and the group blaming faulty equipment. It's not until the very end that we realize Rex, Robbie's puppet is actually the culprit. By this I of course mean Robbie did it in a schizophrenic delusion- but who am I to assign blame.

   Andre's B-Plot s him being stuck in the investigation while just trying to go on a date. It's pretty good, and includes one good scene in particular where he answers the phone in an over-the-top"cool" tone.

   It's a good episode, don't get me wrong. It's one I haven't seen before and was glad to have the opportunity to this night. I think it could be improved quite a bit by quickening the start of the episode. The mystery doesn't start until some 11 minutes in and this means it's too late to have much "mystery" as the characters tell their perspectives one by one. Still, it's done really well for this show and feels far more smart and mature than the general boy trouble/performance trouble episodes that are the standard. 

8/10

Side Notes:

• In an actually clever and witty joke, Robbie's flashback includes him saying "You make me happy" in a forced way that is apparently meant to sound suave and hot. This is a reference to the episode The Wood where Beck says this exact line. It's kind of a double joke, with Robbie both making up a cool line by copying Beck while the show seemingly pokes fun at itself for such an awkward line in Season 1. 
• Ariana Grande speaks with her normal voice in Robbie's flashback. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not- but it's a much missed trait. 
• I don't think the counselor lotions up in this episode, which is normally his joke.