The Hambone King

The Hambone King

  I watched this episode alone in my car in a parking lot. It was the saddest moment of my life. 

  Anyway. Technically the first episode of season 4 is Wanko's Warehouse. But I don't have the ability to watch that one so we're moving forward. But hey, this episode isn't as terrible as I thought it would be. In it, Robbie is a hambone champion who is challenged by some other hambone champion for the title. It's a good one for most of the episode, and it's fun to see Robbie get the focus and have something of his own for ten seconds (Rex hasn't been in an episode for a while now, thankfully). Unfortunately Tori ruins everything because they need to have her steal the spotlight at all times.

   Basically, Robbie is popular for Hamboning, is challenged by Jerold (Gerold?), loses, and has to recover from his loss in a slight Rocky parody. However it is soon revealed that Tori herself used to be a pro hamboner, so she like reveals this and coaches Robbie or whatever. This woulden't be that bad but in the end of the episode Robbie is sabotaged, and instead of helping him back on his feet or anything Tori simply competes against Jerold and wins and everyone celebrates her victory. Like what the fukc you know comon let someone else be the protagonist for like 15 goddamn minutes. I would value this episode so much more if it turned out that Beck or Andre (or even Jade or Sikowitz) were the previous hambone champions, but it's not. It's Tori, because if it wasn't she wouldn't have any purpose in this episode. Because she doesn't have any purpose in this group. Because she's a useless character. 

   Even worse, Victoria Justice just isn't good at Hamboning. Jerold and Robbie actually do it fairly well, but I guess Victoria coulden't be bothered to practice because her routine is just an out of sync flapping of her hands. It gets me.

  But I did say this episode is better than I thought it would be. And it is. The rest of the group is great, there's one particular scene where Beck brings a watermelon to cheer up Robbie I thought was funny, and there are a couple good moments where Jade and Andre and Robbie and Cat are just hanging out. So it's a good episode- I'm just surprised at how quickly it was brought down at the very end by Tori doing everything.