This media has been voted on to have the "AEON SCUMBOB!-Infamous" rank.   |
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PLANKTON TORTURE!
This contains torture to Sheldon J. Plankton, so if you're a fan of him, look away NOW.
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One Coarse Meal is a AEON SCUMBOB!-Infamous episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.
Synopsis[]
In this episode, Mr. Krabs finds out Plankton has Cetaphobia (the fear of whales) and decides to take advantage of it. Plankton succumbs to the torment performed by Mr. Krabs, and attempts to take his own life.
AIR DATE FOR THIS EPISODE: MARCH 25TH, 2010
Why It's A Bad Meal[]
- This is not only a very harsh Plankton torture episode, but it is also the absolute harshest torture episode of any character in this entire show.
- Also, this episode is basically SpongeBob SquarePants' answer to The Simpsons episode "The Boys of Bummer", which is another episode with a similar premise (which both involve suicide), and that episode was no better than this one.
- Mr. Lawrence, the voice actor of Plankton, was one of the writers who wrote this episode, meaning that he helped TORTURE a CHARACTER he VOICES.
- While Plankton would have deserved some punishment for all his evil deeds (such as him enslaving all of Bikini Bottom and trying to kill Mr. Krabs via King Neptune), this torture episode went WAY TOO FAR, especially for a kids show.
- Another big problem in this episode is that a massive amount of characters are unlikable:
- Mr. Krabs is at his ABSOLUTE WORST in this episode as he needlessly and outright torments Plankton for 16 days, to the point where the latter considers suicide.
- Mr. Krabs appears to be portrayed as a protagonist, even though he acts like a diabolical, arrogant sociopath and shows no remorse for his actions. He also never faces any real consequences for his actions whatsoever. He almost did when Plankton tried to torment him with a mime, but it goes back to Mr. Krabs winning anyway.
- Karen is also unlikable. Instead of encouraging Plankton to steal the Krabby Patty Secret Formula and/or trying to help him get over his fear of whales, she criticises him because of his irrational fear and ignores him. She also ignored the fact that Plankton's ancestors (even his grandfather) got eaten by a whale, making her a massive jerk.
- Pearl is unlikable for being portrayed as avaricious, and only helps Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob after she receives money.
- There's one scene where Pearl says, "I prefer salad over plankton anyway", which implies that she has eaten plankton before.
- SpongeBob, while not as bad as Mr. Krabs in this episode, is no better than the rest, as he helps Plankton give Mr. Krabs revenge, only for him to suddenly betray Plankton and help Mr. Krabs instead for no reason without questioning anything. SpongeBob listens to Mr. Krabs all the time without questioning him in this episode, and when he sees Plankton trying to ender his life, he STILL betrays him, meaning that he KNEW what Krabs was doing, and didn't care.
- Mr. Krabs is at his ABSOLUTE WORST in this episode as he needlessly and outright torments Plankton for 16 days, to the point where the latter considers suicide.
- When Plankton orders SpongeBob to step on him as hard as possible, he states it would fly in the face of his "good nature", which makes him a massive hypocrite as he has done horrible things before this episode:
- Joking about being a drowned victim and saying, "Because I ripped my pants!", which pissed a lot of people off, although he did learn his lesson ("Ripped Pants").
- Disturbing Bikini Bottomites and killing a guy saying that his imaginary friend made all this confusion ("Bubble Buddy").
- Saying bad words ("Sailor Mouth").
- Helping Mr. Krabs poison a health inspector ("Nasty Patty").
- Taking advantage of Gary in a snail race, although he apologized to Gary for it ("The Great Snail Race").
- Acted too aggressive on Patrick just because of a stupid toy. ("Waiting").
- Slaughtered clams while defending a Krabby Patty. ("To Love a Patty").
- Rejoiced when Karen malfunctioned from her tears after Plankton gave her a song for her anniversary gift ("Single Cell Anniversary").
- Intentionally ignored Gary's condition while Gary was being constantly scared by an evolved Puffy Fluffy, which would be the worst thing he's ever done. ("A Pal for Gary").
- Constantly disturbs Squidward in various episodes.
- The writers of this episode wrote it in a tone that shows they hate Plankton, as Mr. Krabs uses Plankton's fear of whales to scare him, leaving him in depression, paranoia, and even turning him suicidal. Even when SpongeBob points out the consequences of his deeds, Mr. Krabs just laughs and points out how much of a mess Plankton is now.
- There are countless plot holes and inconsistencies with previous episodes:
- Mr. Krabs and Plankton were actually friends before, as established in Friend or Foe. It comes off as really sad to contradict such past events.
- In The Algae's Always Greener, Plankton and Pearl directly interact with each other, which contradicts what occurs in this episode.
- Plankton interacts with Pearl and other whales several times without fear so his fear in this episode seems to come out of nowhere.
- In Squeaky Boots, Mr. Krabs pays half his money to SpongeBob almost at the end of the episode, but in this episode, Mr. Krabs pays SpongeBob with play money.
- The opening scene, while decently action-packed, actually makes the rest of the episode worse because it further unjustified Mr. Krabs' treatment to Plankton. Plankton does attempted robbery, which not only has been done many times on the show before, but is also something that Mr. Krabs does too.
- Perhaps the most infamous scene in the episode is when Plankton reveals his intentions to take his own life, which is rather sensitive and goes well into adult territory.
- This episode failed miserably to do horror-comedy correctly, as prior and later episodes, including "Squidward in Clarinetland", "Fear of a Krabby Patty", "Don't Look Now", "Nasty Patty", "Graveyard Shift", and "The Ghost of Plankton" have done this right. This (along with "A Pal for Gary") tried to take this concept correctly, except they went too far.
- As stated in Reason #2, Mr. Krabs seems to be portrayed as a protagonist and Plankton as an antagonist, even after all of the torment Plankton is put through, just because he is designated to be a villain by the show's standards. This episode implies and encourages that you are in the right for harassing and driving people you despise to suicide.
- Driving someone to suicide can be considered murder as there have been some cases in real life where people have been arrested for being the perpetrator of another person's suicide.
- The nightmare scene adds to the whole atrocity of this episode.
- The title card, for some reason, plays light-hearted music, which is a very bad contrast to the episode's scary tone.
- On that topic, the title card, while still good, is somewhat creepy because it has black bars around it, which is used in a lot of horror movies.
- Hypocrisy: This episode tries WAY too hard to make Plankton unlikable, as one part has him trying to take revenge on Mr. Krabs by tormenting him with his own worst fears and it portrays that moment as bad, which is very hypocritical of both the show and the episode, ALSO especially when Mr. Krabs himself is the SO-CALLED "protagonist". And the writers tries too hard to make us sympathize with Mr. Krabs (being the one who got "tortured") which is hypocritical as well.
- Krabs' infamous line after learning about Plankton's torment: "Really? He's a mess! (laughs)" just shows how heartless, rude, and cruel he is.
- Abysmal ending: After Plankton finally learns "Pearl" was Mr. Krabs in disguise the entire time and gets his revenge on him at last with a mime he can torment him with, SpongeBob scares him away with holographic whales so he can lose.
- SpongeBob playing the holographic whales and saying that it's feeding time implies that SpongeBob was on Krabs' side THE WHOLE TIME.
- Furthermore, this would mean that everytime we see Spongebob in this episode, he is helping Krabs.
- SpongeBob playing the holographic whales and saying that it's feeding time implies that SpongeBob was on Krabs' side THE WHOLE TIME.
- Mr. Krabs erases a drawing of Plankton in this episode and says "Bye, Plankton!", which means that HE FLAT-OUT WANTS TO KILL HIM!
- A likely mistake: Isn't Mr. Krabs worst fear losing his money? Since every time his money disappears or get destroyed, he PANICS THE LIVING HELL out of it!
Qualities That Might Make You Want Another Coarse[]
NOTE: These redeeming qualities do not excuse the episodes content
- Just like a regular SpongeBob episode, The first few minutes of the episode were decent, until Mr. Krabs finds out about Plankton's fear of whales.
- Plankton was able put behind his suicidal intentions and plot some well-deserved revenge against Mr. Krabs, even when his revenge attempt failed anyway.
- Krabs’ fear of mimes can be funny.
- The "Wacky Bucks" scene is the only funny moment in this episode.
- Plankton is still in-character in this episode.
- Pearl is at least likable for not participating in her father's attempts to torture plankton.
- This is one of Plankton's most well-developed roles yet, making for a more interesting plot than your typical 'Plankton tries to steal the Krabby Patty formula' episode.
- Plankton’s cousins return.
- Despite making a bad comment at the worst time, SpongeBob still comforted Plankton
- Plus, although Spongebob has done bad things, he was right about his Good Nature as shown in episodes like Band Geeks, etc.
- At least he was good at first for not stomping on Plankton and steered him away from his suicide attempt.
Reception[]
Negative[]
"One Coarse Meal" was universally panned by fans and critics and is widely considered one of the worst, if not THE worst episode of SpongeBob SquarePants EVER. Along with its sister episode, Gary In Love, they received a 3.7/10 on IMDb, making it the 2nd lowest-rated episode of SpongeBob. PhantomStrider ranked it the number #1 worst episode of the series. WatchMojo ranked it Number #1 on their Worst SpongeBob Episodes list. The Mysterious Mr. Enter ranked this episode as the #2 worst episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, behind "Pet Sitter Pat". Some fans and viewers stopped watching the show altogether after this episode. Just goes to show how APPALLING this episode was. It is also one of the lowest-rated episodes on Episode Ninja, with an average score of 5.66/10 based on 119 votes, making it the only episode prior to Season 11 to score less than a 6.0/10.
PIEGUYRULZ considered this episode to be his final 3rd least favorite episode of Season 7. Although, he doesn't think this one is bad enough to appear on his bottom 5 or even the Bottom 10 (all of his bottom 4 episodes of Season 6 (Boating Buddies, The Splinter, Truth or Square, and Choir Boys) more, Atlantis SquarePantis, SpongeHenge, Back to the Past, That Sinking Feeling, Are You Happy Now?, and, SpongeBob, You're Fired being examples of episodes he hates more) of the entire series, and he thought there're still some of the episodes are less entertaining to watch than this such as Boating Buddies for example.
Trivia[]
- This episode was paired with the famous episode, Gary in Love.
- This episode was originally going to be titled "Plankton Got Served" during production.
- A similar episode, Plankton Paranoia, released in 2018 to a significantly better response.
- This episode was ranked #99 during the SpongeBob's Top 100 event in the UK and in Ireland.
- This episode rarely airs on Nickelodeon, although it could be because its sister episode is a Valentine's Day episode and not because of the controversy surrounding this episode.
- This episode lead to the creation of a creepypasta: "Plankton Got Served". Where it features Plankton actually succeeding in his suicide attempt. He wakes up on a pillar in the void, and is brought to a 'Heaven or Hell" type of situation.
Gallery[]
Quotes[]
"My triumphant husband returns, how'd you fail this time?"
― Karen
"Yes, I can hear you. Can you bring it up? I can't risk stepping into the light, the whale might see me."
― Plankton
"What's the point of going on? I'll just be tortured for the rest of my life by that whale! [lies down on the road] That's it, I'm done. The 4:15 bus should be here any time now."
― Plankton
"I'm sorry Plankton, but that flies in the face of my good nature."
― SpongeBob
"Really? He's a mess! [laughs]"
― Mr Krabs, after finding out Plankton is attempting suicide
"Goodbye, Pipsqueak!"
― Mr. Krabs
"You mean this entire time it's been Krabs masquerading as a whale?! Why, that connivin' bottom feeder!"
― Plankton
"I want Plankton meat!"