Plankton's Regular

“Plankton's Regular" is a HORRIBLY low infamous episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. In this episode, Plankton learns that he has a regular customer who visits the Chum Bucket daily.

Why It Is A Irregular Moment Of Plankton[]

The premise of Plankton having a customer who regularly visits the Chum Bucket feels rather uninteresting and more trivial.
The episode feels as though the writers despise Plankton for seemingly no reason at all; all he wanted was at least just one customer, but instead, he gets unfairly treated throughout the episode just for that, with Karen mistreating Plankton and showing no empathy for him, even going as far as paying Nat to eat Plankton's chum to get him to stop complaining about his lack of customers.
Mr. Krabs is upset all because... Plankton has a single customer who visits the Chum Bucket daily, and instead of being relieved that Plankton doesn't want his formula anymore, he tries to steal Plankton's only customer from him; what pours salt on the wound is when because Krabs is already the owner of one of the most successful restaurants in all of Bikini Bottom, so it turns out he has no real need to lure Nat away from the Chum Bucket and have him visit the Krusty Krab instead. Heck, this could be the end of the restaurant war between them! But nooooo!
- It is, however, explicitly stated that Krabs assumes Plankton is trying to overthrow his business, but this ignores how one customer would not be enough for Plankton to overthrow the very business that is only successful because dozens of customers visit the Krusty Krab regularly and thus pay Krabs quite a lot of money; Krabs even says it himself, "You think you can compete with me? Look, Plankton, look at all these loyal customers. Loyal to me, Plankton. Not to you."
- He's also a hypocrite about Plankton stealing his formula when he tried to steal Plankton's formula for chum.
SpongeBob seems to be even more of an idiot, he never seems to call out Mr. Krabs for his insensitivity; in fact, he even helps him in his aforementioned attempts (at one point even harassing Nat with a Krabby patty). As this is one of the episodes that has SpongeBob acting like a mindless and spineless yes-man towards Krabs instead of being guided by his moral compass.
Rather disturbing and disgusting imagery for an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, with both Plankton and SpongeBob having their skin be peeled off from their facial areas and Nat vomiting out the Krabby Patty.
Dreadful ending: It reveals that Nat hated Plankton's chum all along and was being paid by Karen to eat at the Chum Bucket to stop Plankton's complaining about not getting any customers. Nat is then taken to the hospital to get his stomach pumped. This all ruins Plankton's happiness over finally getting a customer and makes the episode's events pretty redundant and insulting. Then Mr. Krabs LAUGHS at Plankton's misery, just like a very infamous episode that came one season after this.
Unfortunate Implication: Having a fish customer who visits the Chum Bucket to eat Plankton's chum is cannibalism. Chum is a type of bait made from fish meat, and a fish like Nat eats it. The writers should've caught that dark implication, although kids won't know about it.
Even if Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob didn't interfered, the episode would have ended in the same way because Nat would have anyways revealed to Plankton that he hated his chum, and Karen would have been harsh to Plankton anyways.
The episode is slow paced.
Karen is a real Karen in this episode!

Redeeming Qualities That Are Regular[]

Plankton is somewhat the most tolerable here in this episode.
- Speaking of which, it's nice to see him finally focus on improving his own business and on what he's good at creating rather than comparing himself to and obsessing over his failures and trying to be the Krusty Krab. His excitement over Nat genuinely appreciating his chum is pretty endearing as well.
It does have a unique twist of Mr. Krabs trying to steal the formula from Plankton rather than vice versa, despite its flaws.
While the ending is otherwise bad, at least SpongeBob does NOT partake in humiliating Plankton unlike his boss - in fact, he outright says that he would prefer to "beat a hasty retreat". That shows that, despite helping Krabs throughout the episode, even SpongeBob has standards.
5 words: "This isn't the Chum Bucket"
Although the ending was atrocious, there was at least a bit of sneaky foreshadowing to it where Nat said the Krusty Krabs’ chum was the "second-foulest thing [he] ever tasted." This implied he tasted something worse, which turned out to be Plankton's chum. It was cruel to do to Plankton given the context of this episode, but you at least had to hand it to the writers--they were at least clever with it.
Background Blues, is an awesome chill jazzy SpongeBob track, so it's nice to hear it play multiple times in this episode, specifically when Nat comes to the Chum Bucket.

How this episode could be a loyal customer[]

Remove the 2 skin ripping off scenes.
Let Plankton actually get one customer instead of doing a twist ending with Nat getting paid to pretend to like chum,
Have Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob learn their lesson and realize it's good that Plankton finally got a regular.

Trivia[]

This episode premiered during the infamous premiere week Bikini Bottom Confidential.
Despite this episode being very infamous, PieGuyRulz gave it a Meh and Ethan Broussard gave it a low mediocre.
It spawned the “This isn't the Chum Bucket” meme.