"Dear Vikings" is probably one of the most forgettable episodes in the show for me, along with its sister episode. Like legitimately the only thing I remembered about this episode was the design of the vikings, SpongeBob writing letters to vikings as a plot point, and some joke with everyone being named Olaf or something like that. So me rewatching this episode was absolutely crucial, even more than usual.
Things start off well enough, with an actually good awkwardness joke between Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob. And this episode does hit one of my favorite kinds of plots, a Krusty Krab business practice plot. Yeah that’s what I’m calling them. Mr. Krabs is so hilariously cheap here, and honestly this episode is so real because this is exactly what it feels like with cup sizes. Or really, here in the US, cup sizes are either freakishly small or freakishly large (especially at movie theaters…my god).
Anyway, it’s after I realize that this episode is about to stop going the Krusty Krab business practice route that I start getting…worried. Because Squidward’s explanation of the vikings nearly bores me, even as I see obvious attempts at visual gags. I don’t like the design of the vikings either, something about them just puts me off, so that’s not great. SpongeBob’s excitement about the prospect of writing to the vikings is cute though, so that was a plus, and I like how he does so while flipping patties. The bit of the viking guy working as a garbage man carrying the letter all the way to other vikings is actually entertaining to me, even if again not particularly funny. Poor guy gets hauled off to jail lol. When we meet the viking king, we see some very…interesting…designs for the female vikings. Yeah, I’m not a fan of these. I won’t get on a full soapbox, but this isn’t very cute. I question how they even came to be in the first place because the show doesn’t typically fall into these kind of dumb design choices? What they should’ve done is made the female vikings also extremely big and muscular, but of course we can’t have that now can we
Things get more interesting once the vikings show up at the Krusty Krab. I like how completely unbothered Squidward is by this. Goes to show the kind of wild things he’s witnessed during the show’s run (especially now thinking of
The Patrick Star Show being a prequel haha.
Kamp Koral too, although that show takes place in an alternate timeline). One thing about this scene I don’t like though is how subdued SpongeBob’s reaction is to the vikings showing up, like it just feels weird considering how enthusiastic he was when writing the letter, and it kind of lowers the whole energy of the scene and begins taking it down the dullsville. I also don’t really like how SpongeBob is completely unfazed by the vikings trashing the Krusty Krab. Like this is one thing about SpongeBob—his job is everything to him. Him having no reaction to this makes no sense, and again it just makes the scene not very interesting. The episode would’ve been more interesting had SpongeBob ended up in a conflict with these disrespectful vikings. Honestly, Mr. Krabs should’ve gotten up in there too once they started stealing money. I think it would’ve been fun to see a Krusty Krab vs. Vikings showdown. But alas, I am not in the writers’ room.
Squidward being forced into the main plot of the episode too doesn’t quite sit right with me, because he was playing much more of a minor, almost cameo role earlier. Again, I think it would’ve been far more entertaining if it was Mr. Krabs in Squidward’s place, as we could’ve gotten some Viking vs. Pirate (or Navy, depending on what Mr. Krabs we’re aiming for) type stuff. Basically what I’m saying is that this episode has a
lot of missed potential.
Once we’re on the ship, I did like the joke about everyone being named Olaf instead of the main guy, that was cute. From here, things continue to be dull, though, and I can see why this episode was forgettable now. Like SpongeBob gets to ask his questions, but why are they answered in the slowest, most boring way possible??? Where’s the zest? The action? The
humor????? The group catapulting Olaf was kinda funny though, I’ll give it that. And I liked Squidward’s list of all the things he can do, I think there were even a couple references in there, but maybe not lol. Either way, all of these fancy-sounding things is just like Squidward. And it’s nice to see that Squidward has hobbies haha. And this part, along with Squidward telling off the main viking, does warm me up to the idea of Squidward being the one on the ship instead of Mr. Krabs. I mean I still would’ve liked Mr. Krabs better, but it’s fun to see Squidward’s ego take precedent over the actual danger he’s in lol. And I love how we get a nice little call-back to “Doing Time” with Squidward being happy about being catapulted just so he won’t have to live next to SpongeBob. So all in all, these last few minutes are for sure an improvement to what we’ve been seeing. I also like that we see some consistency here with SpongeBob being completely unable to pick up the axe. Honestly the pose that he’s in could even be a reference to “Ripped Pants”.
And then we get the last minute or so of the episode. I like that SpongeBob has to be the voice of reason for these vikings, and how he ends up saving them. The ending does feel kind of abrupt, I think it would’ve been fun to have everyone return to the Krusty Krab for one last gag, but this ending is good too.
“Dear Vikings” is decent. Obviously, the main issue I have with the episode is that it’s frequently dull, and only funny a few times. It is interesting at points too, but not enough for me to call this a good episode or anything. And I also think that this episode just has a lot of missed potential, which is disappointing. And speaking of disappointing, man, season 6 has not been having a good stretch of episodes for the last 5 now. This episode is a part of those 5, coming out to a very low “Okay”, because I wouldn’t call it a failure like I would a “Mediocre” episode, but it’s very close due to all of that missed potential.
Episode Tier: Okay
Episode Score: 6/10
