Finally, we’re at the episode that makes it very clear that they’re basically elevating Larry to main character status—”Larry’s Gym”. Yeah, even if it isn’t official, that’s basically what’s happened to the guy. I mean…if Pearl and Karen are main characters, then I think Larry basically counts. But 10 is a good number, so I get why he isn’t officially promoted. Anyway, this episode also shows that an ensemble cast is the way to go, because we get all these cool storylines just by following a different character for once.
This episode really starts to make use of the potential of Larry as a character. I think that “Squid Plus One” really showed how funny this lobster could be, and this episode decides to give him a chance to hold 11 minutes on his own. And I think this was a good decision, because even though his character is seemingly limited, I think he can carry an episode quite nicely. Maybe not perfectly, but decently. Anyway, Larry trying to deal with the insanity that is some of our main characters, namely Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob, is pretty funny, and a good way to spend the episode. I just love how Larry really doesn’t actually like pretty much any of the main characters we ever see him interact with, other than Sandy. It’s just funny to me how he’s so clearly on the edge of acquaintanceship.
The plot of this episode is fine, nothing too special about it other than what I’ve already said about Larry. SpongeBob becoming this ultra mega ripped dude, while Larry wastes away doing paperwork, is an interesting role reversal, though I don’t think enough was done with this…they should’ve had Larry and SpongeBob interact more, in my opinion. But anyway, it’s interesting enough seeing SpongeBob struggle with doing literally everything now that he’s so buff.
Fun little fact about this episode (yep, going on a tangent), but I was taken straight out of it when SpongeBob was like “I’m not good at lifting things”, and this is because there’s this SpongeBob lofi mix video I used to listen to quite a bit freshman year (I still use it to study from time to time, though I’m much more likely to use the show’s actual soundtrack lol), and one of the tracks on there used that line as a sample. Here’s a
link to the video, with a timestamp to the sample so you can hear it. Speaking of music, since we’re here, this episode uses another track that I really like,
Pacific Blue. I wish it was used more.
“Larry’s Gym” is…funny, but not too funny. It doesn’t have that push that makes me laugh out loud, let’s say that. And that’s why I don’t consider this to be an Amazing-tier episode, it just doesn’t have the chops. But, it’s still Great-tier! This season 9B has really been knocking it out of the park, if this is the lowest-scored episode thus far.
Episode Tier: Great
Episode Score: 8.5/10
