Yes yes yes yes yes! Now this, this is an amazing episode. Yeah, I'm just going to say it right now. This is my favorite episode of season 2. It's simply excellent, and I'm excited to get into it.
Starting from the literal title card of this episode, "Graveyard Shift" is a very atmospheric 11 minutes. The art team really knocked it out of the park with the backgrounds in this episode, and the music choices were on point. I mean, music is absolutely one of SpongeBob's strong suits (you never think of background music until you hear positively bad background music for a scene).
Getting into the actual episode, as someone who has worked in a restaurant let me just say that this episode gives me a tremendous amount of enjoyment, from the dumb customers to the inconsiderate boss. I feel Squidward on a spiritual level throughout the beginning of this episode. Speaking of the beginning of "Graveyard Shift", we see my boy Tom here, which is great. And this whole beginning set up is very funny and very believable (that Mr. Krabs would do this to his employees for money). Despite feeling Squidward's annoyance, you can't help (or at least I can't), be endeared to SpongeBob's enthusiasm about working the night shift. He's really just so adorable in this episode, in a way that hearkens back to some of the best of season 1. Mr. Krabs' repetition of Squidward's earlier sentiment is just perfect, making it a great exit for the crustacean from this episode.
Moving on, I love the entire sequence of SpongeBob taking out the trash. It's hilarious and visually stunning. Like I said, the atmosphere in this episode is just fantastic. It feels perfectly eerie, and given we don't usually get night shots like this, I'm enjoying what we get to see as much as I can.
Again, this episode feels very...realistic in how it plays out. Squidward, out of boredom and annoyance at his coworker, decides to mess with SpongeBob by telling him a scary story. This is definitely something I would do not going to lie. And having worked late nights before, we've definitely done stuff like this, including clean deeply as SpongeBob does later in the episode. Really, this episode feels like a love letter to all of us night shift employees out there. I'm taking it that way, at least.
The story of the Hash-Slinging Slasher is immensely entertaining, and this is helped by SpongeBob's reactions throughout the story, which make for some great visuals (I'm thinking of him eating his hands like popcorn). In the end, SpongeBob's screaming (and then laughing) aren't even annoying at all, which is a great relief, because sometimes these moments can get real annoying real fast.
Zooming through the rest of the episode a bit, so that this review doesn't get too long, I enjoy everything else as well. The atmosphere once again as Squidward gets more and more nervous, the random 3AM cutaway gag (which now I can't watch without thinking of the YTP
Deliver Us), and the build up to the Hash-Slinging Slasher. The joint screaming scenes of SpongeBob and Squidward are amazingly animated and hilarious, and I love the bit where Squidward and SpongeBob have their pre(-perceived) death confessions, too funny. And then of course, the tension is evaporated once the "Hash-Slinging Slasher" is revealed to just be a kid (with a great design, btw). I like that SpongeBob immediately forgot about everything and went straight to asking the kid if he had references, that's SpongeBob for you! Why that kid decided to show up at the Krusty Krab at 3AM to apply for a job, who knows? I choose to believe that after this episode, the kid worked the night shift until Mr. Krabs decided to turn the Krusty Krab back to normal hours. Or who knows, maybe he started to work at The Night Patty...
And then, of course, we have the iconic ending of "Graveyard Shift", a complete non-sequitur that just works. That the new kid gets in on it too is perfect as well. I love that Nosferatu has returned as well in a modern episode that I still need to watch, I love all the callbacks writers are making lately!
One thing that puts this episode above one like "Squid's Day Off", which is another episode I really enjoy from this season, is that the great character dynamics are on full-swing here. Squidward and SpongeBob drive the plot, but Mr. Krabs is there as well at the beginning. And because
SpongeBob SquarePants had been going on for long enough by this point, we know what everyone's dynamic is like. That knowledge helps lay the foundations for this episode, in my opinion. We can enjoy Mr. Krabs' appearance more because we already know he has a friendly relationship with SpongeBob and Squidward. I don't know if I'm making myself very clear here, but I also don't know how to better explain what I mean, so I'll just move on.
"Graveyard Shift" is one of the most recognizable episodes of
SpongeBob SquarePants, and much like "Band Geeks" I believe this episode definitely deserves it. The number of SpongeBob horror games using concepts from this episode alone is enough to cement its icon status haha. But in all seriousness, this episode is amazingly-crafted, atmospheric, hilarious, and fun. A perfect addition to my "Amazing" tier, and one of my favorites of season 2, if not the entire show.
Episode Tier: Amazing
Episode Score: 9.6/10
w!! I burnt my hand! At night.
