Gotta love having another episode that I remember very, very little about. All I remember about this one is enough for me to mix it up with “Mooncation”. That and Santa is in this one for some reason. Well, I guess this is a Christmas special? I mean, it’s a longer episode, and it premiered a month before Christmas…yeah I don’t know, I’m confused. And the episode already gives off weird vibes with the title card music that isn’t even music. They shoulda just gone the “Mooncation” route for that one, cuz you’ll never be “SB-129”.
Well, the episode interests me immediately with the set up of Sandy and her science scouts going to the moon. Not only is it interesting because yay Sandy focus, but also it’s interesting because of the who the science scouts are. We’ve got SpongeBob, of course, then Pearl, which excites me because Sandy and Pearl interactions?? Season 11 is killing it with this kinda stuff, at least in making them happen in general. Maybe execution can be off. But then we’ve got the last science scout, who is…Squidina???? Like, Patrick’s sister?? Hello?? Yeah, this episode came a bit before The Patrick Star Show, so when that show got developed, this character got refurbished, but that’s really interesting to me that they pulled this random character. But it’s also interesting that this episode used a random character in the first place, like they could’ve had the last science scout be another character we already know, but instead it’s this brand-new character. Very weird.
I suppose one of the reasons that Squidina is in this episode is because she’s supposed to act as a foil to Pearl, being the stereotypical, high school cliche of a nerd and geek, while Pearl is the prep cheerleader type. So the ensuing sideplot that I don’t even need to watch the episode to know will happen is going to be obvious. I won’t make any judgements yet, but I will say that high school melodrama bores me. So. We shall see how this works.
Sandy and the scouts get ready to head to the moon, despite SpongeBob’s protests that he’s waiting for a Krabby Patty delivery. And of course, who else is making the delivery but Squidward. So you might be able to guess what’s about to happen. If you thought that Squidward is going to somehow get sucked into this moon trip as well, you’d be absolutely right! Yeah, things are a little predictable so far, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing on its own. I like the bit where Squidward’s trying to recant what he said about country music lol. Same Squidward. Though I would never call Sandy a hick, that’s a step too far now. Because this is a special episode, this launch and ride to the moon takes a few minutes. There’s a few gags here and there, but none of this does too much for me. Poor Squidward gets knocked around quite a bit though. Also I’m pretty sure that “goat on AstroTurf” line was used in The Cosmic Shake.
Finally, everybody arrives on the moon, and Squidward immediately gets himself into a pickle. So…is this implying that the moon’s gravity is stronger than the Earth’s gravity cuz…that’s not true LMAO. But anyway, Squidward falls into a hole and tries to find his way out, leading to a variety of fun visual gags, including the genius one with the storyboard and Rodger Bumpass. Squidward realizes that perhaps going to the moon is the best thing that could’ve happened to him, as he’s far away from SpongeBob.
Yeah I guess the episode proceeding predictably is going to be a staple of this episode. Sandy sends SpongeBob to go get lunch, and she tells him to press the button in the rocket labeled ‘Lunch’. Considering we got foreshadowing…or idk if it’s foreshadowing or like Chekov’s button…anyway, considering we got the joke earlier with Sandy hitting ‘Lunch’ instead of ‘Launch’, you’ll never guess what SpongeBob does. Sandy manages to fix the situation, but it causes the moon to get pulled out of orbit, and depletes the fuel of the ship.
And then…Santa! Yeah, I have no idea. I love random things as much as the next person but like…Santa? And I guess Santa and SpongeBob are on a first-name basis, so I’m choosing to see this as taking place after “It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!”. What’s funny is that Santa doesn’t even do anything here. When it comes to getting the moon back in orbit, it’s Sandy and the scouts who keep trying to come up with ideas and implementing them. Santa just provides unearned snarky commentary. Frankly he’s annoying considering how utterly unnecessary he is to this plot. Eventually Sandy has enough, which thank god, and Santa gets his act together, finally deciding to help.
In the end though, a combination of stupidity causes the moon to literally explode. But SpongeBob comes up with a plan to fix things…become the literal moon. You know what? Why not. The end was cute. Why couldn’t the whole episode be that?
“Goons on the Moon”…did not need to be 22 minutes long. Or, more accurately, it did not use those 22 minutes wisely. First off, every character except SpongeBob and Sandy eventually just kinda dropped out of the episode at one point or another. We didn’t get enough focus on Pearl and Squidina to really justify their inclusion, and Squidward disappeared from relevance after Santa showed up. Speaking of Santa, he was the most unnecessary character in the episode, and should’ve been cut. As for the episode in general, frankly I was somewhat bored while watching. I kept trying to get interested, but nothing was captivating me aside from the very, very beginning of this thing. The episode just felt empty. That’s the best way I can describe it.
Episode Tier: Mediocre
Episode Score: 5.5/10
