Yeah nope, I’ve got nothing to say about “Shell Games”, because only hearing the title leaves me with no recollection of this episode. Even looking at the title card just makes me think of Spongemonger because of
this video. If I didn’t already know that I’ve seen every episode of season 12, I would be quite convinced that I’d never seen this episode in my life because of my severe lack of memory for it. How fun! I can consider this to be like a trial of what I’ll be experiencing watching season 13.
Once the episode begins, my memory for this episode returns pretty quickly. I adore the rock and metal parodies in this first scene. This episode is also odd in that it begins with a character we’ve never seen before, as that’s not a usual occurrence. The most interesting part of the scene are the parodies I mentioned earlier, as like I have said time and time again, it takes a bit for me to get invested in a random new character. Though the reveal that this guy is a turtle whose shell is Patrick’s house does get me a lot more interested very quickly. Squidward’s little celebration is fun I suppose.
We then cut to Patrick, who wakes up under the turtle. That’s where this whole concept starts to make a lot less sense, because how did Patrick, or us, never notice that Patrick’s rock is a literal turtle shell? But okay, whatever, I’ll suspend my disbelief. Either way, this scene isn’t too amusing for me, especially not when they pull that joke I can’t stand, with Patrick not knowing the names of the people he frequently interacts with and calls friend. Not only do these jokes not make sense, but they’re just annoying. Another thing that doesn’t make sense is how long it takes both the turtle and Patrick to realize the other’s existence. Patrick at this point has been established as dumb enough in this episode for this to be believable I guess, but the turtle (whose name we learn is Tony)? Really?
Patrick and Tony argue back and forth about who owns the shell/rock. Patrick then glues himself to the shell. And Tony decides to go about his business anyway. I liked the cameos in this section. Somehow I’m actually interested in Tony, so congrats to this episode for doing something to make me actually interested in a new character. We all know how hard that is. Eventually, Patrick and Tony’s banter actually does get amusing.
Well then we get to Goo Lagoon, where Tony decides to meet the ladies he’s left waiting for a long time. This plot is something I don’t care about. Patrick gets inside Tony’s shell, and makes himself at home in Tony’s house. I again don’t care much for this. At least until Tony and Patrick start fighting again, because that’s a lot more interesting. This episode really should’ve been filled with far more banter than it had, I think that would’ve been a marked improvement. Anyway, this fighting scene is pretty entertaining. I liked the bit with Larry “drowning” in the water, I’m choosing to see it as a subtle reference to “SpongeGuard on Duty”. Patrick and Tony end up spinning around town, which is also amusing. And we get a SpongeBob cameo, so that’s fun.
This ends up breaking Tony’s shell/Patrick’s rock, so they both start crying about their home. What a good way to get these two to start getting along. See, I’m liking everything I’m seeing now, and I wish this episode had been on this the whole time. This part is also making me realize that the inclusion of the lady turtles was wholly unnecessary. I mean I guess it’s useful for Tony’s entire character bit, but in terms of the plot or my own entertainment, not so much. Patrick comes up with an idea for a rock they could both share…Squidward’s house. Good ending, as it builds on Squidward’s running gag throughout the episode (well, running gag isn’t the right word, but I don’t know how else to describe it). It just feels like a classically
SpongeBob SquarePants ending.
“Shell Games” started off not so great, but then got a lot better in the last 3-4 minutes or so. And in general, the episode was a steady improvement once it did actually start improving. But more of the episode simply didn’t work for me, like 5-6 minutes of it. That part of the episode ranged from uninteresting to boring to actually somewhat annoying. It kinda just feels like the episode only got into its groove in the middle of everything, almost like this was the first draft of an episode rather than a final one. I use that in an analogy sense, not in that I think the writing was poor for this episode (although you already saw my qualms with some of the ways I had to suspend my disbelief here). This episode just barely misses the cut for my Good tier, because I think that there was just a bit too much of the stuff I didn’t like, and while the good stuff was good, it wasn’t fantastic. Not enough to really rid my mouth of the taste of the first few minutes.
Episode Tier: Okay
Episode Score: 6.9/10