With a title like "Lockdown For Love", my first thought is immediately the pandemic LMAO. But I know that this episode is actually something else—a Plankton and Karen episode! Well now that’s exciting.
The beginning
shot of this episode is at such an interesting angle, I really like that! Plankton’s taking Karen on the date of a lifetime…something’s fishy, when has Plankton ever been this good of a husband? I love how exaggeratedly romantic this date is. And the return of “Ray-Ray” is quite entertaining. And of course, the other shoe’s gotta drop. I like that at least Plankton
was legitimately trying to give Karen an excellent date…he just immediately abandons that when he sees the Krabby Patty Secret Formula ripe for the taking. I also like the way the “Ray-Ray” costume falls off as he’s jumping for the formula, a good bit of visual storytelling there. Anyway, it turns out that when the formula turns out to be a hologram, it’s not Mr. Krabs getting one over on Plankton, but rather Karen issuing a test to Plankton. And he failed. Big time.
A lot of people find Karen annoying, but I think those people are misogynists LMAO because Karen’s a queen. She sets the whole Chum Bucket on lockdown until Plankton can give her one interruption-free date. I think that’s a fair ask. Since we see Plankton get to work immediately, I have to assume that the plot is going to consist of Plankton failing to do this. A lot. And I think that has the potential to be very entertaining, depending on how the episode chooses to go about it.
Plankton tries to get to the Krusty Krab by undoing the screws on the window, and of course Karen is onto him immediately. Jill Talley’s delivery of “what are you doing?” here is perfect, as mundane of a line that may be. This causes Plankton to switch strategies—get Patrick, who’s passing by the area, to bring the formula to him. This part is kind of long, and it leans too heavily on Patrick’s stupidity to the point where we’re at the level of stupidity that I don’t like to see. At times like these, I like to imagine that Patrick is simply channeling the version of himself we see in “The Card”. In other words, he’s being a huge troll. This scene calls to mind the famous jar scene of “Big Pink Loser”, but it’s because of this that you can see some clear differences in how Patrick’s stupidity was portrayed (in that episode, you can tell Patrick was making an effort. Here, he’s just being random for no good reason…the quirkification of Patrick Star must be investigated). At least Plankton’s reactions here are pretty funny. Patrick’s continued ability to get into places he shouldn’t be able to get to is another funny thing about his character, can’t even lie.
This episode makes it clear that Plankton has a very low opinion of Karen sometimes lol. Like why does he think Karen would fall for this wig trick??? Karen has far more common sense than him. And the fact that she does is very ????? Actually, a lot of characters in this episode are stupider than they should be. Mr. Krabs for one is very stupid, there is no way he’d do something like that with the formula. And then the fact that when he goes to the Chum Bucket, he doesn’t even see the formula right by the door??? This episode kinda depends on a lot of suspension of disbelief based on an entire 12 seasons of characterization. Excellent.
Once Mr. Krabs realizes the formula’s gone, he’s headed straight for the Chum Bucket. Oh, this is gonna be one of those climaxes where everything comes together at the exact worst time for Plankton, ain’t it? Eventually, Mr. Krabs catches on to Plankton trying to steal the formula, right as Karen tells “Plankton” that she’s going to give him the secret formula, because she’s actually smart and she synthesized it herself. Dang, this is just like “Single Cell Anniversary”! So Plankton sends Mr. Krabs packing, and goes back to Karen…but he leaves Patrick there too. Meaning he’s just standing there next to Patrick. Revealing the ruse. Remember what I was saying about characters acting really stupid? At least in the end, Karen gets her date! Even if that means bolting Plankton to a chair.
“Lockdown for Love” was a good episode except for the part where multiple characters were a lot stupider than they should’ve been. And I’m going to say that that falls under writing weakness. I think there could’ve definitely been a better version of thsi plot that didn’t involve 3-4 characters having a lot less sense than they would normally have. But other than that, I really liked the plot of this one, and I thought the humor was pretty good too.
Episode Tier: Good
Episode Score: 7.7/10