I’ma be honest with y’all: I have absolutely no memory of this episode. And I don’t mean it in the sense I’ve meant some of these other episodes, I mean I literally don’t even remember this being the title of an episode. Have we reached an episode I haven’t seen? I swear that I thought I saw every season 12 episode…I kinda hope we haven’t, this would be rather anti-climactic if so. I guess we’ll see once I press play.
As the episode begins, I already get “Wet Painters” + “House Sittin’ With Sandy” vibes. Well, I really liked one of those episodes at least. So I’m…kinda excited? Anyway, the plot is that Mr. Krabs is having SpongeBob house sit for him, and as he’s giving SpongeBob his last little checklist of things to do, he emphasizes as heavily as possible not to open the door for anyone. Given the magnitude of this emphasis, and the title of the episode, I think it’s easy to tell what’s going to happen during the following 9 minutes. Bonus points if Patrick shows up to annoy me. I like how Mr. Krabs tests him real quick though.
Mr. Krabs also emphasized to SpongeBob not to open his bedroom door, so I imagine that too will be opened throughout this episode. So “Knock Knock, Who’s There?” is clearly going to be one of those more predictable kinds of episodes, but that means the fun is going to be in how they portray such predictable events. In a way, that makes it unpredictable. So it’s all about a balance. Anyway, of course going into Mr. Krabs’ bedroom is the first rule that SpongeBob breaks, but I suppose technically he doesn’t since he doesn’t “set foot” into the room at all. Also, fascinating that Mr. Krabs has a knot collection, as that means either this episode is inconsistent with “Your Shoe’s Untied”, or Mr. Krabs just didn’t take SpongeBob’s predicament the same way The Flying Dutchman did. Since I like to find connections between episodes, I’m going with the second interpretation. SpongeBob, of course, takes about 3 seconds to mess something up. This time it’s because he pulls a “The String” and undoes all the knots…and paintings…
Surprisingly, we actually start following Mr. Krabs for part of this episode, while he attends the Fast Food Founding Fathers convention and is scandalized by the 10 cents entrance fee. His face there is hilarious.
Back to SpongeBob, somehow the little dude thinks its a good idea to watch a horror movie alone. And is it just me, or does the voice in this trailer sound like something that belongs in Regular Show?? That reminds me, I wanna watch their Halloween specials, now those were good. Anyway, SpongeBob decides to not watch that, which is smart, when Mr. Krabs starts knocking at the door trying to get let in since he decided to leave the convention. And it’s at this exact moment that I realize I definitely have seen this episode before. I’m surprised it took me this long, but I guess since technically this is the “climax” of the episode, in a sense, maybe I shouldn’t be. Also this scene is the originator of a reaction meme I use all the time, Mr. Krabs in the peephole, so I busted out laughing from that.
SpongeBob, of course, does not let Mr. Krabs in. So Mr. Krabs attempts to get in through an open window. And while he’s doing that, SpongeBob is on the phone with…Patrick…what did I say earlier? And they used that same old joke I don’t like! Come on!!!! It wasn’t even bad this time, but it’s the principle of the thing. But the joke with SpongeBob saying “please hurry” was great. The episode then decides its time to be Home Alone, as SpongeBob and Patrick set up a bunch of traps for the “robber”. So we see Mr. Krabs trying multiple times in multiple ways to get into the house, repeatedly failing, to variously humorous effects. Mr. Krabs is finally able to break in, but not without completely hurting himself in the process. But to prove he’s Mr. Krabs, he…pulls out his ID? Which he could’ve done this entire time? I’ll suspend my disbelief and say that Mr. Krabs after the first attempt was really just trying to “beat” SpongeBob and Patrick, but he should’ve been showing his ID when he first came to the door… Anyway, we get a cute quasi-father-son moment, and then Pearl’s knocking at the door…oh, Pearl, you got a big storm coming.
Episode Tier: Great
Episode Score: 8.3/10
www.bubbleblabber.com
