So I just got done watching The Breakup Breakdown, and it was fantastic. One of the staples of Season One was taking a stock kids’ show plot, and putting a clever, self-aware twist on it. The end result is an episode that feels like a Season One episode set in a later season, which is all I really want.
It’s really easy for misunderstanding plots to be boring, tedious, and/or annoying, but I think it works in this case for two reasons. The first is that it has good gags and dialogue to keep things moving, and it never stays focused on one group of characters for too long. The second is that we don’t know the full extent of the misunderstanding, so rather than waiting for characters to realize something we’ve already figured out, we’re instead wanting to know for ourselves, which keeps us engaged. The delivery of the moral was really good. The episode felt more like a parody of this kind of plot than like a genuine execution.
I think this episode sets the gold standard of how to write Discord post-reformation. He’s the Trickster, who causes mischief; both exacerbating and then helping to solve the problem.
Just today, before I saw the episode, I was thinking about how the show is a lot better when it’s about small groups than when it’s about one large group. I think this episode is a prime example of that.
It was an all-around great episode.
