Review: Camp Camp “Scout’s Dishonor”

It’s South Park, but not! …that’s the joke.

General western perception of animation is commonly relegated into two main groups: wholesome Disney time killers for kids and irreverent vulgarity-fests like Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park and so on. Fans of this medium will tell you it’s more complicated than that, just as it is in any other form of entertainment, but if you ask the average person, this is what you’ll usually hear.

Rooster Teeth’s been in the animation game for several years now, and as such have plenty of fans of it on their staff. So, they can probably tell you that, despite the stigma, animated works are at their best when they tackle relatable subjects and material and can translate that in a fantastical and imaginative manner. They also don’t necessarily need to tackle those subjects maturely make their points effectively. But like all good entertainment, they do have to be clever and intelligent with it if they want to stand out.

I get the impression that’s what the team running Camp Camp THOUGHT they were doing that with this episode.

Max, Neil, and Nikki try once again to escape the camp, this time under the cover of night with the help of a former member of a Boy Scout parody group. How he was able to make this arrangement is anyone’s guess. Unfortunately, the escape plan turns out to trap, as the guy helping them to escape turns out to still be part of the group, and this plan was actually a way to forcibly recruit Max. Seems membership is at an all time low, so they’ve resorted to kidnapping and brainwashing. To be fair, Max does point out that said kidnapping might be related to the low membership rate, but acknowledging the gaping holes in an antagonist’s motive doesn’t justify the fact that they exist. And aside from a cut back to this at the end, that’s it for Max in this episode.

The meat of this story actually focuses on Neil and Nikki, who wash up on a different island the next day. Neil wakes up with a wig made of seaweed, and are spotted by three Girl Scout parodies who mistake him for a girl and have history with Nikki. As the day goes on, Neil’s sensitive sensibilities help him fit in easily with the snotty clique girls, while it becomes clearer that Nikki’s more adventurous attitude singled her out when she attended the camp. Soon enough, Neil’s forced to make a choice between her and the girl scouts and obviously chooses the one that’s also a main character. Oh yeah, and friendship or something.

I feel like this episode was TRYING to say something about how restrictive gender roles can be, but it gets muddled and preachy to the point that it might as well be throwing a seaweed wig at us. As mentioned, the Wood Scouts (the boy group) just seem crazy and militant for no good reason, and the Flower Scouts (the girl group) are annoying and snotty because…drama? It seems like if they wanted to split up the main three kids AND make this point, they should have put Neil in the girl camp ALONE, while Max and Nikki end up with the boy camp. Nikki’s tomboyish nature would have people mistake her for a boy just as Neil was mistaken for a girl because of this comically narrow view of gender, and we can take the opportunity to learn new things about Max, Neil, and Nikki’s backstories in an organic way. Although something that plot heavy would probably be a two-parter, at least.

And that’s another thing, is THIS a two-parter? Neil and Nikki get back to camp fine after learning their lesson, but Max is still stuck doing obstacle courses. I guess we’ll have to wait till next week to find out, but it does raise a question about Counselor David. In the first two episodes, he seems like a really attentive supervisor to all the kids, especially Max. He does let Max go off alone with the Quartermaster, who isn’t exactly the poster child for babysitting, but it does mesh with David’s one-man cult following of the idealizing the camp (as in, “The camp is all good, the Quartermaster works for the camp, therefore the Quartermaster is all good too), but at least a full day passes this time without any involvement from him. There’s only a handful of kids attending the camp and he’s been paying extra attention to David, so wouldn’t he notice first thing in the morning that they were gone?

But even if you try to spruce up this premise, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s about 15 years too late to be relevant, and is handled about as subtly as a rowing paddle to the face. Not to mention THE GODDAMN FUCKING LANGUAGE. I kid, but it really does feel like the writers are falling back on “swearing = mature humor”, when even South Park has proven that it’s anything but. We’re following tweens here, but at least with these three, they act and talk they’ve all already been to Vietnam.

So far, we’ve had a standard pilot, a promising follow-up, and now our first major misstep episode. On average, things look pretty even right now, but we still have seven episodes to go this season, and two before the break. I’d like to think my faith wasn’t misplaced in this show, but I won’t be surprised if I’m wrong.

SCORE
4/10