Review: Camp Camp “Who Peed the Lake?”

They will be tried before a jury of their pee-ers!

Overview

After an eventful breakfast, Gwen takes the kids to the lake for a swim day. Since David took Cameron out to see his probation officer, the kids seem to be worry free — until someone pees in the water.

Max — who sat swim day out — becomes a detective in order to track down who could have done it. He questions each kid individually, starting with Space Kid, who he accuses of not knowing swim etiquette. He accuses Gwen, who directs him to Harrison. Harrison never left the lake, but he swears he was only trying to perfect his magic trick there. Max — realizing the campers found breakfast to be exciting because they’d gotten a shipment of Capri Moons — deduces that Ered must have filled up on the drinks due to the number of empty pouches. Her alibi is that Nikki shared them all with her, which leaves Max perplexed again. Dolph gives him the tip-off that Nurf could have done it because of all the “contest,” but Nurf refuses to clarify what this means and scares Max away.

Lastly is Preston, who declares he’s unsure of what happened. This leaves Neil feeling guilty, and he confesses. However, Max finds the truth: they all peed. Shockingly, though, everyone gets Max to admit that he can’t swim, and they use this as blackmail to keep the pee scandal a secret from David (who’d otherwise be sure to give Max lessons.)

Our Take

As far as low-brow humor goes, this could have been a lot worse.

The plot managed to squeeze every single character (except Quartermaster) in. With the added help of David and Cameron not being in attendance, this gave the kids yet another opportunity to shine as individuals in another “campers” based episode — which also gave each talented VA an equal spotlight, too.

Expressions continue to be one of the more noticeable aspects of the animation improvements. A blushier Neil and adorable Fortnite dances from Nerris are extremely welcome. It’s little touches such as those that add a lot of charm to the show, without making modern references seem like an attempt to fit in with the young people™.

Speaking of adorable kid moments — the “Max can’t swim” reveal was a pretty nice character moment. Getting Max to open up about anything is a challenge, so this seemed pretty relevant to his emotional openness to the rest of the campers. Is that character development we smell? It’s a wonder if this little detail will become “plot relevant” or not, too.

Speaking of plot relevance…what was that whole bit about losing a camper “to the sea?” It would be one thing if it was mentioned only once as a joke, but it was referenced on David’s clipboard as well. Could this mean not one, but two children died at Camp Campbell? It’s sometimes hard to decipher what’s actually important in this show, among all its silliness. Can’t wait for yet another child-death plot bomb that could easily be executed to its full emotional potential, only for the writing to get tonal erectile dysfunction half-way through, leaving us with yet another prematurely thought-out ending!

Final thought: at the end of the episode where Max solves the case — humiliating all the campers at the docks — what on earth was the ultimatum supposed to be? The campers threatened to tell David that Max can’t swim, in exchange for…what? Max had already gotten what he wanted, which was to embarrass everyone. There was really no point in making Max take back what he said because no one was really singled out. What, were they worried he was going to tell someone about it? Everyone he knows is right in front of him! Just as he said: they’re all disgusting. It just makes more sense to feel camaraderie in that, since no one can really make fun of each other when everyone did it.

A question to the writers: What happens when a camp tent is pitched, but the stakes are forgotten?

It falls.