Review: Big City Greens “Present Tense; Hurt Bike”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
“Present Tense”
It’s Remy’s birthday! Cricket attempts to rack up enough tickets to get his bestie the best gift ever, while Gramma sets off on a Saving Private Ryan style mission to retrieve a lost child before his orthodontist appointment. Bill and Tilly attempt to play a game together, but are divided by their wildly different views on moles

“Hurt Bike”
Nancy relieves the kids’ boredom by gifting them a dirt bike, but things go awry after Cricket’s typical antics result in near catastrophe. Cricket attempts to learn safety from Bill, while Tilly attempts to forge a connection with the bike after her Mom rebuilds it.

Our Take:

A Remy centric episode that manages to give every family member some interesting screen time plus some unexpected character development for Cricket? This week’s episodes manage to pack all of that material and more into their usual run time.

The family heads to Snuggly Pete’s, this world’s Chuck E. Cheese equivalent, which manages to be a quick reminder of the kind of pre-pandemic grossness we tolerated from kid’s arcades. The main quest in “Present Tense” is set in motion when Cricket realizes his gift pales in comparison to Remy’s other presents, and vows to win the 10,000 tickets necessary for the arcade’s top prize, Big Rex. Save for Gramma’s intense mission fueled by an unexpected war flashback and resulting in retrieving a kid who’s gone full Lord of the Flies feral, there’s minimal shenanigans (by Green family standards) but Cricket still manages to miss the point of celebrating his friend’s birthday up until the last second by focusing too hard on maximizing ticket wins over what Remy actually wants to do. Thankfully, after a near-tearful but stunningly well put explanation delivered with full emotions by Zeno Robinson, the two best friends are able to reconcile and enjoy the kawaii photo booth together. Seeing Bill’s “dark side” as he goes all out on “Hole-e Whack-a-Molee” is an unexpected delight, as he’s usually either suffering from his family’s antics rather than getting to let loose, even if it does cause an issue with Tilly, who thinks moles should be saved. Seeing the sometimes-shy Green girl stand up for her newfound plastic friends is a great, quick bit of character development, and comes with some great lines as well. When the father-daughter duo finally make up as well, Tilly acquiesces that air hockey is alright, because “pucks deserve to be hit.” Definitely enough sweet moments and quality jokes, like the counter attendant counting the tickets to “wow, 10,000 exactly!” to forgive this episode for giving me flashbacks of ball pit puke.

“Hurt Bike” kicks off with the kids lying around the house bored out of their minds, although Tilly dives right into the existential by suggesting that “learning to cope with the mind-numbing tedium of our own existence could be its own form of entertainment.” Nancy continues to be a bit of an agent of chaos when she brings the kids a dirt bike that she built from spare parts in her motorcycle shop. Cricket hops on with wild abandon, and jumps the bike off a plank leaned on a trash can, and suffers a near-death experience when the bike crashes and gets run over, while he’s able to bail into his mother’s arms. This close call leaves him unexpectedly shaken: “It’s like my brain’s tryin’ ta THINK before doing things? I’m going insane!” Tilly’s egg-based demonstration on the fragility of life is as succint as it is disturbing, and leads Cricket to asking his father for safety training. Bill’s “uh-oh method” unfortunately makes things worse instead of better, leading to a bubble-wrapped house and son by the time Tilly and Nancy return with the repaired dirt bike. The finale to this episode comes from Nancy’s practical advice, which is that you can’t avoid all risks, and must face the world by taking charge of your life. Surprisingly powerful stuff, accompanied by an impressive (and dare I say, Akira-inspired?) bike landing to boot.

An exceptional animation note this week comes in the way of Bill’s mouth when Tilly unplugs mole game (“baby, why did you unplug Papa’s moles?”) in “Present Tense” as well as when he responds to Nancy’s accusations he’s created a monster with the newly safety-obsessed Cricket (“maybe.”) Maybe it’s just me who finds it hilarious, but I really appreciate these small things that add to the visual humor of the show.

Nothing flashy this week, just built out character relationships in “Present Tense” and a hefty dose of life lessons in “Hurt Bike”. As this season continues, I’m impressed at how they’re still able to to develop the characters and relationships, while delivering the show’s signature lessons in an entertaining way. With their standard level of writing and art, these two episodes the perfect example of the Houghton brother’s signature combination of humor and important (but all too rarely discussed) takeaways that make this show unique.