Review: The Great North “Dead Moon Walking Adventure”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The Tobin family is pumped about heading out of town to visit their favorite hole-in-the-wall buffet, but first they’ve got to make a stop at the Log Museum and work up an appetite. But while they’re there, Beef finds out that the museum is going to be forced to close soon and proceeds to enact a brilliant plan to relocate the building to their family land. Meanwhile, Moon sees Debbie with a doll and tries to avoid getting pee punched by his frenemy.

Our Take:

After a brief break due to the Grammy’s, The Great North is back on this week with a brand-new episode. Dead Moon Walking Adventure is a pretty standard episode of the show, chronicling Moon’s perilous middle school mayhem along with one of Beef’s stupidly brilliant plans. There are some fun moments throughout, but overall, it’s not going to go down as a season standout.

Everything starts when the family takes a roadtrip to a hidden hole-in-the-wall area that boasts not only a little-used buffet restaurant, but a first class log museum as well. The museum itself is pretty tame, with log and sticks and stuff, but it’s nostalgic for Beef, so it makes sense that he’s so distraught when he learns about the so-called peril the museum is in.

His plan to save the museum consists of hoisting the building onto logs, tying it to the family van, and towing it all the way back to their land. It’s a pretty dumb plan all things considered, which makes it kind of out of character that everyone else in the family goes along with it, but hey, at least it makes for a solid silly side storyline.

Moon’s half of the ep is what I would classify as the main story, and it’s definitely a little more engaging as a viewer. While the Tobin’s are at the buffet, Moon spots Debbie out with her mom—and a doll. As his best frenemy, it’s Debbie’s duty to beat Moon up before he can tell anyone about the embarrassing spectacle.

Moon and his two other friends spend most of the episode trying to come up with ways to get Debbie off his case. Ranging from trying to shift blame to someone else to trying to appeal to her emotions, Moon’s exploits as he tries to escape her wrath are slightly funny. I think it would help a little more if his two friends had any sort of substance, but unfortunately I find them both really flat and generic.

The best part of the episode for me was when Moon broke down and went to visit Debbie’s mom. She was a blast, and their conversation and interaction was genuinely funny, especially when she advises him to go around the back and jump the fence to avoid her daughter’s imminent return. The payoff that Debbie is mean because she was held back a grade and got laughed at for being too small herself isn’t out of left field, but it’s a nice explanation that neatly ties her motivation up while giving us a great line about why she wears skates. (To be tall and have a weapon.)

Dead Moon Walking Adventure definitely isn’t going to end up on my list of favorite episodes this season, but it was an alright enough return for the show after that short hiatus. It feels like the series is focusing a bit more on Moon this season, and while I’m glad for the chance to explore lesser used characters, I have to admit that I’m not sure he’s as engaging as his fellow family members. Even his voice is just always so even-keel that maybe it’s harder to get excited about what he’s excited about? I don’t know, but that’s what’s on my mind after having two Moon episodes in the last handful of stories.