Review: The Great North “Woodfellas Adventure”

Overview:

Lone Moose is preparing for the annual “Cavalcade of Ships” contest, where they and the neighboring towns all transform one of their boats into a float and have them compete to see which is best. The town is not optimistic about their chances, however, because the town of Death Cliff has claimed victory for the last 10 years in a row. The Tobin’s boat just so happens to be chosen for the contest, and the family prepares for, as Honeybee describes it: “A silly contest with a meaningless prize but we all care an insane amount about it.”

Our Take:

One distinct trend I’ve been noticing with this season thus far is a large number of contests and festivals that are either inherently absurd or get twisted in some way as to make them absurd and this episode is no different. This episode’s particular brand of absurdity comes courtesy of Wolf, who searches the town archives to look for commonality among the winners. He eventually comes to the conclusion that for every Cavalcade of Ships, the actual crafting skill of the boat was irrelevant, and the only factor that determined who won was how hot they were, and thus, the town goes on a search for the hottest man alive.

The search is the main crux of the episode, and where all the laughs come in. They do auditions with a bunch of men who all look good, but have one ridiculous flaw that undermines their sex appeal. Determining that no man in Lone Moose is suitably sexy enough, he is forced to resort to less ethical methods to find his hunk, not that that stops him from being mondo horny for the results. Seeing people get unironically horny for inanimate objects will never not be funny. I feel like there could have been more variety in their search methods though, there are plenty of opportunities for jokes with this idea that they left on the table.

Speaking of jokes left on the table, I’d have expected the other competitors to play a more active role in the narrative, at the very least the captain of the Death Cliff boat, but they don’t. They only come into play at the very end, which I felt was kind of strange. It made sense to me to have him make at least a cameo appearance before the big finale, maybe hinting that he’s also doing some wacky bullshit in an attempt to win. I think that might have worked better but can hardly blame them for spending their time where they chose to spend it.

Another wholesome subplot with Ham occurs in this episode, something which The Great North consistently excels with. His relationship is nuanced and feels very realistic, and he’s just a very likable guy. There’s still a hint of that trademark wackiness, but the series knows when to pump the breaks on the crazy when it isn’t needed, another thing that I like about it.

“Woodfellas Adventure” is another solid episode that delivers just what people want out of this Alaskan family, massive crazy hijinx that still knows when to cool things down and deliver a more heartwarming narrative. It’s a good episode, and just like the hunky captain that the episode revolves around, one struggles to look away from it.