Review: The Great North “Period Piece Adventure”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Judy is excited when the principal of her school announces that the students will get to paint a mural on the wall in a hallway, but she’s quickly annoyed by the fact that none of her fellow painters are on board with her artistic ideas. Meanwhile the rest of the family is involved in helping Beef clear his name after he’s accused of vandalism in the local paper.

Our Take:

This week’s episode of The Great North finds Judy trying to paint a masterpiece of a mural while Wolf, Honeybee, and Moon go on the hunt to clear Beef’s name when he’s accused of a terrible crime. It’s a solid episode for the most part, but doesn’t feel like it’ll go down as being very memorable against other stronger contenders in the first season so far.

Judy’s artistic endeavors are a great way to get the ball rolling while also allowing us to see more of what makes her tick. While many artists might choose to get philosophical or political in their work, Judy is the type of gal who just wants to have fun without creating a ton of controversy. She just wants to paint a bunch of fingers on the wall, but when the subject of the outdated menstruation products in the woman’s room is brought up, everyone else latches on to the idea of creating an art work to bring attention to the need for change.

This leads to a weird plot twist that reveals an important school official is involved in running the company that makes the older feminine products. It’s set up like a big smoking gun, but really only serves to get Judy more invested in creating the protest piece; it turns out to be no big deal. I wish the episode had just cut this and made Beef’s subplot more meaty — it mainly consists of Wolf, Honeybee, and Moon following a trail of clues to find out who kicked over a garden gnome.

Despite a few missteps here and there, I am a big fan of the overarching moral message of the episode: everyone who likes to make art is an artist. (I might even go more broad with that definition, but that’s just me.) Judy may not be a deep thinker when it comes to conveying messages through her paintings, but that’s okay, and it’s a nice thing to put out into the world.

Period Piece Adventure does a good job with the main storyline, which is mostly interesting and also pretty funny. (“I am so mad at myself for quitting this club.”) I wasn’t as big a fan of the B plot, which felt kind of like a spiritual repeat of when Wolf and Moon went on their trading spree a few weeks back. Regardless, I think it’s safe to call this episode a work of art, right?