Review: Camp Camp “Dial M for Jasper”

Nightmare on Jasperween 3: Season of the Final Chapter.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

While dreaming of his favorite vegetation, David is suddenly haunted by the phantasm of his old camping buddy Jasper. Max, Neil, and Nikki soon find out, and realize that the Jasper they met on Spooky Island has actually been a ghost this whole time. They learn from the Quartermaster that he and David were friends, but Jasper disappeared on the island while there with David. They go to the island to confront Jasper, who decides to tell them exactly what happened.

In a series of non-diegetic flashbacks following the events shown in “Jasper Dies at the End”, a freshly converted Davey tries convincing a newly jaded Jasper that the camp is great!…just in time to find out the camp is shutting down. In a last ditch effort, Cameron Campbell sends the two to go find his “ideas folder” in his office on the normal sounding REGULAR Island. The two kids start arguing about what exactly happened last episode until they find the ideas folder. On the way back, Jasper goes looking for incriminating stuff to get Campbell arrested with Davey running off to tattle. While taking pictures, Jasper accidentally sets off some dynamite and is blown to bits, thus becoming the spirit the kids see before them. Making it back, Davey gives Campbell the idea to make the camp for “everything”, helping it to become the camp we know today.

Finishing his story, Japser reveals he just wanted to apologize to David for how things ended, but when the kids try to explain things, it turns out that David doesn’t even know his friend is dead. The kids decide it’s best to just tell him about the apology and leave it at that.

Meanwhile, at Super Guantanamo, Campbell tells the Miller agents that David was the one who came up with the idea, convincing them to look into imprisoning him instead.

OUR TAKE

Not gonna lie, when I saw the credits song listed on the RT Schedule page, my first guess was that this would be an episode centering on the Thai kid of the foreign exchange group. Turns out not only was it NOT about him, those three are still gone for some reason! We know they didn’t take the cyanide from the end AND that they can’t go back to their respective countries because of their failure, so where did they go? Are they coming back? Or at least being given a reason to leave?

Which leads into my main issue with THIS episode, particularly how this show doesn’t seem to know when to choose to be episodic and when to try having an overarching plot. You’re going to have a hard time convincing me that Jasper’s death, of all things, was a mystery that fans were clamoring to have solved. Jasper’s a fine character who spews 90’s anachronisms (which are surprisingly absent this time), but I wouldn’t say he can really be given this level of significance without it seeming a bit overplayed. I get that he’s connected to David’s past and the shadiness of the camp, but we’re already fully aware that Campbell is a shady A-F guy who will scam, cheat, and double cross people on a global scale to make that extra dough and save his own hide. Heck, we already saw he didn’t care that much about Jasper or ANYONE who isn’t immediately useful to him. The only actual significant information here is how Jasper died and that David kinda came up with the idea for Camp Camp in order to set up Campbell using it to get him arrested. So, this episode only really serves as a set up for a later story, and ends up being pretty weak on its own as a result.

The flashbacks are also handled rather oddly here. Aside from a couple near the end, the side story of Davey and Jasper just seems to pop out of nowhere, with no clear idea of whose perspective this information is coming from. It never gets to the same level as the RWBY episode “Kuroyuri”, where they didn’t even bother with a framing device, but we know from “Jasper Dies at the End” that they KNOW how to make flashbacks with framing devices, so what was stopping them here?

Aside from probably leading to a prison-themed Season Finale, I don’t know for sure where this planned story arc is going, but I still have some ideas on how this episode could’ve better served that. Since this “revelation” of Jasper’s death couldn’t really hold the episode on its own, this could’ve been bundled in closer to the end in order to feel more like part of a bigger whole. I also would’ve had the kids taking David to see Jasper, seeing how he only started haunting David to attempt at resting in peace, which I can’t say for sure if he is now. It just seems like we’re pointlessly delaying the inevitable, but I’m eager to see the show prove me wrong. Hopefully, Jasper episodes don’t become a tradition for this show, and we can let this spirit pass on with the end of this trilogy.