Review: Camp Camp “Ered Gets Her Cool Back”

Girl, girl, crazy girl. Get cool, girl!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Max and friends remark at how boring camp life has been in recent weeks when Ered, the picture of confidence, skates in…and proceeds to trip and sprain her ankle, humiliating herself in front of everyone and irreparably damaging her reputation. While Max plays the rest of the kids like puppets into trying to fill the coolness vacuum, Ered tries reclaiming her place on the cool throne by attempting a super dangerous stunt on abandoned equipment. She’s soon joined by Nerris, who assures her that she was coolest when she didn’t care what other people thought of her, which helps her to not do the stunt and feel better, becoming the coolest once again.

OUR TAKE

I suppose it was inevitable that the other campers would be getting more focus episodes now that everyone’s already gotten a turn. Well, I say that, but the majority of the first two seasons were really more about the main cast (Max, Neil, Nikki, David, and Gwen) REACTING to problems caused by the rest. I can only count a handful out of the past 20+ episodes that actually had a secondary camper be the focus as opposed to just being the instigator. Hence why, while the fourth episode, “Camp Cool Kidz” had Ered’s major trait of being “the cool one” overtaking the episode, this one is more clearly about her going through an arc about what that trait means. I’m making it sound more complex than it is since it’s the tried and tested “don’t care about what people think and just be yourself” moral that is more than a little dated, but I guess it’s always worth repeating every once in a while. This does make me wonder what else there really is to DO with Ered now, but this could mean she’s out of rotation for getting the spotlight for the foreseeable future, so maybe they were just getting the one with the least potential out of the way before they moved onto other campers.

Though I will say that she and Nerris were not a duo I would’ve ever imagined to happen, and we probably have a ton of shipping fanart of them incoming now. I was always hoping for more episodes about her rivalry with Harrison, but I guess there’s nothing stopping those from still happening. I’m just drawing a blank on, again, where this newfound friendship (or whatever it becomes beyond that) could develop or progress, aside from if they have a proper D&D episode including Ered, which I would be all for. Heck, maybe they could have an actual D&D game in character and just turn into an episode. Maybe guest starring Felicia Day or Matt Mercer or Dan Harmon? A couple weeks ago, I’d probably never give that a second thought, but now that they have Michael B. Jordan, anything’s possible!

In miscellaneous thoughts, I really didn’t care for Max’s dickishness this episode. I know he’s meant to be that way on default, but just “trying to make things interesting” is a pretty flimsy motivation. Just last episode, he pulled a scheme that got David and Gwen mercilessly beaten in order to sathe ve camp, and now he just wants everyone to make fools of themselves? I guess he doesn’t want to escape anymore, but what DOES he want then? Is he just an asshole for asshole’s sake? I’m not certain sympathetic traits are entirely necessary for a schemer character, but a clear idea of what they WANT probably is.

And it’s always nice to hear more Travis Willingham, reassuring me that, even if Cameron Campbell might be away from the camp for a long time, we’ll always have reason to bring back his charming vocals. Other than that, this episode is kinda lackluster in comparison to the premiere and the last finale, but I suppose a slump is acceptable this early in the season as long as it’s not the start of a trend.