Review: Corner Gas Animated “Bliss and Make-Up”

 

 

Overview:

The big town yard sale is coming up, and everyone is getting ready.

Lacey is minimalizing in hopes of finding bliss. But after attempting to get Brent onboard to no avail, she ends up purging more than was necessary.

Wanda is collecting Hank’s old stuff to try and make some money. Unfortunately, Hank may not be the best person to borrow things from.

And, after Davis discovers the wonders of Karen’s skincare routine, he uses up the expensive cream while sharing with Oscar and Emma. The trio attempt to recreate the magical remedy but end up making a delicious salad dressing.

 

Our Take:

We are now in the final few episodes of Corner Gas Animated’s third season. Though the series has found its groove and has been delivering some of its best episodes, this one failed to hit the mark.

The episode about cleaning and minimalism is a mess with three competing plots, none of which depend on the other. The show could have taken its own message and minimized the amount going on in the 22-minute runtime to deliver something much more clean and joyful.

The main plot focuses on Lacey, who has discovered a new love for a minimalist lifestyle. And of course, she tries to force it on Brent, the sceptic of all things. Though the plot leads to the silly gag of The Ruby running out of dishes to serve food on, there was not much point to the story. In fact, the moral seems to say that purging is dangerous. But that does not make much sense and would have done better had Brent appreciated cleaning his space, or at least made a pretty penny at the community yard sale.

Speaking of which, the yard sale could have done with more focus in the episode. Hank and Wanda’s changing hands of random appliances was a good plot for the two characters. And this was the most enjoyable part of the episode. But typically, when something like this is occurring in Dog River all of the characters play a part in one way or another. Instead, Brent ignores the sale completely, and Oscar and Emma were shoehorned into it out of convenience.

The C-plot involving Davis, Oscar, and Emma clearing out Karen’s skincare ointments was a decent side adventure had there not been so much other stuff filling up the episode. 

Equally, this plot did not get the necessary screen time to deliver a satisfying conclusion. The results of the homebrew make-up could have been cleverer, and the profit of selling it could have paid off the debt to Karen.

The line between a good Corner Gas Animated episode and a sloppy one are quite clear. A strong one will impose one theme and message and have all of the cast of characters working within those limits to create a singular cohesive plot. While the series loses its lustre when there are too many things going on, and plots are added just to get characters on screen. Unfortunately, this episode falls under the latter. Instead of considering cleaning up a waste of time, this series would favour the odd minimalist approach.