Recap / The Great North S1E11 "My Fart Will Go on Adventure"

RECAP:
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Original air date: May 16, 2021

Written by: Laura Hooper Beck & Mike Olsen
Directed by: Will Strode

Wolf and Honeybee's wedding is coming up and Wolf discovers that their mother, Kathleen, is thinking about attending it. Not wanting her to ruin the wedding and not wanting Honeybee and her family to know about their mother, the Tobins try to have a decoy wedding for Kathleen to attend so she doesn't come to the real wedding. Meanwhile, Honeybee is trying to get a cast member from the film Titanic (1997) to make a special appearance for their Titanic-themed wedding.

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Tropes:

• Accidental Misnaming: Honeybee's grandma calls Beef "Keith" because she doesn't believe his name is real.
• Back for the Finale: Some of the characters who appeared in episodes throughout Season One, such as Londra from "Sexi Moose Adventure", Drama John and Bethany from "Period Piece Adventure" and Honeybee's parents from "Avocado Barter Adventure" come back to attend the wedding.
• Bait-and-Switch: Near the end of the wedding ceremony, a blond woman shows up, loudly asking if she's late and where the cocktail bar is. It then turns out that it's not Kathleen, it's the surprise guest that Honeybee invited, the now-grown woman who played the little girl Cal used to get onto the lifeboats in Titanic (1997). After Wolf fangirls over her a bit (since she plays his second-favorite background character in the movie), the ceremony finishes up without a hitch.
• Bittersweet Ending: Kathleen doesn't show up at the wedding, instead heading to Tulsa to get drunk. While the Tobin kids are relieved she didn't come and cause a scene, they're also disappointed that their mom couldn't be bothered to attend such an important life event for Wolf. Beef assures them that it's okay to be sad and to also appreciate everyone who did come to the wedding.
  Beef: Being filled with dread that Kathleen will appear and then disappointment when she doesn't is normal. And terrible. And normal. I know what you're going through, but look around - everyone that is supposed to be here is. This is a good day. It is Kathleen who is missing out.
• Call-Back: When the Tobins are planning the shadow wedding, they're all wearing their "Party Posse" hats from "Avocado Barter Adventure" with the word "Emergency" written on and taped over the "Party" section.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Wolf and Judy keep inadvertently giving away that Kathleen might be coming to the wedding; first to Ham and Moon, then to Beef. In the third instance, Wolf decides to tell Honeybee and her family about Kathleen and the planned shadow wedding, but then it turns out that they already overheard everything.
  Ham: [happily] Oh, good! Now they already know!
• Continuity Nod:
  • Ham and Crispin are still a couple after "Pride and Prejudance Adventure".
  • Judy and her brothers discuss Kathleen RSVPing in the panic room, last seen in "Avocado Barter Adventure"
• Couch Gag: The ship in the opening is named License to Eel.
• Daddy Didn't Show: Wolf accidentally invites their mother to his wedding and he, along with the other Tobins, freak out and they planned a shadow wedding in the event she does show up. In the end, the Tobins didn't go through with the shadow wedding and Kathleen didn't even show up to the wedding. But despite being relieved, the Tobin kids are disappointed that their own mother didn't show up to Wolf's special day.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The lyrics of the song that plays while Beef shows the Shaws around Lone Moose.
  Take a look around / Look at all the stuff / Stuff that you can look at, go on and look at it!
• Distinction Without a Difference: After Kathleen skipped out on Wolf's wedding, Ham said he isn't sad she didn't show up, he just has a hollow, lonely feeling in the pit of his stomach.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Wolf tells Judy what's going on, he shows her what's on his phone, letting her read it until she realizes what the problem is.
  Judy: Oh, a late RSVP to the wedding, and it's a maybe. So someone isn't sure if they're coming to the wedding, no big deal, and it's from — Kathleen Tobin?! Oh my God! Mom? What? WHAT?!
• Fake Period Excuse: When Wolf quietly signals Judy away from the Tobins to talk to her in private, Judy claims to the others that she's having "woman issues" as an excuse to leave.
  Wolf: Did they suspect anything?
  Judy: Nope. I exited smoothly with a perfect lie about my vagina.
• Geeky Turn-On: Alyson gets hot and bothered watching Beef tie a constrictor knot during the wedding ceremony.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Wolf gets pretty creative with the f-words he uses when he first tells Judy Kathleen might be coming to the wedding.
• Group Picture Ending: The episode ends with the Tobins and the Shaws doing the Jack and Rose's "I'm Flying" pose from Titanic while Judy sets a timer on her camera to capture the moment.
• Heroic BSoD: Beef has one when he finds out about Kathleen possibly showing up to the wedding. While we don't see most of it, it consisted of him locking himself in his room while he moaned a lot.
• Love Allegory:
  • Once the Shaws find out about Kathleen's maybe RSVP, Honeybee points out that it actually works out in a weird way:
    Honeybee: We're having a Titanic-themed wedding, and your mom is our iceberg! And if she tries to ruin our wedding, and we get married and we stay married anyway, then we're the Unsinkable Molly Brown. It's proof that we can survive anything together!
    Wolf: We'll be even stronger than Jack and Rose, because Jack voluntarily drowned near a door.
  • During the wedding, Beef and Ruth gives a speech on how they describe love. Beef uses a constrictor knots to describe it while Ruth uses blind brackets to describe it. Then Judy does a performance with Ham and Crispin where she wears a iceberg costume and Ham and Crispin dance with glow sticks to describe true love.
• The Maiden Name Debate: When the wedding ceremony finishes, Jerry (who officiated the ceremony) introduces the newlyweds as "Mr. and Mrs. Wolf and Honeybee Shaw-Tobin", revealing that both of them decided to hyphenate their last names.
• Manly Tears: Beef and Louis both shed these during the wedding.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: When the Shaws bring up an example of them not being a perfect family for the Tobins, Ruth brings up the time Louis, after eating some egg salad, farted on their couch one time 17 years ago. Apparently, his fart smelled so bad that Ruth called the fire department because she thought there was an electrical fire in the walls and they tried to reupholster their couch but the smell was too deep in so they had to get rid of it. According to Louis, Ruth and Honeybee's grandma have never let him forget it.
• Orphaned Punchline: When telling the Shaws some of Kathleen's terrible moments to explain why she'll ruin the wedding if she shows up, Moon concludes his story with Kathleen pantsing the sheriff when she couldn't calm down at his science fair and then she took the sheriff's gun and he had to return his science ribbon.
• Platonic Declaration of Love: At the end of the episode, Beef points out to his children that Kathleen wasn't all bad, because she still did give him the four things he loves the most in the world:
  Ham: Oh, do you mean our set of limited edition Betty Boop ceramic plates?
  Beef: No, she took those with her.
  Moon: Damn it.
  Beef: I mean the four of you kids. [Tobin Group Hug ensues]
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode title is a reference to Céline Dion's song "My Heart Will Go On", which is fitting since the episode's wedding has a Titanic theme.
• Running Gag: Wolf and Judy declaring they're keeping a secret from someone, only to discover the person they're keeping the secret from is standing behind them and heard the whole secret.
• Season Finale: The final episode of Season One.
• Serious Business: Honeybee and Jerry are horrified that Moon had to give back his science fair ribbon as a result of Kathleen's actions.
• Sham Wedding: Judy considers having a "shadow wedding" to lure Kathleen away from the real wedding. However, after the Shaws find out about Kathleen possibly showing up to the wedding, Honeybee points out that they shouldn't let her try to ruin the wedding whether or not she does show up, allowing the real wedding to go on as planned.
• Shout-Out:
  • Wolf and Honeybee made the theme of their wedding Titanic (1997).
  • Moon asks if basing the wedding around Titanic is a good idea and wonders if they should base it around a more cheerful boat movie like Captain Ron or Hope Floats.
  • The song the men's choir sings about Wolf and Honeybee's relationship to start the wedding is a parody of "The Monster Mash."
• Snobs Vs Slobs: Downplayed; The Tobins are worried about the Shaws finding out about Kathleen possibly showing up to the wedding because they don't want to have the day ruined for Honeybee or her "perfect family" (because of their successful curtain store and their perfect slacks). Fortunately, when the Shaws find out, they reveal that they aren't perfect either and also have some "unique people" in their family (Such as Ruth's cousin who swears that she's the Zodiac Killer even though the timeline doesn't match up). This helps convince the Tobins to not have the shadow wedding to lure Kathleen away if she does show up.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: Wolf and Honeybee's wedding vows consist of their favorite movie quotes.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite the fact the Tobin kids are relieved that Kathleen skipped out on the wedding and they always speak negative about her, they still feel sad she didn't show up because despite her terrible actions she's still their mother who (probably) raised since birth so it's understandable for them to still feel a little attachment to her.
• Tempting Fate: Moon points out that basing the wedding on Titanic (1997) is just inviting disaster. And then Wolf learns that Kathleen RSVPed. Ultimately subverted, as Kathleen doesn't show up and everything goes completely smoothly.
• Third-Act Misunderstanding: Defied. The Shaw family walks in right as Wolf says he’s marrying two women in one day because the Tobins are basically no-good grifters with a terrible family secret right before the commercial break. Despite the setup for a conflict, after the commercial break, the Tobins have just finished explaining everything to the Shaws, and the Shaws accept their explanation and help them un-plan the shadow wedding.
• The Un-Reveal: Despite Kathleen having considered attending the wedding, she never appears and we don't get to see her present day look, outside of an Imagine Spot where her face is either obscured or shown in an extreme close-up.
• Wedding Finale: The Season One finale ends with the wedding of Wolf and Honeybee.
• Wedding Smashers: The Tobins fear that Kathleen might show up to the wedding and disrupt it. Ultimately, she decides to head to Tulsa to get drunk instead.

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Jandon, it's your aunt, Alyson. This song is for you.
♫ Jandon, I don't know you from a stranger on the street
But I keep on hoping one day we'll meet
I don't know what you're into, is it sports? Or is it trains?
Do you like burritos? Or do you love chow mein?
Oh, Jandon, where are you? You could be anywhere
Jandon, who are you? We haven't met as far as I'm aware
Guess I may never know ya
But I hope you get this "best nephew" shirt I stole ya. ♫

—Alyson

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