Recap / The Great North S1E2 "Feast of Not People Adventure"

RECAP:
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Original air date: January 17, 2021

Written by: Minty Lewis
Directed by: Joel Moser

When Ham reveals that he's been secretly the new Cake Lady of Lone Moose, Judy is mad that he would keep that a secret from her since they never keep a secret from each other. For the Feast of Not People Festival, Beef considers skipping the Daver Dash since he's always wins it with his brother but Wolf wants to compete with him as his new partner and he makes plans to prepare for the race. In preparing for the Daver Dash, Moon trains Honeybee on how to act like a corpse.

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Tropes:

• Bizarre Human Biology: According to Wolf, most Tobins have claw-like hands. His are normal and "floppy," much to his detriment.
• Black Comedy: Ham made a "Death by Chocolate" cake for the funeral home, which he admits was a little inappropriate but very delicious.
• Brick Joke: One of the activities at the festival is "Guess How Many Teeth in a Jar", which Beef original planned on doing until Wolf asks him to join him in the Daver Dash. The end credits has a song dedicated to the teeth in the jar.
• Call-Back: One of Ham’s Cake Lady cakes was Judy’s Jackson Pollock-inspired birthday cake seen in the previous episode.
• Coincidental Broadcast: Ham yells at his family to stop talking about the Cake Lady, then turns on the TV to distract them. The local news is airing a "deep dive into this year’s feast cake" with the mayor, which freaks Ham out even further.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Moon says that he doesn't think that Honeybee could be quiet for five seconds, she tries to prove that she can... by loudly counting to five.
• Confusing Multiple Negatives: There's a lot of confusion around the name of the festival, even among the locals.
  Santiago: I am confused. So are we not eating people, or not not eating people now? I’m fine either way, just someone let me know.
• Contrived Coincidence: During the Daver Dash, the first two cadavers Beef and Wolf run into are Moon and Honeybee. Meanwhile, when Judy and Ham are transporting the festival's cake to the festival, their van breaks near the location where people are competing in the Daver Dash. When Judy calls for help from the Daver Dash competitors, the ones who hears her are Beef and Wolf, with them carrying Moon and Honeybee, and they go help them transport the cake.
• Couch Gag: The boat in the intro is named Deez Nauts.
• Damned by Faint Praise: In high school, the local newspaper called Honeybee’s version of Rizzo in Grease "serviceable."
• Department of Redundancy Department: When the Mayor asks Ham to cut the cake, he replies,"I'd be honored to do that honor, your honor."
• Determinator: Despite peeing his pants, messing up his hands, and crying from all the pain, Wolf powers through to do the Daver Dash. Beef knows right away that they aren’t going to win but says he’s proud of Wolf and inspired to see him giving the race his all despite his setbacks.
• Epic Fail:
  • The European settlers who founded their little Alaskan town where originally trying to get to Florida, which is in a direction as opposite to Alaska as you can get.
  • When Moon says he doesn't think Honeybee could be quiet for five seconds, she tries to prove that she can... by loudly counting to five.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Most of the festival events — Guess How Many Teeth in a Jar, Big Pit, Animal Bite Parade, and especially Identify That Thing in the Distance.
• Face Your Fears: Ham’s arc of the episode. It also inspires his final cake design — a cake shaped like a settler’s corpse to remind the town that yes, the settlers ate people and that was messed up but the current townspeople shouldn’t ignore the uncomfortable truth.
• Fingore: Wolf had his “Little Bleedies” gloves on inside out for several days. When he takes them off before the Daver Dash, his hands are mangled and scratched up.
• Foreshadowing: At the start of the episode, Beef comes inside from working on the van. He says the engine is making a weird noise but hopefully it stays fine through the weekend festival. The van breaks down right when Judy and Ham are trying to get Ham’s cake to the festival on a deadline.
• Gender-Concealing Writing: Because the town's title for their baker is "Cake Lady", everyone automatically assumes that the new mysterious Cake Lady is a woman, so everyone is shocked to learn the new Cake Lady is Ham, who's a guy. And despite his reveal, he's still referred to as the Cake Lady.
• Hard-Work Montage: Ham and Judy spends the entire night baking the cake for the festival.
• I Am a Monster: Wolf calls himself this after he discovers he has been wearing his gloves inside-out the entire time and the rough material of the glove damages his hands when Beef remove them.
  Wolf: I'm a monster! A monster covered in urine!
• "Jar of Jellybeans" Contest: One of the activities in the festival is "Guess How Many Teeth in a Jar".
• Metaphorgotten: Judy says it wouldn’t be fair to make Ham birth a Feast Day cake without a licensed midwife. Ham wonders if Judy’s trying to tell she’s a midwife now, and Judy says not yet but maybe someday after college.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: The Feast of Not People festival commemorates how the early settlers of the town (who were actually headed for Florida) resorted to cannibalism to survive the winter, before realizing there was plenty of edible wildlife around. Honeybee finds the whole concept of a festival about cannibalism confusing.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Pre-reveal, Judy and Wolf talk about how much the new Cake Lady will have to step up their game to impress the town while Ham is sitting right in between them.
• Overly Long Gag: Judy and Ham's Secret Handshake.
• Ow, My Body Part!: A woman in the crowd yells, "My eyes!" when Ham unveils his Feast Cake.
• Playing Possum: People who are playing cadavers in the Daver Dash are required to do this when the contestants finds them and carry them back to the festival. Moon gets a little too into the role and doesn't break character even when the festival is over.
• Potty Failure: Wolf hydrates too much before the Daver Dash, then can’t get his gloves off and can’t make it to the bathroom in time before the race starts.
• Shared Family Quirks: Ham and Beef both laugh to cover up when they’re farting.
• She Is the King: Gender-Inverted. After Ham reveals himself as the new, mysterious Cake Lady to the rest of the town, he’s still referred to as the Cake Lady.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Moon offers to mentor her as a cadaver, Honeybee calls him her “Obi Dead Kenobi.” She later calls him “Daniel Dead Lewis” when he refuses to break character.
  • When the van’s engine breaks down, Judy swears, “Jean Claude van Damn it!"
  • Deandra, the news reporter, calls Ham “William Cakespeare” in her final broadcast.
  • Part of Ham and Judy’s secret handshake has them reciting the opening lines of Anna Karenina.
• Something We Forgot: Moon is so committed to play a cadaver that he doesn't break character even when the rest of the family needs to help Judy and Ham with their cake. By the end of the episode, everyone forgets that Moon is still outside playing a cadaver at night.
• Supreme Chef: Ham is revealed to be this when it comes to cake and he has been baking cakes for everyone the town in secret.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Ham goes to turn in his whisk to the town mayor, but while roleplaying what will happen, he realizes no one will understand why he’s doing that since he was being the Cake Lady in secret.
• Technologically Blind Elders: Beef is not thrilled that the Cake Lady went from taking orders posted on a tree on pieces of paper to "electronic mail."
• Twin Telepathy: Parodied. Judy and Ham are "Alaskan twins", meaning they were born nine months apart (which means one was conceived right after the first was born). This is how they explain how they are so well synchronized when serving pancakes to themselves.
• Victory Is Boring: After winning the Daver Dash multiple times with his brother in previous festivals, Beef decides to skip this year's race because he lost the thrill of it but decides to compete again when Wolf wants to do it with him. After seeing Wolf's setbacks before the race and still pushing through it, Beef is happy to have the thrill of the race he was missing and doesn't mind that they won't win this year because he's proud of Wolf's determination.
• Voiceover Letter: When Judy goes to Ham's room, she finds a letter on Ham's bed and as Judy reads it, we hear Ham's voice.

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♫ There's a jar full of teeth
It's been sitting out all week
And I wish I knew how many teeth were in it
So I'll look at it and I'll focus
Because if your guess is closest
Then you get to keep the jar, that's right, you win it
And there's nothing in the world
That I couldn't do
With that big old batch
of fangs in my life
She'd be my wife
Oh, those teeth would complete me
I would kiss each one so sweetly
Oh, how many teeth can be inside that jar? ♫

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