Recap / The Great North S1E6 "Pride & Prejudance Adventure"

RECAP:
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Original air date: March 14, 2021

Written by: Charlie Kelly
Directed by: Neil Graf

Judy asks Crispin to the annual Thomas Winterbone Dance, the most romantic dance of the school year, not realizing he's got eyes for Ham and he only agrees to go with Judy because Ham is going too. Meanwhile, Beef's brother, Brian, comes up for a visit from Anchorage to conduct a business deal and Beef is having trouble bonding with him.

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Tropes:

• An Aesop: Be Yourself/let others be themselves. As Thomas explains, the time he and Ruby lived were very against gay couples, so they pretended to be a couple. Due to Ruby's father wanting Thomas to prove himself, he ended up dying pretending to be someone and trying to marry someone he didn't love and who didn't love him. This leads to Judy realizing she needs to let her fantasy with Crispin go and allow Ham to be with him instead.
  • The B plot has shades of the same. As much as Beef misses Brian, Brian wasn't happy living in Lone Moose or fishing and hunting. He became much happier after he moved and got a big retail job. Beef learns that, even if it means they can't hang out like they used to, he needs to accept that he and Brian are different and don't like the same things.
• As You Know: Alanis insists she already knows the history of the school dance, but Judy is so wired on caffeine that she tells it to her anyway.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Beef almost falls off a chair while hanging up a “welcome back” sign for his brother. Wolf catches him and says, “You could have died! Or ripped the banner!”
• Bait-and-Switch: “Well, Crispin said ‘yes!’ … To making me these smoothies.”
• Be Yourself: The moral of the episode. Thomas Winterbone and Ruby were both gay and planning to get married to cover it up. Thomas died alone in a snowstorm trying to get approval for the marriage, and Judy's imagined version of him regrets that he died trying to appease the other people in town.
• Brainy Brunette: Brian’s daughter, Becca, has dark brown hair and is always reading a book. “Can I at least finish this page?” is basically her catchphrase.
• Brick Joke: When Ham and Crispin first meet, Ham lists all the classes they have together, which is a lot since it's a small school. When Ham turns him away at the dance, Crispin says, "Goodbye, Ham Tobin. I'll see you in every single class."
• The Cameo: Leslie Jordan voices Judy's vision of Thomas Wintersbone.
• The City vs. the Country: The B-plot conflict. Beef is happier in small town Lone Moose and doesn't understand why Brian likes Anchorage so much. Brian tells Beef he wasn't happy growing up in Lone Moose and has gotten a lot more comfortable in the big city.
• Couch Gag: The boat in the opening is Are You There, Cod? It’s Me, Margaret.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Judy calls Crispin “the hottest mall hottie in the mall” in the first scene.
• Don't Explain the Joke: Beef explaining the glow-in-the-dark fishing lures. It’s like a disco for the fish. A goodbye disco. Because they kill the fish.
• Falling-in-Love Montage: Judy, Ham, and Crispin go through one during school, but it mostly resolves around Ham and Crispin and Judy is too oblivious to notice the attraction between them.
• High-School Dance: Though it's apparently an all-ages dance (since Moon also goes), The Thomas Wintersbone Memorial Ladies' Choice Dance fits the bill. Like a Sadie Hawkins' Dance, the girls invite the guys inside, and guys going stag have to stand outside in the snow for an hour in homage to Thomas Wintersbone’s blizzard death.
• Hypocritical Humor: Moon tells Brian his work clothes make him look like a lunatic.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Inverted. Crispin shows up at the Tobins’ house because he wanted to give Judy her Smoothie Boss receipt from earlier so he would have an excuse to hang out with Ham.
• Incompatible Orientation: While Judy has a crush on Crispin, he's not interested in her and only has eyes for Ham, who reciprocates his feelings.
• Incredibly Lame Fun: Brian lets Beef press "send" on his work emails to make him feel more involved. Beef gets into it.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Platonic Version. When Crispin first kisses Ham, Judy sees them and gets upset. Ham then tells Crispin that he can't hurt Judy's feelings like this and leaves. Then after Judy learns the true story of Thomas Winterbone, she realizes that she shouldn’t waste her time on someone who won’t reciprocate her feelings and gives Ham her blessing to date Crispin.
• Just Friends: Judy and Gill Beavers, her "best platonic male friend" who she usually invites to the dance. Both of them decide to dance together at the end.
• Karma Houdini: In order to stop the dance at her school to tell them the truth of Thomas Wintersbone, Judy pulls the fire alarm, which is illegal if it's not pulled for real emergencies. But despite that, she isn't punished for pulling that stunt.
• Once More, with Clarity: The story of Thomas Winterbone is told again, only now with the reveal that he and his fiancée were both gay and only marrying each other as a front. Suddenly, having two cabins to "contain their love" and Ruby spending her remaining years living with her "best friend" makes much more sense.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title is a shoutout to Pride and Prejudice.
• Repeated Cue, Tardy Response: Before the students can enter the dance, everyone stands outside the school and the girls announce the boys who are their date to come inside with them. When it's Judy's turn, she announces Crispin to come inside with her, but when she repeats his name a few times she sees that he's having a snowball fight with Ham.
• Romance-Inducing Smudge: During a montage, Ham gets mustard on his face at lunch, and Crispin wipes it off. Judy tries invoking this by putting mustard on herself, but Crispin just gestures to her that she has food on her face.
• Selective Obliviousness: Judy is too infatuated with Crispin to notice he and Ham are in love with each other, even as the clues become more obvious. It's only when she sees them kissing at the dance that it finally dawns on her.
• Shaped Like Itself: "Welcome to Chez Ham. We call it that because it’s my chez."
• Shout-Out: Two of the stores in the Lone Moose Mall are Suit-Suit-Suit-E-O and Stretches with Wolves Yoga Supplies.
• Sibling Triangle: Judy and Ham both like Crispin, who only likes Ham. At the end of the episode, Judy decides to bow out because she realizes that Crispin won’t like her back no matter what she tries.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Thomas Winterrbone's ultimate fate. Being that Thomas was a schoolteacher with a focus on the arts, he would have no idea how to survive in the woods. When he accepts Ruby's father's challenge to survive one month alone in the wilderness, he immediately freezes to death in a blizzard without having even started making a shelter.
• That Came Out Wrong: When Alyson asks Judy why doesn't she take Gill Beavers to the dance again when she wants to invite Crispin instead:
  Judy: Gill's too sweet. And Steven Huang was a dry run. But this is a wet run.
  Alyson: Politely, I don't think you know what you're saying.
• Third Wheel: Judy is too infatuated with Crispin to realize she’s doing this every time he and Ham are trying hang out with each other.
  • Non-romantic example. Beef comes along with Brian to his business dinner, where he makes the client uncomfortable with hunting stories and sticking his fingers on his drink to demonstrate how Brian's hot tubs work.

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♫ Perfect seashell butterballs
Don't just stand there by the wall
Perfect seashell butterballs
Let's get naughty-cal
Come on!
Fun and creamy, round and rich
From the ocean to your lips
From the shores of Waikiki
To the bowl in front of me
Clinging to the hulls of ships
Everybody shake your hips
Perfect seashell butterballs
Don't be a flower on the wall
Perfect seashell butterballs
Let's get naughty-cal
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
Now you're eating butter with a pal. ♫

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