Recap / The Great North S3E11 "Arranger-ous Minds Adventure"

RECAP:
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Original air date: January 1, 2023

Written by: Mike Olsen
Directed by: Paul Scarlata

Moon and Quinn join the Junior Janitors with Russel and they think Mr. Golovkin killed Ms. Anderson and investigate him. When they're proven wrong and they learn Ms. Anderson broke up with Mr. Golovkin because he's too organized, Moon starts to worry he might end up like him when he realizes he's the same. Meanwhile, Wolf and Honeybee plan to enter the Alaska Fisherman's Coalition calendar competition, a "whims-idermy" competition where dead animals are poised in costumes, to win the prize of a three-day stay at a bed and breakfast for the honeymoon they never had. But Beef is against the idea of using animal corpses and wants them to win without using them, which they regret because working with living animals, especially crabs, is a lot more difficult.

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Tropes:

• Auto-Incorrect: When Mr. Golovkin texted Ms. Anderson to apologize for driving her away, he apologizes again after his auto-correct changed his original text to "I'm horny. Penis forgive me".
• Call-Back:
  • Mr. Golovkin and Ms. Anderson's "secret" relationship was mentioned back in "The Yawn of the Dead Adventure [Halloween]" and everyone already knows about their relationship.
  • Russell first mentions back in "Dead Moon Walking Adventure" that he's head of the Junior Janitors, and now we see him in action, and it seems he's the only one involved before Moon and Quinn joins him.
  • Mr. Golovkin's model railroad hobby was previously hinted at in "Poetry of the Penals Adventure" when he was lecturing Wolf about how being a "fun adult" often backfires.
• Couch Gag:
  • The boat in the opening says "The Catch-Elorette"
  • Wolf's T-Shirt says "NFL: Next Fart Loading".
• Didn't Think This Through: The Tobins attempts to take photos of crabs in costumes without using dead ones ends spectacularly in failure due to oversight. In the end, they went back to using dead crabs seeing how it's way easier.
  • Beef and Wolf first try to use live crabs and attempt to put diapers on them despite the others pointing out live crabs won't stay still, and they will pinch them. Once they start, it goes exactly as you expect, and the end result is Wolf getting a bandage on his nose.
  • They try dressing up as crabs for the photo, but the costume they put on is difficult to walk in and they realized they should have put their costumes on downstairs because they end up falling down the stairs and hurting themselves, with Wolf getting a broken arm.
• Do You Want to Haggle?: Although Wolf and Honeybee lost the calendar competition, Santiago is interested in buying their crab calendar photos. When Honeybee offers a price, Santiago offers a bigger price and the price keeps going up as they continue to haggle.
• Fear Song: The Mr. Golovkin and an imaginary Moon are involved in a song where OCD sings about the possible things they can fear and have obsessive thoughts about it. Mr. Golovkin realizes through the song that listening to OCD is really messing up his life and he plans to change it for the better.
• Film Noir: When Mr. Golovkin explains how Ms. Anderson broke up with him, he tells it in a film noir setting and he doesn't care. Moon would later have a nightmare about him and Quinn breaking up in the same setting.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The yeti can be spotted sitting on a cliff on the right side of the screen when Wolf and Honeybee are looking for crab corpses on the beach at night.
• Inner Thoughts, Outsider Puzzlement: After Moon locks Mr. Golovkin inside his tool shed to help face his OCD problem, Golovkin starts fantasizing about being in a 1930s-style musical number with an imaginary Moon and a talking clock representing OCD. Outside of Golovkin's head, the real Moon asks him if he's okay because he's been humming for five minutes.
• Innocently Insensitive: Mr. Golovkin unintentionally makes Moon feel like he'll never be with Quinn because Golovkin said he's going to die alone if he loves to organize things, not knowing Moon has a crush on Quinn and that she made fun of him for organizing trash. After Moon reveals his problem to him, Golovkin realizes he shouldn't have told him that and he'll try to work through his OCD in order to make Moon feel better about himself.
• The Internet Is for Porn: When Moon is searching on the internet to see what women like, he gets a lot of image results, images that includes a woman with boobs near a tractor and a woman shoveling hay without pants. He decides to do a new search hoping to get safer results.
  Moon: What is going on on this farm?
• Iron Butt-Monkey: While the others are hurt from their crab photoshoot, Wolf is the only one who's visually hurt with him getting a bandage on his nose after a crab pinches it and he's the only one to get injured when they all fall down the stairs in their crab costumes so he has to wear a sling for his injured arm.
• Jerkass Realization: After Mr. Golovkin tells Moon that he'll die alone if he likes organizing stuff, Moon realizes that he has OCD like Golovkin and plans to move in with him because they're freaks no woman would ever love. After Moon tells him how he has a crush on Quinn and she made fun of him for organizing trash, Golovkin realizes that Moon is afraid he's like him and as a teacher he should not have told a student like Moon that he's going to die alone. Golovkin reluctantly agrees to try to change his way so he can make Moon feel better about himself.
• Mental World: After Moon traps Mr. Golovkin inside his tool shed to help him deal with his OCD, Golovkin goes inside his head has a 1930s-style musical number with an imaginary Moon and a talking clock representing OCD where he realizes how his OCD is messing up his life.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: Beef and Wolf decide to use live crabs and put diapers on them for the calendar photo shoot despite Judy, Ham, and Honeybee pointing out that’s a bad idea. Naturally, it doesn’t go well at all.
  Beef: Look, Wolf, Honeybee, I know I resisted your whims-idermy, but several injuries later, I do see the wisdom of working with cadavers instead of live animals.
• Obsessively Organized: Moon is revealed to have OCD when he's caught organizing trash in a neat grid. He's in denial of it until he gets home and realizes all his stuff is organized to an extreme degree. He also helps Mr. Golovkin deal with his OCD by making him move his tools out of the shed so he can make kombucha there instead of in the house.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title is a reference to Dangerous Minds.
• Rail Enthusiast: Mr. Golovkin is of the model train variety. His refusal to move his extensive train set out of his house is part of the reason he and Ms. Anderson broke up.
• "Rear Window" Investigation: Moon runs into Mr. Golovkin taking a pot from the school kitchen, saying that it's for cooking someone. From this and the fact that Ms. Anderson, whom Mr. Golovkin had been dating, has been missing lately, he, along with Quinn and Russell, assumes that Golovkin is a cannibalistic serial killer or he makes drugs. Golovkin catches him, Russell and Quinn snooping around his home, and specifically mentions Rear Window in reference to this trope, even pointing to a poster of the film on his rec room.
• Sensational Staircase Sequence: The musical number Mr. Golovkin and imaginary Moon has with OCD takes place on a grand stair case.
• Serious Business: The whole Tobin family is completely against "whims-idermy" (taxidermy but they pose the dead animals in costumes for fun). They hate it so much that they hold an intervention for Wolf and Honeybee when they think they're doing it for pleasure, but they explain they're doing it to enter the calendar competition to win the prize.
• Shout-Out:
  • Russell thinks Mr. Golovkin is making drugs and he's slow-roasting a big ol' batch of breaking bads.
  • Mr. Golovkin denies that he has OCD because unlike Monk he's not always washing his hands and he doesn't solve crimes.
• Skewed Priorities: After Moon locks Mr. Golovkin inside his shed to help him deal with his OCD problem, Golovkin shouts out for help saying a child has moved his shovel from its proper place in his shed.
• Staircase Tumble: The Tobins make the mistake of putting on their awkward crab costumes while upstairs and end up tumbling down the stairs one by one, with Wolf hurting his arm and Ham doing it only because everyone else was doing it.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Moon and Quinn insist they love being a part of Junior Janitors because the janitor stuff and finding teacher secrets are fun and not because they like each other and want to hang out together. It should be noted that Quinn is the first to make the denial statement while Moon just agrees to it.
• That Came Out Wrong: After the Tobins agrees to help Wolf and Honeybee win the calendar competition with their crab photoshoot, Wolf said "Getting crabs with my dad. This is what life is all about". Honeybee immediately tells Wolf no for his comment.
• Third Wheel: While Moon and Quinn aren't a couple and they're too embarrassed to admit they like each other, Russell ends up being this for them while they investigate Mr. Golovkin, much to Moon's frustration.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: It's quite clear that both Moon and Quinn like each other, but they're too nervous to admit it and they pretend they don't care about each other.

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♫ Well, I've seen things you can't imagine
I've smelled smells you just can't fathom
When someone barfs on a chili day
It's not an angel that takes the stains away, it's me
'Cause I'm a Junior Janitor
A rat scuttlin' round the cafeteria
A stomach flu featuring diarrhea-ra
You don't see it, and you don't hear-a-ra
But I protect you 'cause I'm a Junior Janitor
Someday, when my maker comes to call
I'll say, "Lord, I got to stay here in these halls
Looking for a kindergartner's bouncy ball"
'Cause that's my job, yeah, I'm a Junior Janitor
You're a bunch of slobs but I'm a Junior Janitor. ♫

—Russell

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