Recap / The Great North S4E01 "Bad Speecher Adventure"

RECAP:
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Original air date: January 7, 2024

Written by: Asha Michelle Wilson
Directed by: Damil Bryant

For Ham's public speaking class, he's required to give a speech to Moon's class, but Moon and his classmates are notorious hecklers and will heckle Ham and his classmates nonstop. Ham asks his family for help on finding a good topic, so Judy, Beef, and Honeybee each tell him a story about an Alaskan fact while basing their stories on Top Gun, Good Will Hunting, and The Matrix, respectively.

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In General Tropes:

• Adults Are Useless: Moon's teacher, Mrs. Hill, does absolutely nothing to stop her class from heckling the students who have to give their speech to them, even if they're crying from their heckling. Mr. Golovkin doesn't even care if his students are getting heckled and he'll automatically fail his students if they don't finish their speech, regardless if their feelings are hurt.
• Couch Gag:
  • The boat in the opening is "I Like What I'm Herring".
  • Wolf's T-Shirt says "Gass, Kween!".
• Delicious Distraction: Invoked by Ham. When Ham realizes that Moon's class will heckle him and that Moon has sugary treats on his mind, he decides to bake six cupcakes cupcakes each so for the entire class to accompany his presentation. They're ultimately too busy enjoying the cupcakes to heckle him, and the treat makes them less inclined to even want to on top of that.
• "Eureka!" Moment: While Ham is having a nightmare about giving his speech to Moon's classroom, he remembers Moon saying, "wouldn't even eat it even if it was dipped in frosting" to Honeybee's ranch dressing story, and gets the idea to bake cupcakes for Moon's classroom to stop them from heckling.
• The Heckler: Ham's public speaking class is required to give a speech to Moon's classroom, but the students in the class, including Moon himself, are notorious hecklers and will heckle the presenter during their speech. Their heckles are so bad that most students don't even finish their speech and Mr. Golovkin automatically fails them for giving up. Ham is able to counter this by giving all the students six cupcakes each before his presentation so they'll be too busy enjoying their cupcakes to heckle him.
• Kick the Dog: Moon makes it a point to be as disrespectful and insulting to everyone as possible, and smugly revels in the idea of his class making Ham run away in tears. His last line subverts this, as he's genuinely impressed with Ham's cupcake strategy and seems content to sit back and let him take "the win".
• Kids Are Cruel: Moon and his classmates always heckle the students from the public speaking class when they try to give their speech to them and they don't even care if their feelings are hurt. Their heckling is so bad that they actually got a student to transfer school and most of the students give up on their speech and get an automatic F for quitting.
• Running Gag: Wolf constantly inserting the shirtless volleyball scene from Top Gun in everyone's story.
• Sugar Causes Hyperactivity: It's implied that this will happen after Ham gives Moon's class six cupcakes each so they won't heckle him during his speech.
  Mrs. Hill: Are you really giving each of my students six cupcakes?
  Ham: Yep. And in ten minutes it will be your problem.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Each of the three stories told by the Tobins tells a story from Alaskan history as a parody of a movie.
  • Judy's story is about how Bob Ross was inspired to paint during his stint in the U.S. Air Force in the style of Top Gun.
  • Beef's story is about how young Benny Benson designed the Alaska state flag, done as Good Will Hunting; at one point, he accidentally adds a scene from The Bourne Identity, apologizing for referencing the wrong Matt Damon movie.
  • Honeybee's story is about the creation of ranch dressing, done as The Matrix.

Tropes that applies to Judy's story:

• Black Comedy: At the end of Judy's story, when Bob-Judy pops a champagne bottle, the cork flies towards Goose's wife and instantly kills her in front of her child. When Wolf calls her out on this, Judy admits it was to make the story exciting.
• Closest Thing We Got: Chief Beeferson wants to ground Bob-Judy for killing her eighth navigator, but because everyone else is dead and she has a cool leather jacket, she's the only person that Beeferson can send to Snow Gun.
• Gilligan Cut: After Bob-Judy ejects from her jet with Hamhock still inside as it crashes, Bob-Judy comments to herself that Hamhock might be okay, then it cuts to Chief Beeferson saying Hamhock is dead.
• Hope Spot: When Bob-Judy causes her jet to crash again, Goose couldn't work his ejection lever to escape because he doesn't have hands. But Goose remembers he can fly so he flies out of the jet, only to get sucked into the engine and die.
• Lethally Stupid: Bob-Judy would always get distracted while piloting her jet because she's always painting her surrounding during the flight. She ends up crashing her jet and killing her navigator nine times, which includes Goose.
• Military Maverick: Judy portrays Bob Ross in her story as this to make her story exciting for Moon. Chief Beeferson wants to ground Bob-Judy for getting her navigators killed, but he can't since most of the other pilots are dead.
• Painted Tunnel, Real Train: Bob-Judy painted a mural of a sunset on the side of a hangar, which allowed Icewolf and Honeybarf to trick the enemy fighters on their tail into crashing into the hangar.
• Powersuit Monkey: In June's retelling of Top Gun, Goose is a literal goose, as are his wife and son.
• Skewed Priorities: Rather than focusing on her flight, Judy would paint her surroundings and would always crash her jet and kill her navigator. After she accidentally get Goose killed, her first concern was her painting she left back in her jet.
• Technobabble: Judy narrates that Icewolf and Honeybarf were randomly saying fighter pilot jargon while engaging the enemy fighters.
  Judy: So Icewolf and Honeybarf were fighting the enemy and saying cool fighter stuff like...
  Honeybarf: Lock and Load!
  Icewolf: Roger That!
  Honeybarf: Aircraft Carrier!
  Icewolf: The MIG on our six is not engaging! It's like... It's like he can't see us!

Tropes that applies to Beef's story:

• A Day in the Limelight: While normally stories like this have the main characters act as the protagonist, Quinn Notti is used as the protagonist for Beef's story, but only because Beef wanted to win the story contest and uses Moon's crush as an attempt to win.
• Gender Flip: Justified. The original creator of the Alaskan flag design was a boy named Benny Benson, but Beef purposely made Benny in the story Moon's crush, Quinn Notti, in a sad attempt to win the story contest.
• It's All My Fault: Benny blames herself for Peppermint's death of getting crushed by the world's largest flag even though she had nothing to do with it. Dr. Notyafault tells her it's not her fault, but she insists it is, but he tells her it's not, and then after thinking about it some more, she realizes it's not her fault and she's cured of her trauma.
• Lost Pet Grievance: The reason why Benny wants nothing to do with flags is because she used to have a pony named Peppermint and she brought him to see the world's largest flag, but because the flag was too heavy for the flag pole, it falls on Peppermint and crushes him to death and she blames herself for it.
• Mood Whiplash: After Benny reveals her flag-related trauma to Dr. Notyafault, an assassin busts into the room to kill Benny and she fights back. Honeybee tells Beef that moment is from a different Matt Damon movie, so Beef corrects the moment.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Beef accidentally includes moments from other Matt Damon films (We Bought a Zoo and The Bourne Identity) thinking it was part Good Will Hunting.
• Shout-Out: Right before the accidental reference to The Bourne Identity, Benny tells therapist Dr. Notyafault she bought a zoo to try to help her deal with her feelings, referencing another Matt Damon film, We Bought a Zoo.

Tropes that applies to Honeybee's story:

• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In-universe in Honeybee's own story. After Guy Morfieri uploads the ranch dressing recipe into Honey-bee-o's brain, Honey-bee-o suggest they go back to the goo world and make the recipe and put it in the goo pods so she can win Moon's story competition. When Morfieri asks "Wait, what story competition?", Honey-bee-o said there's no time to explain.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The yeti can be spotted in Honeybee's story twice and he has black fur: first he was spotted in front of the Jude-acle's home walking on the right side of the screen; the second time is when Honey-bee-o and Agent Beef Smith confront each other, the yeti can be spotted walking in the background.
• Fun-Hating Villain: Not only is it's Agent Beef Smith's job is to keep everyone stuck in the goo pods, but he believes vegetables should not be delicious.
• Interactive Narrator: During the scene where Honey-Bee-O and Guy Morfieri meets the Jude-acle, the story comes to a pause when Honeybee is trying to remember what else happened in The Matrix, with the characters in her story looking confused.
• Mind over Matter: When Agent Beef Smith fires several carrot bullets at Honey-bee-o, she stops it mid-air with her flavor powers. After creating ranch dressing and dips one of the carrot bullets in it, she sends it into Agent Beef Smith's mouth and he explodes because the flavor was too delicious.
• Red Pill, Blue Pill: Instead of pills, Guy Morfieri offers Honey-bee-o either a brussels sprout, where she'll stay in the world she knows, or a clove of garlic, where she'll change everything forever and be put in a lot of danger. Honey-bee-o instantly wants to choose the brussels sprout after hearing the danger part, but Morfieri insists she takes the garlic, so she takes it only because she finds Morfieri charming and his hair makes her smile.
• Special Guest: Guy Fieri returns again to appear in Honeybee's story as Guy Morfieri.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Honeybee insists that she made the story herself and is not based on The Matrix at all, even as she openly says at one point that she forgot what happened in the movie.

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Singer:
♫ When it comes to setting tables
There's one man who knows his stuff ♫
Back-up Singers: ♫ Ham ♫
Singer:
♫ The proper placement of a salad knife
A meal time stud, the king of cups ♫
Back-up Singers: ♫ Cups ♫
Singer:
♫ Unrivaled use of charger plates
Knows which glass is for wine ♫
Ham: ♫ That one ♫
Singer:
♫ Just give that man a call
and he'll make that table fine
It's Ham ♫
Back-up Singers: ♫ Ham ♫
Singer:
♫ The Lone Moose king of cups
It's Ham ♫
Back-up Singers: ♫ Ham ♫
Singer:
♫ Sit down to eat
And watch him strut
It's Ham ♫
Back-up Singers: ♫ Ham ♫
Singer:
♫ This kid has got the grease
He's better at setting tables
Than that candle from the Beauty and the Beast ♫

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