YMMV / Knuckles

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • From episode 3, Knuckles describes meatballs with the phrase, "I've never seen balls so plump and swollen with deliciousness".
  • In episode 6, the Buyer dramatically taunts Wade with "Looks like you're all out of balls!" He means literal bowling balls (that Wade was using as Abnormal Ammo), but it still sounds... suspect.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Is Pachacamac really an Adaptational Nice Guy, or is this just how Knuckles saw him? Given he acted the same way towards Wade, it might be the former. Or a mix of both, starting out as villainous or at least morally ambiguous, but being humbled by his defeat by Longclaw (assuming he actually is a ghost).
  • The owls, as presented in the rock opera. We're told they "came to kill everyone", but given how vague and over-the-top the show is, plus applying some in-universe Adaptation Deviation to Knuckles' past (ie him being present with his father during the fight with Longclaw and her newly added owl army), this could just be the Echidnas giving them a Historical Villain Upgrade.
• Awesome Music: Whatever one thinks of the absolutely bizarre fourth episode, the Rock Opera musical number during the stage play reenactment of Knuckles' backstory, Flames of Disaster, is an extremely entertaining song, aided significantly by the musical talents of Michael Bolton and some genuinely very good production design and choreography.
• Bizarro Episode: The fourth episode, "The Flames of Disaster", in which Wade learns of Knuckles' past in a Vision Quest guided by Pachacamac, in which Knuckles apparently had a fierce battle with what may or may not be the movie continuity's take on Iblis... And it's all presented with a very surreal, "low-budget rock opera" musical stage play with Wade acting as Knuckles and Jack acting as Longclaw who's the singing narrator of the stage play.
• Catharsis Factor: After Pistol Pete abandoned his family to pursue fame and sold them out so Wade wouldn't win the bowling tournament against him, it is incredibly satisfying when Wendy and Wanda catch him trying to steal the trophy and beat him up, with Wanda kicking him while he's down for good measure.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • In episode 1, Knuckles attacks a group of repairmen due to thinking they were intruders. After dragging the first repairman into the bushes and tying the second up, he breaks a shovel in half and throws the parts like spears to pin the last remaining man against the house. After Maddie comes to free the one who got pinned, he accuses her of hiring his crew just to hunt them for sport. She tries to justify Knuckles' behavior as being a kid who thinks he's a warrior, while listing some Troubling Unchildlike Behavior as stalking, hunting, and terrorizing. The repairman responds by threatening to sue her as he and the others leave. And then Sonic adds that this is the fourth group this month!
  • Afterwards, Knuckles brings Ozzy to the roof and repeatedly orders him to make his focus steelier, despite the dog just sitting there staring at him. Maddie, Sonic, and Tails are visibly disturbed by this.
  • Knuckles has turned the living room into a battle arena lined with sharp objects and pits Ozzy against the mailman, who is holding a nail-covered baseball bat and begs to let him go home. Maddie is understandably shocked and apologizes to the mailman, before telling the echidna that he's grounded.
  • Wade revealing that his father abandoned him at a TJ Maxx? Sad. Knuckles initially misinterpreting TJ Maxx as a warrior who slayed Wade's father? Pretty funny.
    • Later on, the ESPN commentators reacting to Wade's backstory by plugging TJ Maxx while first emphasizing that they don't condone child abandonment.
  • The beginning of episode 4 where Wade gets dragged away by a motorcycle while Knuckles and Wanda stand by watching. Wade calls to Knuckles for help and Wanda asks if Knuckles is going to help him. Knuckles bluntly says that no, he won't help, because Wade needs to learn how to rescue himself. Wade is still calling for help after Knuckles says this, mind you.
  • Wade's flashbacks of the Shabbat dinner being depicted in an Evil Dead manner, especially with the food being caught on fire and the goat standing on the table.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • With the series main villain only being referred to as "The Buyer" in advertising, many began theorizing him to be a Canon Character All Along, with the most popular guess being that of Snively Robotnik/Julian Snively.
  • The Noodle Incident where the ESPN commentators briefly mention that an extraterrestrial showed up at a bowling tournament in 1974 has been commonly speculated to somehow involve Shadow, especially since he is going to be in the upcoming third movie and The Stinger of Sonic 2 said that Project Shadow happened fifty years ago.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • If Knuckles did fight Iblis as Episode 4 implies, does this mean Princess Elise, Blaze, and Silver also exist in this continuity? And what about Mephiles himself? And does this make Knuckles the Iblis Trigger like Sonic or the vessel like Elise?
  • How did Maddie, Sonic, and Tails react to Knuckles disappearing from his grounding? And how do they react to him and Wade coming back to Green Hills after being missing for days?
  • If the alien who appeared in a bowling tournament in 1974 turns out to be Shadow, why were they even at the tournament in the first place?
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • The show's focus on Wade and his family over Knuckles has become the target of massive criticism from fans. However, the films were also guilty of this, placing almost just as much focus on Tom and his family as it does on the Sonic characters (especially in the first film, where Tom was the co-protagonist). The difference is that the Sonic cast are still given a lot of focus in the films, with the second film putting a far greater focus on them, with the human characters (bar Robotnik for obvious reasons) becoming Demoted to Extra, while in the show, Knuckles becomes increasingly sidelined compared to Wade and the other human characters — even becoming near absent in episode 4 — which fans were not pleased with.
  • Some of the human villains, such as Jack Sinclair the bounty hunter, have been criticized for being too over-the-top and cartoonish to take seriously. Robotnik already played Evil Is Hammy to the hilt in the films, but had the benefit of Jim Carrey's charismatic performance and the character already being hammy and Laughably Evil in the video games.
• Fridge Brilliance: Why didn't Sonic and Tails go to save Knuckles as soon as possible? They probably were helping fix the repairs in the Wachowski residence given Tails' remark on the throne made from the family car, the gladiator pit, and finally getting repairs on hole in the living room patched up. Not to mention that the two probably didn't want to make Maddie more pissed off than she already was with Knuckles defying his grounding. Moreover, the Master Emerald is still in their possession, so they need to stay behind to ensure someone doesn't get their hands on it.
• Fridge Horror:
  • Just how did Sonic, Tails, and Maddie react to Knuckles suddenly going missing and not coming home for several days?
  • Wade mentions that his father abandoned him by quite literally leaving him at a TJ Maxx when he was a child, and it's implied he was quite young at the time too. He was most likely stuck alone at that store for hours and it might've taken a while for his mother to even get contacted.
  • If Knuckles did fight this setting's version of Iblis and gained the power of the Flames of Disaster, does that mean Knuckles is the Iblis Trigger, and can't cry or else he'll release an Eldritch Abomination?
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Mason and Willoughby are two rogue G.U.N agents willing to backstab their own colleagues, try to kill Knuckles for money, and end up targeting Wade and his family by association, with Mason openly admitting he only joined the agency to legally beat people up, but Kid Cudi and Ellie Taylor's performances and chemistry make them very entertaining characters to watch. Pistol Pete, meanwhile, abandoned his family to go seek fame, leaving behind his young children and essentially making his wife destitute, sells out his ex-wife and daughter to the bad guys under very little threat, and openly mocks his son when he tries to stand up for himself. This all makes him a thoroughly despicable character who attracts a lot more hatred than any of the actual villains.
• Moral Event Horizon: Pistol Pete crosses this once he kidnapped his own wife and daughter just save his hide and to make his son lose the bowling tournament.
• Only the Creator Does It Right: The first episode is considered by many to be the best episode of the series, and it was the only episode directed by the director of the previous two Sonic films, Jeff Fowler. The other episodes have received a mixed reception at best.
• Squick: Wendy dislocating her thumbs in order to slip her hands through handcuffs (rather unnecessarily, as Wade had the keys). In-Universe as well, given that even Knuckles winces in disgust upon seeing her horribly twisted thumbs.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Fans were not expecting to see Pachacamac from Sonic Adventure in the trailer, especially not as the manager of a bowling alley of all things, because he's been dead for millennia in game canon, and was thought to have been dead here in this canon after the centuries-long war for the Master Emerald as well. In the show proper, he is revealed to be Knuckles’ Spirit Advisor.
  • There's also the unexpected return of ESPN 8 - The Ocho from DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story. Something ESPN themselves made into an annual programming block.
  • "The Flames of Disaster" indirectly references Iblis during the rock opera, with the fire demon puppet resembling its third form.
• The Woobie: Wade. His father abandoned him at a TJ Maxx when he was only a kid, so he took up bowling in order to cope with it and because it makes him feel at home. Then his bowling partner kicks him off the team because of his failure to make a strike which costs them the game, and later hunts Wade down for his bounty, having no care that they used to be partners. To say nothing of his moments of being seen as a loser. We also see that he had more of a rough childhood, with his older sister bullying him to his adult years and several of his family's Shabbat dinner ending in disaster. And finally, just when it looks like he reunited with his father, the latter horrifically betrays him and his family just so he could win.

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