YMMV / SpongeBob SquarePants S4E3 "Have You Seen This Snail?"

• Alternative Character Interpretation: While the script directly indicates that Granny is fattening Gary up to eat him, it's never directly stated that that's what she's doing in the final episode, so it's unclear if she really is malicious, or if she simply overfed her snails to death without realizing. Considering Granny also calls Gary "Miss Tuffsy", it's possible she doesn't even know what she's doing, though her throwing food at Gary as he tries to get away from her does led credence to what the script says.
• Applicability: The story is most directly about a pet running away, but SpongeBob's grieving reaction is also comparable to the death of a loved one; he goes through most of the stages of depression, finally ending on acceptance that Gary is gone for good. The two are reunited in the end, but many viewers have likened the episode to their own grief over losing pets, family members, or close friends.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Granny may be a creepy antagonist, but watching her slowly chase Gary down the street while launching cookies like shurikens and hurling them right at him can get a chuckle from some viewers.
• Genius Bonus: Though the episode doesn't lampshade it, SpongeBob's loss over Gary directly parallels the Five Stages of Grief.
  1. Denial: SpongeBob realizes that something is off regarding Gary's food bowl, but doesn't suspect anything bad has happened.
  2. Anger: SpongeBob forces Patrick to find Gary with him and has a realization of My God, What Have I Done?
  3. Bargaining: SpongeBob plasters posters all over town to try and reach out to Gary.
  4. Depression: SpongeBob tries to cry off the pain while Patrick keeps him company.
  5. Acceptance: SpongeBob comes to terms with the fact that Gary won't come back home, but still tearfully reminisces. Luckily for him, Gary proves him wrong.
• Heartwarming Moments: While looking at the latest papers, Gary realizes how sorry SpongeBob feels and decides to return to him.
• Ho Yay: As SpongeBob and Patrick invade Squidward's bathroom to find Gary, SpongeBob tries to find him by looking inside his bathtub, and moves his hands around Squidward's... well, you know.
  SpongeBob: (to Patrick) You look over there, I'll check in here! (moves his hands around Squidward's bathtub, notably surrounding his crotch)
• Improved Second Attempt: Many would say that this special is a much-improved version of the very divisive "Dumped", where Gary is given a much better reason for leaving SpongeBob, Patrick isn't a callous Jerkass and instead assists his best friend in searching for Gary (even if he's not all too helpful in the end), and SpongeBob's grief over losing Gary is ultimately used to remind the latter how much Gary means to him and that he should never have taken his snail for granted, instead of just putting SpongeBob through such an ordeal for the heck of it.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Squidward continuously screaming as SpongeBob and Patrick trespass his bathroom in the middle of his bubble bath, with completely expressionless faces. It has in fact become a popular resource for YouTube Poops and remixes, with SpongeBob and Patrick being replaced by some other memetic character, typically Luigi.
    • His high-pitched scream itself has become a popular Stock Scream in the YTP community and beyond, to the point that you'll be hard-pressed to hear Squidward screaming in any remix without it being this specific scream.
  • Also, "AAAH! It's the apocalypse! Office products falling from the sky!"
  • The disgusted face Patrick makes after he consumes the expired, solid seahorse milk is a popular reaction image, often with a computer drawn in to make it look like Patrick is cringing at something on the computer screen.
  • "Take the Dirty Bubble Challenge! Hit the paddle ball 29,998,559,671,349 times in a row," is a popular image macro. Usually, the challenge is replaced with something else, such as the Mr. Ping challenge◊.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Just as Gary is about to eat one piece of snail food remaining in his bowl, a bunch of spiders crawl out of it.
  • On a lesser scale, Gary's stomach having a symbolized, miserable face to represent his starvation.
  • Most of all though, Granny, the crazy snail lady. She seems like your average sweet old lady at first, but once you realize that she overfeeds snails to the point of death, it makes you notice how scary she is...
• Squick:
  • Spiders crawling out of a piece of snail food. Doubles as Nightmare Fuel.
  • Patrick consuming the contents of rotten seahorse milk.
  • Gary’s fattened belly flopping out after realising Granny has been overfeeding him with the likely intent to eat him, no less.
• Tear Jerker: Despite having a few genuinely funny moments (including the memetic SpongeBob and Patrick drop by Squidward's house scene), it's generally agreed that this is one of the saddest episodes of the whole series to date. SpongeBob realizes how negligent he was to Gary and falls victim to Break the Cutie full stop. The entire "Gary, Come Home" musical number will have you crying within seconds, and provides the page image.
• The Woobie: SpongeBob. While we can't root for him in the beginning of the episode due to his careless negligence of Gary, he eventually becomes sympathetic once he realizes the error in his ways and becomes brokenhearted over being such a jerk to Gary. It's taken even further during the montage of "Gary, Come Home".

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