This week’s iCarly was an improvement from last week, but I’m still kinda frustrated from the lack of Creddie happening. They tossed the crumbs in the earlier eps this season, so I felt like the blossoming feelings ought to have been spread out across the season better by now? I’m assuming something ship-worthy will happen in these last eps, but I like a more slowburn pace, personally. Slow as in…there are hints but it is happening!! More than just sitting on a couch together like BFFs. LOL. Anyway.
Once again, Harper’s plot was pretty useless. The guy she had interest in was a jerk and weirdo from the beginning. I keep thinking Dutch is gonna return at some point and redeem her character, but I’m not positive if the actress is busy or something.
I actually sort of liked Carly’s plot with the dolls though. It wouldn’t have been realistic for her to get around the company by coming up with the perfect doll when the others had already been manufactured in mass supply. And I thought the dolls showed two pretty typical stereotypes of women in a funny but important way. I also liked the innocent little moment with the kid where she’s like, “I like dolls because they’re pretty.” Sure, it’s surface level thinking but the girl is literally like 4 and it’s a nice reminder that there’s no malice in a kid liking a doll for being pretty. It’s adults who try to impose all the politics & philosophies on dolls.
(also I’m like certain this ep was targeting American Girl Dolls for some reason, and I thought it was kinda a cool shot at a notoriously expensive company. All kids should have access to nice dolls!)
Don’t know what the point of the Josh Peck character is. He’s undeveloped and feels useless. This is a recurring issue. Pearl is way too underdeveloped for me to root for her right now. But I’m worried Paul (is that his name?) will become some kind of romantic interest for Carly, and I REALLY don’t want to see Josh Peck kiss Miranda Cosgrove LOL. I hope not!
The monkey plotline was expectedly ridiculous but it gave me a few laughs and felt really old school iCarly. I didn’t mind it so much.
Mostly - where is the romance?? I’m so ready for it, ugh.
I feel like iCarly has fallen into a little of a mid-season slump now. The last two episodes weren’t big hits for me, but I’m hopeful maybe the second half of the season will lean more into Creddie.
Last episode had too many plots going in too many trajectories, and none of them seemed to move the direction of the show forward in any substantial way. I like the recent focus on Carly & Spencer’s relationship but it feels now like we’re hitting a wall of learning the same lesson over and over: Carly and Spencer may fight, but they’ll always come together in the end.
Harper’s plotlines have been all over the place since Dutch left. Pulling in the Drag Queens felt really random.
And ugh I wish I could like Millicent. Her actress is so cute and delivers her lines SO well, but I feel like her character is missing a lot of the humor that snarky kid characters are supposed to have. Megan from Drake and Josh worked because she was so outrageous, it was almost cartoony. Like Wile E. Coyote, only more successful. Zany and stupid humor. With Millicent, it’s like they’re trying to write a likeable, more realistic character but it feels a lot more like a Boomer trying to write a Gen Z type and it’s just cringey (a consistent problem in the reboot, but normally I can grin and bear it).
I have no idea what the moral of the last ep regarding Millicent was supposed to be. I feel like it was trying to be something like “don’t let other people step on you,” which is a powerful message for young black girls/women, but it felt undermined by the fact that Millicent was being mean first and scared half the kids out of the mock cultural thing they were doing LOL.
Like the whole episode was about not being competitive and that it’s okay to lose, but also suggested it’s okay to be a crappy player if you just have a naturally aggressive personality. IDK. I like how Millicent has moments of tenderness, and if they went more in that direction with her, I think I’d get on board. It would also help differentiate her from Megan.
Mostly, I wish they’d calm down with all the subplots and focus on the Freddie/Carly stuff! It’s nice for the show to harken back to its wild, wacky roots now and again, but I’d like some more mature episodes now, too.
Okay so I’m still disappointed with the lack of Creddie scenes this episode, but it did have some moments I genuinely enjoyed and found funny. Some LOL moments for me:
Spencer asleep with his eyes open. So random.
Freddie passing out in the wrong direction.
The Freeze Tag jokes.
“African American mail” really got me. I felt like that hit the contemporary cultural moment on the head.
I feel like Derek said smthn i laughed at but I forgot now.
Also I liked Millicent way more this episode! She felt a lot more her age and it was nice to see her doing some normal kid activities like the school project and having a crush. I don’t see a real future for her and Derek bc she’s much smarter than him and they’re 12 or something LOL but it was still a cute storyline. Predictable he wasn’t talking about her on the phone, but I’m happy to see a “cool” kid who isn’t a jerk.
Carly’s plot was kinda wild. It was nice to see her and Harper spend so much time together since they’re BFFs and have had some separate plots going on lately. I hated the prankster guy but was still surprised the moral was smthn like “sometimes violence is permissable” when i thought the ep was headed in a “find a healthy outlet for your negative emotions” thing. Ngl tho, I was happy to see him get the hell beaten out of him by the end because he was a literal stalker and pretending to be ill and/or disabled at the beginning for a prank. I know EXACTLY what kind of person he’s parodying and they’re the worst. I also feel like I always like a kind of unexpected ending rather than the anticipated moral over and over.
Still no Creddie tho; ugh they barely interacted this ep. We’re not even really seeing Freddie’s relationship with Pearl, so the romance has been a remarkable absence throughout this whole season. I feel like they’re trying way harder to focus on “hot topics” like influencer issues & political subjects from a funnier angle, but I kinda get sick of that and would really, REALLY like some romance escapism.
I’ve been binge watching original iCarly because of the reboot and I watched iGo to Japan a few days ago, and I’ve come to conclusion that I need the reboot to send them to Japan again and for adult Carly and Freddie to get mistaken for being on their honeymoon by the hotel receptionist again.
Not even for anything romantic (although I am ride or die Creddie so I would be a-ok if that also happened)
But because I need them to use that trend that’s being going around on Tik Tok where it’s the bad guy from Phineas and Ferb (I think he’s the bad guy??? I’ve honestly never seen the show but he seems like the nemesis of the platypus anyways-) where he’s like :
“If I had a nickel for every time -insert weird circumstance-, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?”
