Regular Show takes
a calculated risk in how it uses C.J. in “Portable Toilet.” By having her join
Eileen, Rigby, and Mordecai for lunch, the episode positions her in precisely
the spot that Margaret once occupied. Mordecai has so few female friends that
comparisons are pretty much inevitable, but this is the first time since C.J.
reentered Mordecai’s life that the show has actively played up the similarity
in their narrative roles. And as far as tonight’s story is concerned, C.J. does
not suffer from such a comparison, as she proves a fast friend for Eileen and a
successful savior of our heroes. Indeed, “Portable Toilet” is so confident in
C.J.’s success as a character that it has Rigby give what, for him, is the
ultimate compliment: She’s pretty cool. All indications tonight suggest that
she is now firmly ensconced as a member of the ensemble going forward, but Mordecai’s
reaction to Rigby’s statement suggests that she may not be just friends with
Mordecai for very long. This could so easily feel like Regular Show unsubtly replacing Margaret with a character who it
insists is way cooler and way better just because it says so. This could all
feel so forced.
For the most part, “Portable Toilet” avoids such traps. The
closing observation about C.J.’s coolness is a tad on-the-nose, and it ignores
the real point that this episode makes far more forcefully: Eileen is way, way cooler. After all, C.J. might have
jumped into a moving helicopter—or a portable toilet attached to a moving
helicopter, as she modestly points out—but Eileen was right there with her, and
Eileen was the one who got C.J. to calm down and take some action.
Perhaps Regular Show just treats
Eileen’s awesomeness at this stage as a fait accompli; either way, if the
heightened presence for C.J. affords for more organic opportunities to include
Eileen in the gang’s adventures, I won’t complain. What makes C.J. seem
promising is that this episode takes great care to define her as someone very
different from Margaret. The former object of Mordecai’s affections was many
things—nice, kind, sweet, and willing to take Mordecai down a peg when he
needed it—but she wasn’t really “cool,” at least not like C.J. is here.
Margaret was at best a joiner in Regular
Show’s craziness, but more often she was the good-natured bystander. It’s
hard to imagine her intentionally daring Mordecai to eat a sandwich in a
portable toilet, especially if it were just on a random impulse. A lovesick Mordecai
might have convinced himself that such a stunt would impress Margaret, but she
still wouldn’t be the natural instigator of mayhem that C.J. is in this
episode.
On that point, a crucial moment of “Portable Toilet” comes
when C.J. starts to freak out about Rigby and Mordecai’s fate at the army base.
Her cloudy complexion turns positively thunderous, recalling her terrifying
meltdown way back in “Yes Dude Yes.” Eileen is able to talk her down before
anything serious happens—because, again, Eileen can do anything—but that sequence
reaffirms that C.J. has her own distinct emotional existence. Her feelings have
meaning and validity even when Mordecai is not around to react to them. This is
also a sign that Regular Show is not
abandoning the more negative aspects of C.J.’s character. She has the most
obvious flaw of any of the show’s recurring female characters, and that fact
should hopefully allow the creative team to tell more emotionally complex
stories moving forward. What’s more, the ending to C.J.’s story doesn’t have to
be an unhappy one, as this story proves she can avoid the kind of destructive
behavior she displayed in “Yes Dude Yes,” provided she has friends around to
stand by her. In terms of these emotional issues, she now seems less like a
ticking time bomb and more like someone that Mordecai can come through for when
she needs him most. After all, he does owe her one.
Regular Show feels
reenergized creatively, and that extends to the elements of tonight’s episode
that don’t spotlight the show’s new recurring player. “Portable Toilet” pulls
off a clever pacing trick in how it cuts to black after Mordecai and Rigby tip
over the toilet. It’s as though the episode is restarting when we then see
Muscle Man and Hi-Five Ghost discussing their weekend plans; that split-second pause
and shift of scene makes the episode’s scope feel larger than could be contained
in the show’s perennially short running time. The animation of the toilet
replacement is spectacular, as the wind kicked up by the helicopter’s whirling
propeller momentarily reshapes the environment beneath it. Regular Show is an old hand at blending the mundane and the
incredible, but that first helicopter sequence feels like something slightly
different from what we’re used to. The scene feels casually epic, as though the
members of the creative team used a helicopter to take away the fallen toilet instead
of, say, a delivery van just because they felt like it. The helicopter—more
specifically, its impressive physical presence—is only tangential to the
central absurdity of the episode, and so it contributes to the sense that we
are glimpsing only one small part of a much larger world. Plus, the happiness
that Muscle Man shows when he learns that the portable toilets receive such honorable
deaths is much funnier when he has to shout it over the din of the helicopter. He also gets in a couple great jokes later on, particularly his insistence to Eileen and “other girl”—a wise acknowledgment of the fact that there’s no reason anyone else at the park should know C.J. just yet—that none of what is going on is actually awkward… at least until he learns he may have sent Mordecai and Rigby to their deaths at an army base.
Speaking of which, the general and his two subordinates represent three of the funniest one-off characters in the show’s history. Some
of their humor could be said to be rooted in comedy of the random, but what
makes their scenes really funny are the patterns that emerge. For reasons that
go unexplained, the general has absolutely no interest in hearing what one of
his men has to say but always has time to let the other speak freely. The
general proudly proclaims that the president is not his father, but he groans like
a sullen teenager when he is told that the president has called for him. The
actual rationale for the destruction of the toilets is wonderfully flimsy, as
the general claims that these movable commodes are exactly like the enemy, so why wouldn’t they spend three billion dollars a pop to blow up practice
toilets with a laser from outer space? If I really felt like massively overreaching, I could probably argue that that whole
business represents Regular Show’s
stab at political commentary. In any event, all the talk of armies and enemies
feels slightly more adult than the show’s standard fare, which is safely
removed from the horrors of the real world, if only because Mordecai and Rigby
spend most of their time fending off the horrors of this imaginary world. The
handling of the military here is just one bold, surprising element in an episode
full of them. If this is the new norm for Regular Show, we are in for exciting times ahead.
Stray observations:
- Of all the great little gags in this episode, my favorite has to be the visual gag that can be spotted in the image up top. Of course Rigby would misspell his own name on his lunch bag.
- Apologies this review made it up so late—among other things, there were some serious audio issues with tonight’s broadcast, at least for me. Did anyone else have similar problems?
- I didn’t even mention it, but the entire sequence in which Rigby and Mordecai were trapped together in the portable toilet was very funny. Rigby’s insistence that Mordecai should never have eaten the sandwich and instead saved it in case they ended up in this precise situation was a particularly hilarious moment.