S1, E7: "Operation Ruthless" / "The Vacant Lot"

Greetings. Sorry I had to postpone the posting of this week's review. I don't want to go into too many details, but I haven't been feeling 100% for a while now. And while I will admit it's getting harder for me to post these reviews (not that I don't love doing them; I wouldn't have started this blog if I didn't!) things are going on in my neck of the woods that are messing with my head, but I'm just glad I have all you guys who read this blog and love Hey Arnold! to help support the site and my writing that'll hopefully turn into a career someday.

I'm also happy to report that I'm finally getting the gears turning again on my science fiction series. If I keep at it every day (at least two pages a day), hopefully I'll finish the first novel before the end of 2016.

But that's enough about me. Onto the review!



"Operation Ruthless"

Arnold and Gerald walk by the area where underpaid workers are setting up for the annual cheese festival. Mmm... cheez.

Are you sure this series doesn't take place in Wisconsin?

Helga bashes Phoebe for indulging in an innocent superstition where you spin around three times and look through a hole in a slice of Swiss cheese to be guided to your true love. Naturally, Helga's burning curiosity about whether she and Arnold are truly meant to be together get the best of her, so she takes the cheese, spins around thrice, and her eye just so happens to land on Arnold. Why? Because forced coincidence. Whatever the case, I totally love the idea of Arnold and Helga together--once Helga gets some deep therapy and stops belittling Arnold every chance she gets, of course.

Ooh, look up at that screenshot one more time. "Cheese Brownie's." Cheese brownie's? First of all, the misuse of the apostrophe there is killing me. Secondly, ew.

Arnold spots his own true love across the lot--Ruth McDougal.

Ruth has been mentioned and seen a couple of times now. In case you have no idea who this chick is, she's Arnold's 6th grade crush. I've noticed Arnold seems to have a thing for older women, particularly 6th graders. What's strange is that Ruth also has a wide head like Arnold (though not as flat and pointy). And she has a similar outfit as he does. And the same round nose, and the same heavy eyelids. And her hair is just like his, except it's brown, and points down and out instead of up and out. Oh, God. I just had a horrible realization-turned-possible-fanfiction--what if Ruth is actually Arnold's long-lost sister?!

I'm just going to sit back and hope that Ruth is merely just supposed to be the female version of Arnold, which is why he's crazy-attracted to her. This is a children's show, dammit.

As Arnold makes his way over to Ruth to ask for her hand in marriage, Helga notices Arnold with the ole droopy-eyed look of love, and thinks that he's about to approach her. Instead, she watches Arnold approach Ruth, and gets mega-pissed. And thus, she plans to bust up any plans of them getting together.

So, Arnold decides to finally work up the courage to talk to Ruth at the festival--or does he?

This is so unlike Arnold to be so... unArnold.

Helga practically announces her obsession with Arnold to Phoebe as a poorly-executed way to defend her reasons for busting up Arnold and Ruth's good time. But Phoebe was merely trying to ask where the nearest commode is. Helga gets embarrassed and agrees with Phoebe that her whole reveal "never happened."

Gerald instructs Arnold on how to Get Ruth's attention. Arnold is to offer Ruth the cheese kebab in his hand as an ice-breaker, and then when he asks Arnold what to do, Arnold is going to open up with a suave, friendly greeting: a monotonous, bored-sounding string of "Hi, Ruth. Hi, Ruth. Hi, Ruth. Hi, Ruth..."s. Yeah, that's totally not creepy.

Meanwhile, Phoebe nonchalantly helps Helga plan out how to stop Arnold from interacting with Ruth. She starts a game of tag with Helga, and then Helga football tackles Arnold to the ground ("pretending" she didn't see him), and sends his kebab flying. I think this was less of a thwart and more of an excuse for Helga to grope Arnold, even for just one second.

The next plan is for Arnold to ambush Ruth in the hall of mirrors. Helga runs in after them, leaving Phoebe and Gerald alone. Together. Oooh.

These must be some freaky hall of mirrors, because when Arnold and Ruth look into the distorting ones, they're disgusted at how fat it makes them look. But when Helga looks into one, her reflection turns her into, ahem, a "sexy lady." I might be reading too much into this scene (as taking all those lit classes in college kind of forced me to see meaning in places where there wasn't any) but it seems like the mirrors reflect the opposite of oneself--the side that they would be disgusted by. Seeing as Helga isn't exactly a girly-girl, my theory isn't too crazy.

Arnold bumps into Helga and then Helga shoves him off to mock his infatuation with Ruth. Meanwhile, our good friend Brainy is right behind, breathing heavily. It gets louder, he gets closer, and the music suddenly gets more dramatic as he inches up behind Helga with that big, fat grin on his face. You would think he would be practically impossible to find with all those mirrors reflecting him in every direction. Nope. Once Brainy gets so close that there's barely enough room for him to breathe, let alone heavily, Helga sucker-punches him in the face.

Why is his mouth on his neck? 

Everyone heads to the bumper cars. Sid gets off, and warns the kids in line not to get in car #4 because the pedal sticks. Helga uses this bit of information to trick Ruth into getting into the sticky car, but thanks to her luck, she and Phoebe accidentally get into car #4 instead. And shenanigans follow:

What the hell kind of bumper car ride is this?! This isn't a ride; it's an invitation to the grave. If this could happen in real life, do you know how many lawsuits there would be? And it's a wonder how the cheese festival wasn't shut down because of this. Helga and Phoebe are lucky they didn't die being ejected out of the bumper car ring and into the giant blow-up wiener.

So, then comes the Tunnel of Love. Gerald says Arnold can't mess this up because the couples are matched up according to their place on the line. Boys on one line, girls on the other. Sorry, gays and lesbians. Arnold and Ruth are both #8 on line, but Helga, of course, screws with the natural order of romance by cutting in line.

And then for some reason, Rhonda gets drunk on cheese-infused lemonade or something (it's a cheese festival!), because why else would she pull Harold onto the Tunnel of Love against his will? Not cool, girl. Not cool.

You know, this isn't much of a cheese festival--it looks more like a regular city fair, but you can get cheese on a stick as a treat. Laaaaame.

Helga pushes everyone aside so she can end up as Arnold's Tunnel of Love partner, but then this causes all the other kids to start cutting in front of each other, and the lines get messed up.

Where the hell are the staff to prevent this from happening? Are these kids running this festival by themselves?

So, Arnold doesn't end up with Ruth in the Tunnel of Love. Sid does. Phoebe and Gerald end up riding together, and it's totally sweet. But what about Arnold? Well, he does end up with someone he loves anyway:

And Helga is alone. Or so we think. And there goes Brainy's second black eye.

So, this ending is rather grim. Helga overhears that, although Ruth still doesn't know Arnold even exists, Arnold ends up liking her even more because she's such a challenge to get. Hmm, that's probably why so many girls believe they have to play hard-to-get with their crush in order to get their attention. This doesn't work in real life, people! And then Phoebe leaves the festival hand-in-hand with Gerald, leaving Helga standing alone, with all the lights shutting off one by one behind her.

"The Vacant Lot"

The kids are taking an eon to finish a simple game of baseball because the only place they can play is in the street, apparently. The passing of cars is constantly interrupting their game, and everyone is getting super pissed about it. Hey, kids, let me introduce you to a little place we adults like to call THE PARK.

"You can take your park and shove it up your nose! Our lapse in logic fits the plot better!"

Helga straight up quits the game, which prompts Arnold and Gerald to fantasize about a field where they can play baseball and Cards Against Humanity as long as they want. Hey, even throw in an all-exclusive hotel and casino while you're at it, boys! But seriously, why not just play at the park? You say the older kids hog it--certainly they're not hogging every corner of every park in the city. But, whatever. It serves the plot better to have the kids play like 1930s Brooklyn kids. Wouldn't it be neat if this show was set in the 1930s?

Anyway, they already decide on a name for their park--Gerald Field--because it has a nice ring to it, I suppose. And then they do this cliched thing so many shows do where they pass by the perfect object or perfect spot while groaning that they'll never find what they're looking for. And, what do you know--they find the perfect spot, albeit trashed and in need of a lot of work, where they can have a field of their own: Gerald Field.

The next day, Arnold and Gerald get the gang together to help clean up the field. I'm surprised they don't ask their parents to do it for them. These kids won't clean their rooms, but they'll clean out the backyard of some old apartment building to create their own baseball field. Yeah. Right.

And so, the kids are finally able to play baseball in peace. Though I have to say--despite the lot being too tiny for a comfortable game of baseball, the kids surprisingly make it work. I guess when you want something hard enough, you'll do anything to compensate for what you're given (or what you find) to make it work for you.

And just when you think this plot was too short, the boarders and shopkeepers along Arnold's block come along the next day and decide they want the field to themselves.

You know, I'll give these adults the benefit of the doubt and say that they probably didn't realize this was the kids' new field that they just cleaned up. I mean, how could they have possibly known if the kids did this all themselves? But what I find strange is that they just decide to all suddenly take advantage of the cleaned area that "just happened" to pop up on the block. If anything, I would have thought the plot would have been bought and a high-rise building would have started to be put into development. I mean, look at the value of that space--all that grass, all that space--in this concrete jungle of a city.

The adults tell Arnold all about how great the field is and how they can now enjoy their brand-new hobbies, meanwhile Arnold and the other kids are all like "What the fuck?!" when they see what has become of their new field. Instead of explaining the situation to the adults, they decide playing around the tomato field and chickens is a great idea.

These kids are unbelievable. They apparently have the independence to go out and buy supplies to clean up a dirty, germ-infested (and possibly toxic) field that's basically been turned into a dumpster, and turn it into a makeshift baseball field, but their way of playing around all the plants and gardens is to stand behind them? And then they have the audacity to complain that it's not working? Is this Hey Arnold!, or The Sims? I'll bet you a hundred bucks that this episode is what inspired Will Wright and EA to create the series.

And speaking of stupidity...

"Good chicken. Nice chicken. I like fried chicken. Aaaaugh! Get off me! Stop pecking! Nooo! Help!" - Eugene

So then the kids have no choice but to move off of the field and into a dirty alleyway. They start complaining that they were the ones who cleaned up Gerald Field with their own hands, and that adults generally suck. Well, MAYBE YOU WOULDN'T HAVE THIS PROBLEM IF YOU WOULD HAVE MENTIONED THIS TO THE ADULTS. Honestly, why can't they just tell the adults that the field was theirs? It's the most infuriating thing about this episode.

"But Deebiedoobie, we told you already that it's just to serve the plot."

And then we overhear the adults arguing over encroaching on each other's space, so now no one gets to enjoy their fun.

"That's what happens when grown-ups rule the world." - Helga

So then, the kids decide to teach the adults a lesson. They spot the dumpster where they threw all the junk and shit that littered the lot, and dump the entire thing back onto the field.

The adults are now like "What the fuck?" and NOW Arnold finally admits that the kids were the ones who broke their tiny backs cleaning up the field and making it their own before they were kicked out, and then Gerald straight up tells them that if they want the lot so badly, they can clean it up themselves and do what they want with it. And then they leave, leading the adults to soak in the realization that they are to blame when they really shouldn't be blamed at all.

And so, the adults decide to work all night to build the kids a real baseball field with actual bases and seating. Aww, how nice of them. See, if they just asked the adults to help them in the first place, they would have had the field like this all along.

The adults apologize for encroaching on the kids' field, and they all play ball.




Lessons Learned From These Episodes: If you try to sabotage someone's chance at romance, you will lose; don't get into car #4; tell the goddamn adults you were the ones who cleaned up the field so that they won't steal the lot--and if they still do, they're assholes.