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Ghost Bride
You
can basically always count on this show to pull out all atmospheric stops when
it comes to scary stories or urban legends.
Even this far into the series, this continues to be the case, right down
to the point of the particular story in question being one of the darkest.
It happens when Arnold and the gang pass by
the cemetery which reminds a good number of them of what day this is. As is the usual case with these stories,
Gerald acting as keeper of the tale explains all there is to know about this
scary figure in question, the Ghost Bride.
The bride in question at first seemed innocent enough, on the cusp of
being married to the man of her dreams.
The groom not showing up should be disappointing enough, but then the
story goes a step further by showing that he actually fell in love with and
married the bride’s sister. The bride’s
reaction to this was far more extreme though as she then went on to get an ax
and straight up chop her sister and ex-husband to bits. Then she killed herself to avoid getting
caught by the police, further explaining the dark background of such a
frightening sounding figure. Now, this
very night is the anniversary of the ghost bride’s demise in which she’s said
to rise from her grave and spend the night attacking anyone in the cemetery ax
in hand.
Arnold and the others plan on
spending the night in the cemetery to witness the ghost bride, which is
innocent enough, but is brought down by something uncalled for. Most of the guys unjustly refuse to let Helga
join them because this is a guys thing and she’s a girl. Of all the reasons they could have gone with
to not include Helga, this has got to be the shallowest and does not hold up
well. Someone being denied the right to join something
because of gender isn’t a good fit for today’s more accepting world. Females have more than shown their worth in
many areas as well as capability at virtually anything.
Making it work slightly though is how she plots to get back at the
guys. Donning her own wedding dress and
carrying something made to look like an ax, Helga gives the boys a frightening
experience. Even though the boys’
frightening reactions are over things the audience knows, it’s still impressive
how elaborately convincing Helga is. She
not only nails an eerie humming of the wedding march against a fog. She also pulls off stunts to work in things
like gates suddenly closing and locking.
To balance out moralities though, she becomes forced to come clean when
she witnesses a Ghost Bride of her own.
At that point, there does seem like a legit reason for the scared
reactions after all with logical explanations not seeming obvious. Everyone has to hide in a crypt for
protection, and with the wedding march continuing, they must do so for a long
time. Soon, the truth behind this Ghost
Bride is exposed as Arnold goes out, and through deduction, exposes the figure
as Curly. It turns out to make a lot of
sense considering his actions were over something as petty as not getting to tell
the story of the Ghost Bride. Going to
the extreme over such trivial matters is a thing with Curly after all. It also feels fitting that everyone responds
to him by locking him up in the crypt.
Ultimately, this ends up being like most scary stories where it’s
revealed to be nothing more than that, but the frightening effects are more
than memorable.
A
Gerald vs
Jamie O
I’m
just thankful that this is the only other cartoon of the series focusing on
Gerald’s older brother, Jamie O. Much
like last time, he brings a very unpleasing atmosphere to Gerald’s family
dynamic making his life miserable for no good reason other than big brother
stereotypes. It even goes to the extreme
by having Jamie O claim ownership of everything that rightfully belongs to Gerald
which is just messed up. I still can’t
believe that an older sibling would be this hostile by nature. This opening conflict serves as a basis for a
story that turns out to be repetitive and disappointing.
While Gerald is venting over all the problems
Jamie O is causing for him, he meets a new girl to the neighborhood called
Chloe. Her attractive figure and
friendly demeanor are enough for Gerald to take a keen interest in her. However, through her appearance alone and a
flat-out mention from other people like Arnold, it’s not worth pushing this
pairing because she’s clearly too old for Gerald. This doesn’t faze Gerald though as he’s
completely serious with winning Chloe over, setting up fancy dinners and
introducing him to his family. Nothing
is giving him the slightest indication that maybe he’s a little
over-zealous.
If anything, it makes
sense that when Chloe sets her sights on Jamie O, she’s far more interested in
him than his younger brother. In fact, right
in the middle of the cartoon, she flat out tells this to Jamie O, who isn’t
even interested in her, as well as that she’s just using Gerald to get to
him. This in turn sets up a sequence of
events lasting for the entire cartoon.
Gerald invites Chloe along to hang out around his home, Chloe makes a
feeble excuse to be alone, and uses that to flirt with Jamie O. The fact that we know Chloe’s motives further
makes seeing all of this nonstop all the more futile. What’s more, it reaches the point where
Gerald just happens to come in at the wrong time with Jamie O in a suggestive
pose with Chloe, making it look like he’s trying to steal her. Gerald has all the reasons to believe this is
so given how stealing his stuff is all Jamie O seems to do. Since Jamie O really isn’t stealing Chloe and
it’s known that she’s just using Gerald, this move makes the sequence go on
even longer than necessary. All the
while, Gerald’s potential sympathy is wasted based on knowledge of the hard
truths.
At the very least, the story is
set up to have a good conclusion. Gerald
later confronts Jamie O for stealing Chloe with a fight, and it gets
legitimately violent. Chloe has no
choice but to break it up and come clean about everything and admitting fault
in her actions. Gerald is left
brokenhearted and Chloe ashamed, but there is a genuinely good moment of
brotherly comfort from Jamie O. He
sounds from the heart regretful over what Gerald was put through, and even
promises to try and be a better older brother.
This really should have been where the cartoon ended because after this
is a final scene of Jamie O back to his jerky ways with no regret at all. Talk about a waste of good development and
devaluing of a scene that totally could have helped the story.
It’s really not the show at its worst, but
it’s a majorly lackluster effort of repetitive frustrating conflicts, and
necessary development that gets mercilessly retconned.
D+
The Ranking
1. Beaned
2. Helga’s Locket
3. Ghost Bride
4. Rhonda Goes Broke
5. Sid and Germs
6. Phoebe Breaks a Leg
7. Principal Simmons
8. Fishing Trip
9. Sid the Vampire Slayer
10. Old Iron Man
11. Gerald’s Game
12. Stuck in a Tree
13. Big Sis
14. Gerald vs Jamie O
15. New Bully on the Block
16. Bag of Money
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Harold tries to find good in being suspended from school, and Ernie finds love and is true to himself at the same time.
If you would like to check out other Hey Arnold reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them. 
This season really is one of highs and lows, with many episodes having very strong and very weak halves...
ReplyDeleteGhost Bride is a fantastic episode even with that enormous flaw of the boys excluding Helga on the grounds that she's a girl... especially by now that she's pretty much proven herself to be the toughest kid in school. Still, I can accept Sid, Stinky and Harold would act pointlessly sexist as young kids do sometimes... I just have a really hard time accepting that ARNOLD would. Gerald too, but then he just doesn't like Helga in general so whatever. It does seem like they just needed an excuse to have Helga absent from the group so she could be the one to prank them, and I guess giving her a revenge mission just makes it more interesting. Fortunately the rest of the episode is fantastic.
Sadly this isn't even the worst of Jaime O... in my opinion we got that in Jamie O in love where he's just overly horrible to the point of treating Gerald sadistically and even violently. I really do kind of buy those more genuine moments of him showing his more brotherly and protective side in this episode, especially since Gerald has ample reason not to trust him which makes his struggle to reach his little brother very engaging and even sympathetic. And yeah, then they had to hit the reset button at the end as they always had to... sometimes successfully, and other times like here in a way where it just undoes what good they were going for... much like in 'Big Sis.'
And then of course there's Chloe... who just had me wondering if whoever wrote this episode thought girls were evil... oh, written by Michelle Lamoreaux? Weird... still, Chloe does at least get a nice humanizing moment at the end despite being kind of awful for most of the story.
In his first two appearances, Jamie was only slightly mean to his brother. I wonder why he's ten times meaner in his last two appearances. He really gives Helga's cruelty a run for her money.
DeleteI don't think any of these Hey Arnold episodes deserve a D+. I only like the episodes with Connie and Maria as the 6th graders. To quote Maria's Dad: Maria, come over here! Is Phoebe in the 6th grade with Connie, Maria, Cookie and Simone?
ReplyDeleteTwo sexist stories in one episode. The first one, Ghost Bride, the kids were sexist to Helga and said she couldn't come along because girls get scared easily. In this one, Gerald literally treated Chloe like a trophy to be won, telling Jamie-O not to take his "stuff" like Chloe's an object. Sheesh, '90s writing at its worst.
ReplyDelete