Stuck in the Wringer: Ah, it's the episode that made me want to turn the Bikini Bottomites into sashimi. Patrick himself was completely incompetent, as he did absolutely nothing to help SpongeBob; in fact, he was an active liability. If I had a friend that treated me like Patrick treated SpongeBob in this episode, I would never speak to them again. To add insult to injury, SpongeBob was the one that was lambasted by the Bikini Bottomites. The entertainment value wasn't there, the story felt aimless, and the ending was a spork stab in the heart.
SpongeBob, You're Fired: Wait, I used to find this episode meh back in 2016? Ok...well, the problems in this episode became more noteworthy after viewing this episode a few times. First of all, the episode mainly consists of lots of padding to fill up 22 minutes. I mean, it could have been an 11-minute episode if it wasn't for all of those random scenes that didn't really contribute to the episode's plot. Also, it misappropriated elements from previous episodes, like Bummer Vacation, Model Sponge, and Le Big Switch. How original. Krabs firing SpongeBob over a nickel? Ridonculous. One thing that stood out to me was how SpongeBob was able to make delicious snail food for Gary, yet he was kicked out of 4 restaurants after he made various Krabby Patty-esque dishes. Truly, it rendered the restaurant scenes useless. While this "special" had some redeeming qualities, including the very beginning, SpongeBob saying "I'm ready!", the scenes with Patrick's mutated head, and the Killer Krabby Patty saving SpongeBob, it's a really uninspired episode that had virtually no reason to exist.