Review: Regular Show ‘The Thanksgiving Special’
Regular Show celebrates Thanksgiving and gives us the goods. Read on for the review to find out how!
Spoilers Below
The house is abuzz with the spirit of Thanksgiving. There’s football on TV, and a Skips and Pops are preparing a turkey dinner with all the fixings. Muscle Man and Fives are out getting the pies, and Benson is micromanaging as usual. Mordecai and Rigby, who’ve been banned from the kitchen, are out in the living room setting up the table. Benson tells Mordecai and Rigby that they’re going upstairs to prepare the rooms for the guests, and reminds them not to play football in the house or go into the kitchen. Of course, Rigby finds a way around Benson’s rules. He has a foam football. They start running plays in the living room. Yeah, you guessed it; they completely ruin the Thanksgiving dinner.
Benson and the rest of the crew are ticked off, and leave the house in hopes to piece together a Thanksgiving dinner with only a few hours to spare. Meanwhile, Mordecai and Rigby try to find a way to redeem themselves. A commercial comes on TV for a contest being held by Farmer Jimmy. The challenge is to come up with the best Thanksgiving song, and the prize is a turducken; a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. Mordecai and Rigby, supremely confident in their songwriting abilities, decide to give it a go.
Muscle Man and Fives head over to The Sideline, a local sports bar that specializes in sides, but run into some trouble when they openly mock a football player named Brock Stettman’s endzone dance moves. It turns out that Stettman was there the whole time, and heard everything they said.
Meanwhile, Benson, Pops, and Skips’s trip to the supermarket seems be working out perfectly when they discover the last remaining turkey, but quickly takes a turn for the worse when a Native American, a pilgrim, and a guy in a turkey suit attack Pops, jack their turkey, and make a quick getaway.
Mordecai and Rigby are stuck in traffic. With the contest less than thirty minutes away, Mordecai decides to take a detour and stop at Margaret’s house to seek the help of her father and his helicopter.
Back at The Sideline, Brock Stettman challenges Muscle Man to an end zone dance-off. Just when it looks like Muscle Man is about to seal his victory, he puts himself out of commission with a failed split attempt. Stettman proclaims himself the king of the endzone dance, and tosses his football directly at the guy bringing out Muscle Man’s huge order of sides. All the plates crash down onto the floor, and Muscle Man lets out a pained “Oh no, bro.”
Benson, Pops, and Skips are in the midst of a high speed chase with the turkey thieves. They end up with the turkey as the Native American, pilgrim, and guy in a turkey suit crash and burn, but they emerge from the flames running super humanly fast. The turkey winds up falling onto the street as Benson, Pops, and Skips careen towards a wall. Pops skids out at the last second and avoids crashing. When they get out of the car to grab the turkey, a guy on a moped comes by and runs over it.
We pan up to Margaret’s dad, Mordecai, and Rigby up in the helicopter. He tells them that their song needs to be from the heart. Meanwhile, at the contest, Donald Trump look-a-like Rich Buckner has paid all the best singers and musicians to compose a song about Thanksgiving. The chopper gets to the contest just on time for them to enter the contest. Suddenly, Mordecai’s phone rings, and Thomas is on the other line. He’s at the airport waiting for everyone’s family members to arrive, but informs Mordecai that their flights were delayed and they won’t get in until the next day. Devastated by the news, Rigby is about to throw in the flag, but Mordecai tells him that that’s what their song should be about. He grabs a microphone and starts singing about the hardships they endured to get to this point. It turns out that Margaret’s dad’s advice was right. They sang from the heart, bringing everyone together in the process, and won the contest. They were about to be awarded the turducken, but Rich Buckner steals it from them with his own helicopter and a high-tech fishing line.
Margaret’s dad comes to the rescue, picking up Mordecai and Rigby to chase down the evil Buckner. The Native American, pilgrim, and turkey suit guy agree to help Benson, Pops, and Skips help get the turducken back, and Brock Stettman tells Muscle Man and fives that the team’s jet is parked outside. Mordecai and Rigby’s song managed to get everyone on the same page, and as Muscle Man said, it was game on.
Margaret’s dad helps Mordecai and Rigby zip line over to Buckner’s blimp. When they break in, he’s sitting at his dinner table with the turducken. He explains his motive. He reaches into the turducken and pulls out a golden wishbone, which he says actually grants wishes. He tells them that he plans to wish to own the rights to Thanksgiving, and force everyone in the world to have to thank him. A fight breaks out as Mordecai and Rigby do everything in their power to stop Buckner from breaking the wishbone and fulfilling his evil plan. Meanwhile, Muscle Man, Fives, Stettman, and his team fly the jet above Buckner’s blimp. They dive out, and Muscle Man digs into the fabric of the blimp with his cleats; tearing three holes into it. Benson and company, in a flying car, approach the blimp. The Native American fires arrows at it, putting even more holes into the fabric. The blimp starts to plummet out of the sky while Mordecai and Rigby are still fighting Buckner. He gets the upper hand when he kicks them out of the blimp and sends them free falling down. He goes to make his wish and break the wishbone, but Rigby managed to swap it for his spoons. Buckner screams in horror as he realizes that he’s about to crash into a bridge. The blimp makes contests and explodes. Mordecai and Rigby, still free falling, decide to be home with their friends and family. At the very last second before hitting the ground, they’re able to break the wishbone. They vanish into thin air, and are transported to the park. Benson and company fly down to safety, and Mordecai and Rigby explain what happened.
Rigby realizes that the wishbone didn’t grant them the part of their wish about their families being there. Suddenly, Thomas comes running out of the house and explains that he accidentally checked the departing flights instead of the arriving, and that everyone is inside. Everyone’s families, including Muscle Man, Fives, and the football team, are at the table. They all brought food, and everything is perfectly set up. Benson clinks his glass with a spoon to address the episode’s entire cast of characters. He thanks everyone for coming, and asks Mordecai and Rigby to stand up. He tells them that he’s proud of them for saving Thanksgiving, and raises his glass to them. Everyone shares food and has a great time, and Mordecai and Rigby give each other a five.
This episode had everything I’ve come to love and expect from Regular Show, and a little bit more. From crazy car chases, fights, and Muscle Man swinging his shirt over his head and screaming “Woo!” to epic songs and an evil mastermind based on Donald Trump, this episode was a perfectly-basted turkducken served up hot and shared with my loved ones (In this case, my dog and my roommate’s cat). It was awesome to see everyone’s family members and the strange cast of characters we met during the episode all come together at the end. I, for one, am very thankful for J.G. Quintel’s awesome sense of humor. The only sore spot was that there was no Mordecai and Margaret reunion. With her dad being such a big part of the episode, I really expected her to show up at the end. Still, it gets a solid:
