Review: The Great North “Avocado Barter Adventure”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

It’s Wolf and Honeybee’s six month anniversary! The happy couple has big plans to celebrate their special day, but it wouldn’t be complete without a little chaos. After hearing about how often Honeybee has been dreaming of guacamole, Wolf is planning a big romanic gesture to give her guac at the party — the only problem is that avocados are hard to get in the frozen wasteland.

While Wolf and Moon try to track some down, Judy interviews Honeybee to learn more about the story of how the two of them started their fairytale romance. It’s a sweet story about following your dreams instead of doing what’s expected of you. Wolf’s quest for guac may not work out in the end, but he and Honeybee won’t be awoken from their dreamy relationship by such a mere trifle.

Our Take:

We’re several episodes into the world of The Great North now, and the show is starting to lay more of the groundwork and get into the backstory of the characters that inhabit its world. Avocado Barter Adventure might take place in the present for the most part, but it’s really kind of a blast from the past, showing how Wolf and Honeybee met up and why they work so well together.

The inciting incident for the plot is something almost everyone can relate to: planning a big party for someone special. Finding the perfect gift is always a challenge, but Wolf thinks he has it easy with how many guacamole dreams Honeybee has been having of late. There’s a lot of Shrek-themed party decor to put up, but he leaves that to Beef and Ham while he takes Moon to obtain some ‘cados. Judy is squirreled away in Honeybee’s room listening to their love story.

Thus, this week’s episode follows three different groups, with each one bringing varied success. The main storyline takes us on a journey with Wolf and Moon. Buying a few avocados might sound relatively easy, but that proves not to be the case, as the two of them have to resort to trading around and bartering up a chain in order to even get their hands on some mushy ones.

Wolf and Moon are some of the least interesting cast members to me, so I wasn’t very entertained by this thread — although it was interesting to see all the different barters taking place. Wolf’s ‘lesson’ about doing stuff for the feelings and not the grand romantic spectacle of it all was nice, too, although it would’ve hit harder if the show had established his love of pomp beforehand.

Beef and Ham’s scenes are all pretty much the same: just riffing on how they think they know Shrek, but don’t. It’s entertaining once or twice, but quickly grows tired. I think it would’ve been nice to cut this a bit and invest more time in focusing on padding out Wolf’s emotional arc.

The best part of the episode for me was Honeybee’s story to Judy, which follows her quest to get out of an arranged romance in Fresno and make it out to her own true love in Vancouver. I feel like this particular plot line gave more insight into Wolf’s character than his own storyline this week, especially with how many fun nods to his favorite movies are thrown in. Meeting up at an online movie quotes forum is a nifty backstory for sure.

Avocado Barter Adventure might be a step or two down from the premiere episode, but it shows that we still have a lot to learn about this family… and that there’s still a lot to love about the Great North.