Here’s the first thing you arguably need to know about iCarly season 3: it very easily could have been the last season of the show.
Not because there was a dip in popularity, far from it, but because at that point in Nickelodeon history, 3-4 seasons was the standard for even the most popular live-action sitcoms. And that made sense, these shows were usually set in a school setting, either Middle School or High School, so three to four years was basically the maximum length they could go on for before people started to ask questions.
And furthermore, there was always a short window of time for teen sitcoms to remain marketable, because teenagers, fun fact, eventually become adults who don’t watch Nickelodeon anymore.
And because of this, season 3 is packed full of massive event stories which were heavily advertised and tend to focus a lot on character-driven drama. One thing I remember that really pissed me off at the time, was they’d air these commercials for episodes that had some really funny or notable moment, and you’d watch the episode, and it just wouldn’t be there.
It always felt so cheap, like were they filming scenes just for the TV trailers? Were they that low?
Nowadays the understanding is that the trailers often just used deleted scenes, but I still think it’s a pretty lame thing that they did.
Visuals for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQqBqAVlrqk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3MWk3mF0TU [The girls screaming about iCarly being canceled and the girls fighting over Freddie as he says “hey look a Freckle” are both deleted scenes]
The reason I’m bringing this up, is that while for seasons 1 and 2 I typically caught most of the episodes in re-runs, kind of randomly depending what was on after school, with iCarly season 3, I saw most of these episodes the day they originally aired, and when they came out in the season thus feels important.
Talking about the Bigfoot episode, and then the episode where Freddie and Carly date, THEN the school dance episode, would just feel so very wrong.
Talking about these stories almost in broadcast order also means that I can write and record intermediately, which means I can get the video out much faster, because my goal at this point is still to have SOMETHING out before the revival. Hope this makes sense.
I think the most notable aspect of season 3 was its sudden milking of one of the most essential pieces to the iCarly show since its start: shipping culture. Basically, from the day that the pilot was shot, iCarly was trying very hard to get you invested in some kind of relationship pairing in the cast. Most notably, Freddie with one of the two girls. So either Sam and Freddie, aka Seddie, or Sam and Carly, aka Creddie.
Back in 2018, I made a Fallen Titans where I talked about iCarly for like half the run time. I think that video is bad, and this year I’ve been kinda stripping it down for parts and remaking all the good bits. But I do want to steal one funny joke from it real quick. https://youtu.be/YW3HarwTiIY?t=843 [14:04 - 14:10]
That’s such a good bit
I realized while working on this that it’s weird that “Seddie” and “Creddie” are the ship names that stuck, when we could have gone with the vastly superior “Fram” and “Farly”.
Think about it, Fram sounds like Spam, which obviously Sam would probably love eating, and Farly reminds me of Chris Farley, a man so funny even photos of him make you feel good
But the names have stuck, so there’s nothing I can do.
So anyways, my point is that building off of these ships and stretching them out as long as the writers possibly could is the basis for quite a few episodes. And starting us off is the sequel to iKiss: season 3, episode 1: iThink they Kissed.
In the story, Carly is tasked with taking Sam to the dentist, and making sure she goes through with it and isn’t violent. Sam gets hopped up on nitrous oxide, and begins speaking to Carly while she’s not of clear mind, even briefly believing that her thumb is missing. Suddenly, without prompt, she makes an admission:
[“Me and Freddie Kissed”]
As Carly begins to freak out to this shocking news, Sam suddenly adds:
[“Don’t tell Carly.”]
When you watch all these episodes in a row, binging through them in a few nights, the impact of this story doesn’t hit you quite right. But being there, seeing that kiss go down, and feeling the anxiety of it needing to remain a secret lest it rip the trio apart, that made this story a must-see episode, while today, it’s almost something you can read the title of and then skip.
This episode is actually considered a Creddie or Farly episode by most fans, because the way that it was marketed was almost to imply that Carly was MAD at the idea of Freddie with another girl. But in the actual episode of course, her actual anxiety draws from the fact that she’s been told a secret she’s not supposed to know while not being sure why she’s not supposed to know it, again playing into Miranda’s strength at portraying “human-shaped bundle of anxiety”
Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Spencer begins teaching an art class at a local prison, where it goes poorly when one inmate tries to murder him numerous times. But who gives a shit about that?
Carly tries to confront Freddie about what Sam said, but she tries to tackle him to force him to answer the question.
There’s this joke in season 1 where Carly and Sam are both constantly able to tackle Freddie and hold him down against his will, because he’s so tiny, but the payoff in this episode is that he easily turns that around and does it to her instead,
[15:15 - 15:19]
But yeah it’s a weird moment if you don’t go in with that context
Freddie explains that it’s all true, but makes Carly promise she won’t bring it up to Sam because if she finds out he talked about it, she’ll “kick him in places that shouldn’t be kicked.”
Meanwhile, Spencer and his prison students build a massive pair of pants, and a few of the prisoners hide inside of the pants when he’s in another room. Spencer is apparently the strongest man in the world because he brings the pants home, and in his own words, drags it upstairs, meaning he pulled the weight of two full-bodies adults up to his apartment all on his own.
The trio have a confrontation and discussion about the kiss, at the same time that the prisoners break out of the pants, tying them up in the apartment.
Forced to work things out, they all agree to never keep secrets, telling Carly they’ll tell her anything.
Carly then asks a series of follow-ups about the kiss, including if it was something they both enjoyed doing, leaving an awkward silence as the pair really aren’t sure if they’re ready to say the truth out loud.
Spencer runs back in, but is so distracted by trying to bang a girl he met who likes banjo music that he doesn’t even notice the kids are tied up. To be fair tho, these three are basically YouTubers. I imagine this isn’t the weirdest thing he’s walked in on.
In episode 2, the iCarly gang do a tribute to their favorite network, Food TV, a parody of the Food Network. In the segment, they speak about their favorite chef, Ricky Flames, who challenges people to sporadic cooking competitions, and they then show off Spencer’s special recipe, Spaghetti Tacos.
The next day, Spencer rushes into the trio’s school to announce that Food TV got in contact with him about the iCarly webcast, and that they want to feature iCarly in an episode of the show. Carly says that since it’s Spencer’s recipe, he deserves credit, but Spencer says helping grow iCarly.com is much more important, before he electrocutes himself because Sam hooked up a security system to her locker
Spencer runs off, having seen a vision in his electrocuted state which he is convinced showed him the future, and later on Food TV arrives to film a segment on iCarly.
[0:79 - 07:34]
But it turns out that they are on Ricky Flames’ show and are challenged to a foot fight as Freddie makes a pog face. They have the competition downstairs, and things are fierce, but somehow the iCarly gang win, a shocking outcome considering that Ricky Flames has never lost a cooking competition in his entire life. This causes him to have a physical and mental breakdown, and this is truly a level of defeat he has never experienced before.
After he quits his show and becomes bedridden with depression, the gang try to force him to remember how he loves cooking, what it felt like to be a winner. Later on, he sends them a V-mail saying that thanks to them, he now DOES remember that winning was what kept him going: and he’s found the one place where he always can win.
A community wrestling league, where Ricky wrestles children, oh my god this scene has implications that I didn’t notice when I was 13-
Ricky even forces Carly to wrestle him when she’s screaming no, and says that finally no one can beat him. Sam kicks his ass, proving him wrong, and he’s left an empty shell of a man once more but this time the gang doesn’t seem to care.
Moving on, season 3 episode 3 is perhaps the quintessential iCarly episode -- because it’s 98% filler that’s not worth talking about, and 2% scenes everyone would be talking about at school the next day.
In the story, Carly has trouble finding a date to her school’s Sadie Hawkins dance, and Sam ties her up live on their webshow and announces that any teenaged boys in the Seattle area should enter for a chance to go on a date with Carly. However, close to 50 boys end up showing up at the Groovie Smoothie, and the gang do a series of speed dating rounds to see which boys she likes best.
She ends up picking a boy who’s rather talkative and charismatic, and Freddie ends up with the only girl in school who asked him and no one else. Freddie and Carly have a miserable night, but after their dates leave early, they decide there’s still time for one last dance, which they have together. Sam enters, having been abandoned by the guy she wanted to go to the dance with, only to feel stunned, as she leaves right away.
Have you started to pick up on that weird ambiguity, where each girl maybe has feelings for Freddie which materialize as a lack of comfort with him being with the other person, but that it also might just be an awkwardness about social boundaries in a closely knit friend group?
Yeah, I can not over state this, this is the reason we all watched the show.
Season 3, episode 4 is called iCarly Awards, and we’re going to skip it for now.
Episode 5 is called “iHave My Principals”, and it’s a high school episode, which means that it’s almost worth skipping entirely.
But the one interesting detail is that this story features Mindy Sterling returning as Miss Briggs, who you’ll recall was a recurring character in season 1 who appeared almost as often as the school did. This is a big example of why it felt kinda sad to go from season 1 to season 2, because it’s always a shame when a recurring character who builds a sense of normalcy suddenly shows up so rarely that it’s a spectacle when they do.
After this story, I believe that she has one more appearance this season, and then Miss Briggs is totally missing from the show until the final season.
In the story, Ridgeway’s regular Principal, Mr. Franklin, makes a big appearance on iCarly to wish his daughter a happy birthday. This episode breaks iCarly records, as it’s viewed by the most amount of people ever, with 900,000 viewers, which.
[annoyed noise] That’s not the number you said in SEASON ONE
However, Franklin is fired by the superintendent because of the webshow, and Miss Briggs and Mr. Howard are selected as temporary co-principals, leading to the school becoming an authoritarian police state with an enforced dress code and immediate punishment for speaking out against the administration.
The students organize a revolution, locking the principals in the closet, going crazy, and putting the superintendent on a mechanical bull. Seeing how Franklin is able to control the students entirely through their respect for him, the superintendent gives him his job back, and all is well.
The thing about the episodes set entirely at school, is that they feel kind of non-specific to iCarly. This is a phenomenon you notice a lot in these gimmick shows. As an example, Hannah Montana, Cory in the House, and iCarly are all super different programs, right? Hannah’s about a teenager who’s secretly a pop-star, Cory is about a teenager who’s best friends with the President of the United States and he has a band or something, iCarly is about teenagers who become web famous and run an internet show. But despite this, you could take an episode of Cory about Newt running for class president and turn it into an iCarly episode. You could take this episode of iCarly, and turn it into a Hannah Montana episode.
I’m not saying that iCarly episodes set at the school aren’t fun, it’s just that they aren’t what made iCarly different.
PUT UP GARFIELD WITH CRUTCHES
With that, it’s now time for a little bit of a special moment in the analysis.
Throughout this video, I’ve occasionally told you guys that we’ll be skipping certain episodes to save for later. Well, by the end of season 3, I intend to go back, and get caught back up on every single story we’ve missed out on.
And starting us off, is a little character who we’ve only mentioned a handful of times, despite some saying that he represents a BIG PART of the legacy of this show.
And I think you guys know exactly who I’m talking about.
Lewbert.
Y’all remember Lewbert, the disgruntled lobby employee who becomes the target of the gang’s pranks and ridicule on the viral web?
It’s been a while since we talked about this guy, all the way back in season 1, which for me was several months ago, but for you guys was probably only like 15 minutes, an hour, I don’t know. I have no scale for how long this video is gonna be.
Now, here’s the thing about Lewbert. He exists only to be someone who is the target of the cast’s constant harassment, and from the start the show tries really hard to justify why it’s okay that they do this. But the way the show does it, doesn’t really... work, in my opinion.
Basically, the show’s logic is Lewbert is a bad person, thus it’s okay when bad things happen to him. But it then extends this to say, Lewbert is a bad person, thus it’s funny when bad things happened in his past.
Let me give you a great example. Do you remember the iCarly.com character blogs, which exist to tie-into the show and are sometimes advertised in the show’s credits?
Well, at one point early on, the website posted a blog post from Spencer, saying that he had gotten in contact with Lewbert’s mom to learn more about his origins, and that she had sent him a very interesting email containing stories about him. Lewbert’s mother then basically takes over the blog post, pretty much using it to brag about all the ways that she has been an abusive parent. https://web.archive.org/web/20110724222408/http://www.icarly.com/m/iblogs#45
Dear people at iCarly,
Shut up! I ain't seen Lewbert in over 2 years! Who gave you people my email address? I hate mayonnaise! And I'm GLAD Lewbert moved outta my house 2 years ago. You don't got no idea what a pain in the butt it is havin your 38 year old son livin in your dang CLOSET!
You think Lewbert's NORMAL?!?! HE AIN'T! You wanna know some stuff Lewbie did as a kid?!?!? Here's a list!!!...
When he was 5, Lewbert picked his nose WITH A FORK!
When he was 7, he BIT OFF one of his own TOES!
When he was 9, he had a birthday party but NOBODY SHOWED UP! (I laughed my butt off. HA!!!)
When he was 30, I accidentally slammed my car door on his tongue. I left him there for two hours. HA!!! He couldn't even call for help because his tongue was skwished in the car door! HAHAHAHAA!!!
When he was 35, he won 7 million dollars in the state lottery... SO I FLUSHED HIS WINNING TICKET DOWN THE TOILET! THEN I SAID, "TOUGH LUCK, LEWBERT!" HE CRIED LIKE A BABY DUCK! LOL!
So, anyway, I don't know where Lewbert is. Now SHUT UP!
Best Regards,
Lewbert's Mom
And when you see stuff like this in spin-off media, and in the show, it feels hard not to feel bad for this dude who was just constantly abused by people in his life until he became an asocial aloof being bullied by a new group of people finding his pain amusing.
And the way the show tries to justify it is to say, “well, Lewbert’s a bad person now so it’s funny and ok.” But like Lewbert being a dick to a couple of self-righteous 8th graders does not justify his mother literally hating him since he was born and taking joy in sharing his lifelong suffering with millions of people on the internet.
Anyways, let’s hop back to season 2, episode 4. iHurt Lewbert.
In the story, the iCarly gang are playing a prank on Lewbert where, when he picks up a muffin, it will blow confetti in his face. However, due to a technical error, it actually explodes.
[clip]
This sends Lewbert to the hospital, as he comes back, covered in casts. Spencer takes over his job at the front desk, and the iCarly gang try to take care of him as an apology for nearly killing him. However, they accidentally drop a ceiling fan on him, and soon enough Freddie’s mother takes to helping nurse Lewbert back to health.
Freddie is horrified when he pieces together that his mother and Lewbert are dating, and they try to find a way to get her to break up with him. Eventually, they have Freddie trip down the staircase to the lobby, and as Lewbert dismisses her worry about him, she ends things immediately.
When he’s well enough to take back his position, Spencer says that he’s organized Lewbert’s messages into...
[“From your mother. Death threats. Death threats from your mother.”]
The episode ends with furious truckers entering the building and violently assaulting Lewbert, presumably breaking his body for a third time.
This brings us back around to season 3, as episode 6 is a full-out exploration of Lewbert’s origin, and trauma.
In the story, the iCarly gang decide to prank Lewbert by hiding golf balls in one of his office cabinets, so what when he opens it, they’ll all fall out and he’ll trip and fall over them, causing him great annoyance.
[5:38 - 5:47]
While Sam is in his office, she steals a box of his personal items, as the gang go through all of the contents, learning everything about Lewbert’s past and upbringing.
For instance, a photo of when he was 7 he was run over by a car while riding a bicycle, and his portfolio from when he was a male model.
They then find a romantic CD from a former girlfriend, and after playing it, decide to reunite him with his former partner.
[8:20 - 8:23] However, the moment Lewbert sees this woman, he screams for her to get out, while the iCarly cast presume that he’s just being unreasonable because, well, it’s Lewbert. Lewbert sucks. But it immediately comes across as if what Lewbert feels is not hatred, but unfiltered fear.
[12:45 - 12:55]
Lewbert says that he didn’t move across the country, change his name, and find a quiet run-down job for fun, and that the reason is that his ex was extremely persistent and abusive, something we see for ourselves when the iCarly gang use their hidden cameras to spy on the couple, as behind closed doors she’s extremely emotionally and physically abusive.
[18:40 - 18:48]
Eventually things get so bad with Lewbert’s ex that he slaps a police officer on purpose so he’ll go to prison for 6 months, because being in jail is a better option for him than being anywhere near her.
Oh boy, I can’t wait for him to get out so the iCarly gang can do something else funny, like kill his dog or something.
Let’s jump back into the rhythm of things with season 3, episode 7: iMove Out.
In the story, Freddie’s mother barges onto the web show and forces him to finish eating his asparagus from dinner, causing that clip to become a viral meme as he’s bullied at school. Freddie decides he’s had enough, and announces that he’s moving out.
On the same webshow, they make-over Gibby’s dog and take photos of it, and these too go viral, as kids at school begin hiring them to do decorative photo shoots of their pets.
However, in doing so they’ve challenged a timeless Seattle monopoly, as there is only one pet photography business in Seattle, and they declare a terf war on iCarly.
The twink twins break into the Shay household in the middle of the night, and trash the iCarly set. They call the police, but we learn that the force is corrupt, as Officer Carl explains that the Hipster duo take photos of cop pets for free, and he refuses to do anything about it.
Since they’re not protected by the law, the group decides to break into the studio of the other pet company, to trash it as well. Carly has second thoughts, but through a wacky, uncharacteristic series of events, Sam ends up kidnapping their cat, and they blackmail the pair into coming and fixing their set, or else they’ll shave the cat to the skin.
Meanwhile, Freddie finds his new apartment to be a difficult living situation, and once his mother finds it unbearable for him to be on his own, they move back in together. The trio get their studio back, their rivals get their cat back, and I’m tired of saying sentences like these And as we move on to episode 8, we also move on to the season’s first big EVENT story, which I talked about before: iQuit iCarly. If you watched Nick at the time, you knew this was airing, because this was one of the first episodes that they advertised like it was the second coming of christ.
So let’s figure out just what’s so holy about it.
In the story, an extended episode, Carly and Sam are sent in a really funny sketch by two local friends, Fleck and Dave, who make web content together. Excited over the material, they invite them on iCarly, and their sketch goes over very well.
However, Fleck and Dave have a falling out after Fleck paints Dave’s father’s car purple, with no plans on how to get the paint off. After an argument, they insist that they’ll never speak to each other again. Carly insists to Sam that they need to try and mend the open wound left between the two boys, but it becomes clear that Fleck and Dave are just not compatible.
Dave is responsible, reserved, and careful, and Fleck is flippant, prone to violent tendencies, and even known to physically hurt Dave in the hunt for a funny punchline.
As you can probably guess, each girl ends up relating to the opposite person, Sam loving Fleck’s reckless disinterest in not catching people on fire, and Carly feeling alarm for all of the ways that Dave has literally been caught on fire by his comedic partner.
Meanwhile, Spencer wins a boat. Classic Spencer.
Getting in the middle of Fleck and Dave’s conflict accidentally makes Sam and Carly realize that they’re frustrated with each other as well. Carly hates that Sam isn’t on time, doesn’t put the work into iCarly, and is violent to Freddie; and Sam hates that Carly isn’t creatively sporadic, and doesn’t respect all that she actually puts into the show.
[20:27 - 20:37 “You already named the show after yourself”]
Later, at the Groovie Smoothie, Carly and Freddie talk about the drama and the stress of best friends changing. T-Bo walks up to her and says “My best friend changed too. He got a hit by a bus, now he’s dead.” then he walks off. I love this character.
Carly and Dave have decided to enter the competition as a pair, and at that exact moment Sam and Fleck enter, apparently having come up with the same idea.
[22:34 - 22:44]
At the Groovie Smoothie, their fight turns ugly when Sam throws a muffin into Carly’s face, and Carly accidentally throws it back at an old lady. Carly announces that Sam is banned from her house. They try to do the show remotely, but they experience technical glitches, and in the middle of the stream, the both decide that it’s time to end it.
Freddie says they’ve never quit a webcast in the middle, which, they definitely have Freddie, it happened in season 1 over a T-shirt Sam sold, but Carly says she means quit iCarly, and Sam agrees, as they agree to end the web show.
Maaan, there’s some crazy stuff going on at Spencer’s boat right now
The next day Sam and Carly both are planning on filming new solo work, but both want to use Freddie at the same time, and they begin fighting over who gets to keep him as technical producer. They wrote this bit exclusively so they could put this clip into the trailers.
[32:47 - 32:52]
Do you understand how annoying stuff like that was as a kid?
Sam and Carly end up on a window washers platform. I could explain how this happened, but does it really matter?
The platform suddenly breaks, and Carly is left dangling eight floors from the pavement below...
Spencer’s got a slingshot and watermelon, oh Spencer!
Carly and Sam work together to keep each other safe, and Spencer finishes up his B-plot just in time to send a rope down for the pair.
The two begin crying, and the group all reconcile. The 4 make a supposedly hilarious collab together, and it kinda blows.
PUT UP COFFEE GARFIELD
Believe it or not, the next episode of iCarly was ALSO a massive event episode which shook the foundations of the relationships of the main trio, and was also advertised relentlessly.
And in fact, this event story not only was the highest viewed episode of iCarly ever, it still remains the second highest viewed premiere of any Nickelodeon episode, only barely beaten by the episode of Rugrats that was basically a pilot episode for All Grown Up.
And that episode was, the ever iconic, iSaved Your Life. For those who weren’t there, the reason this episode was viewed by so many people is that it’s the episode where Carly decides she wants to be Freddie’s boyfriend, and they start going out.
Now, what’s funny is that I don’t really think that Carly and Freddie was ever the more popular ship. But the idea of it happening was so surprising, that you had to see it go down.
I think what people forget about these two ships between the three main characters of this show, is that the most important piece to the puzzle was always, Freddie.
Freddie was such a unique character at the time that I think everyone really appreciated. Around that point in the history of teen sitcoms, male love interests had kind of become a little odd. Most boyfriends in these shows were either walking cartoon characters that just didn’t feel like real people and were sometimes even played by people in their 30s, or they were male bimbo’s without any real personality going on behind the pretty eyes.
So with characters like Freddie, people got invested in them because they were cute while also being human. Sure, Freddie had weaknesses, he had his limits, but he was also funny and kind, even to Sam usually.
You wanted to see him push through it all and find some happiness, because he really deserved it. And that’s why I think so many people watched iSaved Your Life. Not because Carly and Freddie was the most popular ship, far from it, but dammit Freddie had a crappy life where everything was always going wrong, and we were all rooting for him to get to be happy, even if just for one episode.
With that, let’s get into this story.
Live on their webshow, Carly is challenged by a viewer to go into public dressed as a bunny and to offer to brush people’s teeth for money. Sam accepts on her behalf, and the trio head off. However, partway through the day, Sam comes running back into the apartment with horrible news.
While they were filming, Carly was using a crosswalk without paying attention, and a Taco Truck almost ran her over, but at the last minute, Freddie pushed her out of the way, and now he’s in the hospital.
Sam is also eating a Taco, leading Spencer to deduce that she bought it from the Taco Truck after it ran Freddie over.
You know it’s funny, I only saw this episode once as a kid, but I saw the trailer for it like 100 times, so I totally forgot that a Taco Truck runs him over, because in my head he’ll always be saying Carly from the title card landing next to them. As Freddie recovers at home, Carly and Spencer come to visit, although his mother is notably enraged over what’s happened.
[8:58 - 9:02]
While this is all going on, Spencer and Sam are having a kind of paint-ball war which is used as an excuse to shoot really cinematic sequences
Where have I seen THAT before?
At one point in the episode, Gibby identifies a Rabbi as Spencer in disguise, causing Sam to shoot him and get detention, and afterwards they do a parody of a scene from The Wire, where someone gets shot in the head? https://youtu.be/N2JjP8ATI7s?t=121 [How’s my hear look? / It look good, Gibby.]
Later on, Carly comes over to look over Freddie again, and his mother leaves to get a prescription. Quick disclaimer, a lot of stuff in this scene is weird, and I’m gonna describe all of it in extreme detail.
Freddie falls in the shower, and Carly wants to come in to help him up, but Freddie reminds her that she’s in the shower, so she makes a blind fold and puts it on, before going in to help him. He puts a robe on while she’s carrying him, and brings him to his bed.
Even as a kid I knew they wrote this bit in for the shippers. Doesn’t this just sound like the start to bad fan fiction?
Anyways, once they get Freddie in bed, Carly says people are calling him a hero, which he doesn’t seem to believe. And then, as she says that he’s a hero to her, she leans over, and kisses Freddie. As we fade to commercials.
We then fade up, to see that they’re still making out, although they take a break as Freddie is left stunned.
[15:38 - 15:41]
Freddie then uses a Galaxy Wars branded Tazer to see if he’s still awake, and once that he’s sure he is, they begin making out again, just as Freddie’s mother gets home, and takes out a pair of Freddie’s underwear and begins beating Carly with it.
Carly runs into Sam and immediately tells her about what happens, and the two gossip behind closed doors. By the way, I did some math here.
When Freddie’s Mom leaves for the pharmacy she says she’ll be gone 36 minutes, which feels too exact to be an estimate (especially from her), and the time between her leaving and the commercial break is 2 minutes, 49 seconds, and the time between fading up on them still kissing to her getting home is 1 minute, 4 seconds...
Meaning that during that commercial break they were making out for exactly 32 minutes. And it was only after they stopped that it actually occurred to Freddie what was going on.
[“What?”]
Freddie is ecstatic to finally be going out with the girl of his dreams, but Sam is rather doubtful, causing Freddie to speculate that he’s jealous. However, Sam merely points out that Carly only started liking him when he saved her life from the food truck.
She compares it to when a boy at school she hated subscribed her to a bacon of the month program and afterwards she decided she loved him. In reality, she didn’t love him, she loved the bacon perks that came with him.
While they’re kissing later, Freddie can’t get this out of his head, and says that he can’t go forward with the relationship, because he feels as if she likes him because of impure reasons.
[27:43 - 27:56] (not to editor, the important bit is “You love what i did, you love that i risked my life to save yours, i don’t think you’re in love with me.” We can do a test edit with more, but I think it’ll get claimed.)
And so, Freddie says they should take a break until he’s all healed up, see how they feel, and if they feel the same way once this is in the past, they can start dating again.
In a very mature moment, freddie enters the elevator, and then begins screaming at himself for doing something so absolutely stupid.
I didn’t really register it at the time, but iSaved Your Life basically sets in stone the subtext that Carly and Freddie dating would never be a thing again, at least for the rest of the original series that is.
At the end of the story, Freddie says that they can start dating again once his injuries are healed and people have forgotten about what he did, but that’s basically the next episode and they’re not dating in that one. And indeed, as far as I know, there isn’t another story in the rest of the series that was marketed around being a Carly/Freddie story, I’m sure they have cutesy moments but this episode is mostly remarkable for being the story where they date, where Freddie decides it isn’t going to work out, and he breaks up with her. It’s basically closure for the crush he had in the pilot episode, which becomes much less of a thing starting here, because they can basically start dating whenever they want, they just don’t.
And this gives space in the series for his relationship with Sam to be developed in later arcs, but that’s a story for another day.
In season 3, episode 10, we find out that when she was a child, Sam’s mother used to force her to enter beauty pageants -- on second thought let’s not talk about this one
But this luckily means that we can now move on to a topic which many of you have been anticipating. The one, the only... Gibbbeh
Gibby is notable in iCarly history for being one of the few recurring background characters of season 1 who not only survives to the end of the show, but also becomes a main character on the same level as the main four. And the reason he was elevated so quickly is simply that Noah Munck gives an absolutely standout performance, at least in the stories that I’ve seen so far.
A little bit of context. The iCarly gang are supposed to be 13 in season 1 of the show, and for every season after this they will occasionally age a year until they’re 18 or 19 by the time of the finale. But quite infamously, the actors were actually older than their on-screen roles. They were all 15 to 16 around the time the pilot was filmed, and they were basically playing the age down.
Gibby is remarkable because he is the exact opposite. When the show started filming, Noah was 11 years old, and he was playing his age UP to come across as a 13 year old. And by the end of the show they give Gibby quite a big arc, partially just because he was the performer who physically changed the most by the time the show was over.
In season 1, Gibby is mostly sort of a hallway punchline, someone for Sam to hurt or such, in a way that rarely takes up much time but typically does leave an impression. However, eventually, he starts to appear as a performer on iCarly, and quickly this becomes what he’s primarily known for.
Season 1 episode 24 is a story that I skipped earlier, and that’s because it’s the first Gibby focused story, which sets in place his main “flanderization quirk.”
I feel like I explain this every time I mention it, but a Flanderization quirk is some joke or element with a character which starts off as a one-off bit, before becoming the only thing that defines them.
For instance, an episode of Parks and Recreation once featured a scene where Leslie says that she likes Waffles, and by the end of the show this became something they brought up in nearly every story, to the extent that she becomes “The girl who likes Waffles.” In this little adventure, titled “iWin a Date”, Gibby reveals to the iCarly cast that he has a crush on a girl at school, but that he’s afraid to approach her. The trio come up with the idea of holding a game show on the webshow that will be rigged, which I think is illegal but I forgot to add it, so let’s just let that one go.
And basically the idea is Gibby has a chance to win a date with one of three girls, and he somehow ends up picking Carly despite her trying very hard to make it clear which number was gibby’s crush.
Gibby and Carly is a potential romantic pairing that the show will tease... as a joke? It has an official shipping name, which is Cibby, C-I-B-B-Y, which come on people, Garly was right there, it’s funny it sounds like Garlic, use your god damn brains
Anyways, it turns out Gibby’s crush actually likes Freddie, and they come up with the idea of doing a triple date at the Cheesecake Warehouse, hoping that Gibby and his crush will get to know each other there.
Carly tries to make Gibby sound more like Freddie so the girl will take to liking him instead, before making up even more grandiose lies to try and make him seem appealing.
[Something like “Gibby invented [blablabla]”]
Gibby eventually says that he can’t hide who he is, as he begins dancing on their table without a shirt.
This isn’t the first time Gibby had taken his shirt off on the show, it’s actually the THIRD, but it is the moment that ingrained the joke into the minds of kids watching across the country. And soon enough, bombastic underage nudity becomes his core defining characteristic.
[There’s a famous shot of him without a shirt and with a banana in S3E3]
In season 2 episode 19, he goes to school without a shirt on, and when he is called out by a teacher, he notes that the student handbook doesn’t say you have to wear a shirt, and for the rest of the story he can be seen occasionally removing his top to do various things.
His comfort with his body being used as a place of comedy on the internet is often something that is discussed and expanded upon.
Earlier, in “iRocked the Vote”, Gibby appears on the show and delivers one of my favorite on-liners in the entire history of the program.
[“This is a song my mom sings me when I start screaming in the middle of the night.”] [Play “AND YOU” from Johnny Cash’s Hurt over Gibby singing, before cutting away] In season 2, episode 18, we see Sam approach Gibby with an idea for iCarly, saying that she wants to have Gibby wear a bikini and then fight someone with wet dog food. Gibby runs away in fear, but towards the end of the scene comes back, and says:
[S2E18: 5:50 - 5:56]
But season 3 is truly where Gibby is expanded the most, being given numerous stories which could be considered “Gibby episodes,” while also doing them in such a way that it doesn’t feel like a unique phenomenon. It just feels natural, in a way.
Firstly, in season 3, episode 3, you’ll remember that a Sadie Hawkins dance is being held at the school, and Carly convinces Sam to ask Gibby so he won’t feel alone. However, when she eventually does, he says
[11:40 “Nah, I’m good”]
And then walks away, causing Sam to become enraged and then obsessed with forcing him to go. She goes to his house the night of the dance, only to see that there’s another woman there spending the night with him, as he explains that she goes to another school, and Sam walks away shocked to learn that Gibby actually pulls.
Next, in iQuit iCarly, Gibby joins Spencer’s boat as his Boat Boy, and they have some fun in that B-Plot. There’s not much to say here except that this is the first B-Plot to focus on Gibby and Spencer as friends, which becomes a bigger thing later on.
You ever noticed that Spencer doesn’t have adult friends? Like he’ll hold a party and it’s all 14 year olds, that’s weird right?
Anyways, this catches us back up to Season 3, episode 11: iEnrage Gibby.
In the story, Carly has a “Bum party” at her place, where she encourages everyone to come dressed up like they’re homeless -- like I said, this is a recurring thing, and it never stops being weird
Anyways, Gibby’s girlfriend Tasha is in attendance, and privately asks Freddie what camcorder she should buy Gibby for his birthday. He takes her upstairs to show her a model which would make the perfect gift, but she trips and falls on top of him, and at that exact moment Gibby comes upstairs and is convinced that she was cheating on him with Freddie.
Angered like never before -- Gibby tells Freddie to be prepared for a fight behind the school gym at 3:02 that Friday, because it’s going DOWN.
[12:14 “Bring a mop for you BLOOD”] Gibbie spends several days away from school, training for the fight, and when he gets back Freddie isn’t able to convince him to cancel.
[16:29 - 16:33]
Sam encourages the fight, becoming Gibby’s trainor and moving the venue to a live broadcast on iCarly.com, before Freddie remembers that he has a personal camera set up which vindicates him, showing that it was an accident. Gibby admits he was a turd, he apologizes to Freddie, and he gets back with his girlfriend.
Now a quick note here, and keep in mind that I’m writing this as I go, so I might get some details about future stories wrong,
But I’ve been told that in later seasons, different stories show Gibby hooking up with random girls, and instead of just saying that he broke up with Tasha, they have Gibby explain that they have an open relationship?
So what the fuck man
Also, Lewbert has a voice cameo in this one, so I guess it’s been six months, which explains why Freddie’s injuries are fine now I suppose
Moving on, let’s talk about Season 3, episode 12, iSpace Out, the one where they go into Outer Space.
Alright, they don’t go into space. But I wish they did.
So at the start of this story, Carly and the gang are holding an event on the show where viewers can call in to dance with them live on the internet, and suddenly something happens that they didn’t quite anticipate.
A famous bald billionaire appears on the screen, who the gang recognizes as someone who has recently started a massive space program, where people can vacation in the upper atmosphere. He says that he wanted to come on the show for one reason: to send the iCarly gang into orbit.
[2:05 - 2:16]
Oof, here in the future, that’s a red flag.
Kids, if you meet a billionaire, and they want you to be the first civilian to test their trillion dollar space program before anyone else...
That means you’re gonna die Like, if they thought it was safe, THEY would go into space. You’re going to die.
By the way, remember last season, when Spencer told Carly it wasn’t safe for her to go to an MMA match?
He’s totally fine with space travel
Doesn’t phase him, he doesn’t even blink.
So Carly and the gang go to train for the space program, but find competitors in a famous exercise web show, with only one of the teams actually having the chance to be selected. After numerous tests which both groups do equally poorly at, they’re given their final challenge: they’ll be locked in a sealed room for 36 hours, and basically if the iCarly gang last, they’ll be going into space.
However, as you can expect, the three are incapable of standing in the same room for even ten minutes without fighting. They struggle to get used to the enclosed space with many odd switches and gadgets, and their chances are worsened when Sam sneaks food into the capsule.
However, Carly is surprisingly the one to snap, developing “Space Madness,” and breaking out the room, sending them all packing.
Meanwhile, Spencer begins seeing a little girl inside the apartment but can’t get her to appear when anyone else is around. A psychiatrist suggests that this is an effect of him secretly missing Carly, and thus imagining a little girl in his home as he grows nostalgic for when she was little.
However, when Carly gets home, she sees the girl too, before diagnosing it as the space madness.
Season 3 episode 13 deals with the characters once again being given a chance to briefly transcend from working on the web to working on TV, but not in the usual way.
A quick tangent about htis episode that kind of reveals what it’s like to watch a weird sitcom like this
There’s a part early in this episode where a bunch of kids are invited onto the iCarly set but then runaway screaming from Gibby, and when they leave, the go... to the left of this door
And that... bent my brain a little.
Because we’re all agreed that to the right of this door is the staircase, and right across is a mystery room we never see inside, but to the left??? TO THE LEFT?
THERE'S ANOTHER MYSTERY ROOM TO THE LEFT?
And the kids run back with all these foam mallets and begin beating Gibby with them, and the gang are shocked to see this happen, so it was a room where they kept foam mallets that were not intended to be used on the show?
We find out that the music video that Freddie filmed for Wade Collins, despite Wade being a terrible person, was actually a huge hit, being one of the most downloaded music videos on the entire web, which is a big accomplishment for Freddie, and no doubt something that will help him get a real job when his High School friend circle inevitably collapses like a building loaded with TNT.
At the same time, we’re introduced to Ginger Fox, quite clearly a mean-spirited parody of Britney Spears. Ginger was once the hottest star of all time, being called the Sexiest Woman alive by some magazines, until her mental health collapsed and a viral video shot by paparazzi cemented her legacy as a joke.
However, the star sees the Wade Collins music video and insists that they get that director to take control of her next performance, which will be a live song at the Pop Music Awards.
The trio accept, but quickly learn that Ginger is a total wash-up, using the bathroom in the corner of the room when they first meet her, and just generally being “unsexy” in the eyes of Freddie. However, when a music video news channel stops by, they announce that the iCarly gang will be creating Ginger’s comeback hit, meaning that any good or bad that happens at this performance will be their fault.
However, and this is something that I don’t think I’ve said so far in this video, but who gives a shit about the A-plot? The Spencer half of the episode is where the good stuff is at.
In this story, Spencer meets a beautiful woman while he’s out on the town, and they begin dating. They both feel like the relationship is too good to be true, with Spencer suspecting that he’s seen the woman somewhere before. Suddenly, when Freddie and Gibby stop by for a quick second, everything clicks together.
[7:14 - 7:20]
Yes, Spencer is banging Gibby’s mom, and struggles to get past this, as every time he looks at her, even after making out, he sees a vision of a 14 year old he’s friends with
Soon enough, they both struggle with this, as she sees Carly everytime she looks at him, and they begin screaming and I presume decide not to go out for a final date. Meanwhile, the kids direct the star’s performance at the PMA’s, and it’s a disaster, as the kids rush to try and cover up her lack of talent or appeal
[20:38 - 20:41] [21:19 - 21:26]
This is a direct imitation and spoof of Britney Spears’ performance at the 2007 VMA’s, and I gotta say it’s a pretty ballsy move for this team to have such a mean-spirited attack on Britney, because do you know what show this team was working on in 2007?
[Zoey 101 clip]
Zoey 101, a show starring Jamie Lynn Spears, AKA the little sister of Britney Spears
Thank god child stars are so traumatizes by their previous work that they can’t watch anything associated with the same network anymore, or else she might have been pissed about this
Anyways, the “Ginger Fox” performance goes over shockingly well, with fans cheering for her performance and her career being re-envirograted, and the team are left annoyed that no one else sees her lack of talent or beauty, but realize that at least their internet clout wasn’t hurt by this.
Season 3, episode 14 is called iBloop and is... a bloopers episode.
It’s, uh, alright. They play bloopers? If you wanna see that you can?
There’s an outtake where Drake Bell walks onto set and calls Miranda “Megan” and asks where Josh is...
And boy did this sure have value 6 months ago
I don’t know, when I was told that there were 97 episodes of iCarly, I didn’t anticipate that a few of those were literally just blooper reels. It kind of ruins the fun of that number.
That’s like having 95 gold medals for Olympic perfection, and then two bronze medals for tying your shoes.
I don’t remember ever seeing this at the time, but I’m told that they syndicated this like a regular episode, and that it was super common to see that iCarly was on, but when you switch to it, it’s just like... “ah fuck it’s the blooper episode again” iWon’t Cancel the Show is one of the saddest episodes so far, if just in the context of why it was written. You see, suddenly, during the production of this batch of episodes, Jennette McCurdy was suddenly admitted to hospital, and thus wasn’t going to be available to film iCarly. And so the writers flocked to come up with an episode that could explain why Sam was missing, while also trying to expand upon it.
And it just feels kind of weird to see them struggle so hard to explain why Jennette McCurdy isn’t in the show, and why it’s still justified that the show is going on without her.
Still, you know, one of my favorite episodes of Frasier is actually the one that stars Niles, because Kelsey Grammer had to suddenly go to rehab, and as we all know, iCarly and Frasier are set in the same universe, so I guess there’s a little bit of promise with this story
In the episode, Carly’s father calls to say that he’s ended up in a place that has a solid internet connection, so that night, everyone on his submarine is going to watch the iCarly.com webcast live, making this the first time he’s actually been able to see his daughter’s show. However, there’s very bad news, as we find out that Sam has been sent off to a Juvenile Detention Center after assaulting an ambassador from Mexico
Freddie thinks they have to cancel the show, but Carly says that she won’t give up the chance for the first time her father is able to see the web show, to which Gibby responds:
[“I thought Spencer was your dad?”]
This makes Carly realize that Spencer would be the perfect co-host for the show, which yeah he basically hosts half of the content on iCarly.com, so I agree Carly, no-brainer.
[Editor’s note: Find clips of one of the Spencer segments from iCarly.com, like iSmash It]
However that night, Spencer is having an extravagant date with a sophisticated woman, and he tries to turn Carly down
[“Candice”]
CHANGE GARFIELD
Haha, Candice, more like, Candeez nuts
...
I feel I did that wrong somehow Anyways, Carly begins crying and Spencer agrees to do it, trying to do both the silly webshow, and his date with this woman at once
How long are iCarly web shows by the way? Sometimes they come across like a 5 minute thing and sometimes they literally will last an entire episode, and also they often act like there’s some limit to how long the show can last every night, like they’ll bump people from the schedule if something new comes up, does the webshow have to be an exact time every week ? Or is it just random?
Spencer runs up stairs and with only 45 seconds to broadcast, and everything about the webshow is explained to him during that time
[Why doesn’t Freddie say 5 4 3 2 1 / no one knows]
CHANGE GARFIELD
Because he starts the live stream on the 1, and if he said 1 the audience would hear him say 1 every single episode, and they’d think “Why does every iCarly episode start with a guy saying the number 1?” There mystery solved, think for once in your life Carly.
So Spencer takes over the show, and it seems to be going okay. They do an SCTV reference that no one watching Nickelodeon could possibly recognize, and they get to the game. However, partway through, Candice comes upstairs at just the wrong moment.
[21:34 - 21:41]
CHANGE GARFIELD
They embarrass Spencer’s date, they probably embarrass their father watching with his Navy buddies, and most importantly, Carly learns an important lesson.
iCarly doesn’t work without Sam.
[Quinton stares into the camera for a very very long time]
Anyways.
We now only have three episodes left in this season, and the next one is pretty notable in my opinion. Season 3, episode 17, iBelieve in Bigfoot.
So my schedule this year, in terms of what videos I want to get out, has actually been destroyed by this mini-series. And I originally wanted to do a Bigfoot video, literally this month. But now I don’t know if that’s going to be something I can fit into this year. So having an iCarly episode about Bigfoot, knowing that iCarly is the reason I can’t do my bigfoot videos, is really just a kick in the sack to me.
But anyways, I remember this episode fondly, so let’s get into it.
At the start of the story, as the gang is preparing for an 80’s themed episode of their webshow, we find out that Carly has a secret, hyper fixation on a famous cryptid, the one and only, Bigfoot. [00:26 - 00:36] [00:58 - 1:03]
Carly, we discover, is REALLY REALLY into Bigfoot, and is still bitter that their 5th grade teacher gave her an F for writing about Bigfoot for an essay about nature.
[1:24 - 1:30]
We find out that while Carly believes in Bigfoot, Spencer believes in a cryptid called “the Beevcoon”
[clip]
CHANGE GARFIELD
Hah, the Beevcoon, more like... Beev... Nuts
God am I am not on today.
It’s okay, it’s okay. No one’s gonna watch this far.
Because of the viral footage of Bigfoot, he becomes a hot topic at school, with Carly deciding that they’re going to do a Bigfoot themed webcast, having invited a Bigfoot researcher onto the show. Miss Briggs then appears, which is only notable because we don’t see her in a canon story again until the finale.
Random notes about this episode: Sam name drops “the Food Channel” which is, I’m guessing, a distinct Food Network parody separate from Food TV and
Freddie watches an episode of “Celebrities Under Water” where David Schwimmer drowns and dies,
[11:22 - 11:25]
The gang’s webcast about Bigfoot goes over so well that they decide to drive up to the northern Washington forest, hopefully avoid the Black Lodge, and try to find evidence of Bigfoot. They run into two adolescent boys and the bigfoot researcher they saw earlier, but while Spencer goes out looking for the Beevcoon, the kids mostly stay camped out in their RV, so they don’t see much.
[17:20 - 17:35]
For some reason, that joke is one of the first things that comes to my head when I think about iCarly.
Sam sets up a bear trap, and they capture what seems to be Bigfoot, before they see that it’s actually the researcher in an elaborate costume.
As we learn, Bigfoot researchers are so desperate to build clout and income, that they’re easily willing to fake evidence of him in order to fool more people.
Spencer says that he was attacked deep in the woods by the REAL bigfoot, but as they go to find him, they hear their RV’s horn, meaning someone stole it. They think that the researcher did, before they see that he’s still there, and we soon learn, that BIGFOOT is the one who stole the RV.
[clip]
So let’s go ahead and return to our list of “things that are real in the iCarly universe.” I’m adding “The frozen head of Walt Disney,” because I forgot to do it before, and also of course “Bigfoot”
And we briefly see the Beevcoon standing in a tree during the episode, so we’re adding that,
And I’m just gonna write down “David Schwimmer is dead” so we won’t forget.
Moving on, I actually want to cover the penultimate episode last, because I think it's important that we end out with a bang on this one. So before we talk about the crimes of the season, let’s talk about the season finale: Season 3, episode 18: iBeat the Heat.
In the story, a heat wave strikes Seattle which leads Spencer to buy an industrial air conditioner for the apartment. Soon enough the power goes out across the city due to so many people doing the same thing, but Spencer remembers that he has a generator, and gets things back going. This leads to their apartment being the only one in the city with power, and soon enough character after character start showing back up the apartment, each more obscure than the last, all wanting a break from the heat.
You kind of get the vibe that this was written to work as a series finale, while they also felt pretty good about getting renewed. It features a ton of throwbacks and payoff to episodes from seasons 1 and 2, while still being a lighthearted episode that isn’t really where we’d like to end off.
Lewbert shows up to the apartment, trying to convince Freddie’s mom to take him back. Spencer’s shady doctor from the Shelby Marx episode shows up, as does Griffin, who wants to use the air conditioned apartment to make sure his Pee Wee Babies don’t get warped by the heat.
Meanwhile, Freddie has a girl over who he’s met online and is much taller than he anticipated, and Carly tries to protect her model of a utopian society, which she made for science class.
Fighting naturally breaks out in the apartment among the many visitors, until Carly gives an impassioned speech about how America can become a utopia if we just all learn to love and respect our neighbors. Towards the end of the speech, however, the power comes back on, and everyone flees, and Carly’s project is destroyed by Freddie’s new love interest after he accidentally sprays lemon in her face.
With that, let’s quickly get into the Crimes of season 3.
iCrimes list
As I mentioned last time, it’s really hard to move on with this list, knowing that we ended this bit last time with the illegal construction of a nuclear generator, but we’ll keep marching forwards, because there are a few WEIRD things this season.
In episode 1 of season 3, Sam visits the dentist and suddenly turns violent, and although she gets the procedure done, Carly later claims that the dentist was bit by her 4 times, and might lose part of his finger.
Obviously this is another example of assault, which somehow has become boring with the Sam character. Nevertheless, I’m calling this iCrime #26.
Later, in episode 3, iCook, Sam announces that she’s hired someone to rig a “security system” up to her locker, to deter thieves. In actuality, we learn that anything that touches the locker will be severely electrocuted, illustrated in the episode by a weiner becoming immediately crisp and black after being placed up against it.
Sam tries to convince Freddie to touch her locker, before Carly stops her, and Spencer then accidentally backs into it, severely injuring him.
This could be tried in a numerous series of ways depending on the broader context, but the plan certainly seems to be carefully crafted to assault someone at the school.
This is thus, iCrime #27. Now, this next crime is actually a little bit different from the rest of the ones I’ve featured today.
Typically in the iCrimes segment what I’m doing is applying external logic from the real world to the iCarly sitcom. It’s about saying “Well, according to this set of rules, these things are illegal if the show was real.
But iCrime #28 is actually about quite the opposite, as we’re going to be applying internal logic to iCarly, based on its existence within the main Nickelodeon Sitcom Universe.
I’ll be talking more about this theory in the next video, how it’s confirmed in some episodes and contradicted in others, but to sum it up briefly, it’s implied numerous times that iCarly is set in the same shared universe as several other Nickelodeon shows, most made by the same creators.
Here’s why this matters. You’ll remember that in episode 2, they face off against Rick Flames in a cooking competition. Well, towards the end of the food battle, as they rush to finish it, Carly can be heard yelling this:
[9:38 “HAND ME THE PERUVIAN PUFF PEPPERS!”]
Now, why is this important?
Because this is an easter egg reference to the show Drake and Josh, which Miranda starred in before iCarly as we’ve discussed several times.
I’m going to quickly break that story down, because first of all it’s relevant, and second of all I think this is gonna be the last time I ever find an excuse to watch Drake and Josh.
This story, season 3, episode 2, Josh is also planning to enter a cooking competition, the annual SalsaFest. He tells Drake that the winner will get a plasma TV, and Drake begins trying to join in, accidentally cutting Josh’s thumb off in the process.
Man, that’s the gotta be worst thing Drake Bell has ever done
After they get it re-attached, Megan hears about the competition and asks if she can join their team, and when they say no, she mixes something into the sauce that makes it explode in their faces.
[“MEGAN”]
After some general sitcom shenanigans, the boys figure out that Megan is planning on entering the salsa competition on their own. Later, they hear a strange man delivering something secret to the home, and sneakily they see Megan speaking of what was delivered: The Peruvian Puff Pepper, a secret ingredient that is extremely rare and will make her salsa better than man could dream of.
The boys research the pepper, discovering that it’s extremely rare and hard to buy.
[17:33 - 17:46 South Am-er-E-Cah]
The boys decide to steal the peppers back and use it in the recipe, and Megan tries to bully them into giving the peppers back, although they play stupid.
Later, at the salsa competition, Drake and Josh wow the judges and are crowned the winners. However, when they’re asked secretly and say it was the peruvian peppers, a hush falls over the crowd.
[21:35 - 21:51]
And so Megan is crowned the winner, and slyly admits that she set the pair up.
Anyways, if we accept that Megan smuggling the Peruvian Puff Peppers into America is a crime and that it’s illegal for Drake and Josh to use said peppers in a cooking competition, then we also have to accept that Carly having and using the same peppers in a different cooking competition, is also a crime on the same level.
This also technically means that they should have been disqualified by the judges, and Ricky Flames actually still hasn’t lost a cooking competition.
Anyways, that’s iCrime #28.
Next, let’s move on to the first story that I skipped in the main intro.
In season 3, episode 4, the iCarly gang hold an awards show on their web show where they give out awards to people who have sent in the coolest clips of themselves. Due to a miscommunication, Spencer builds one ten foot tall statue of Carly, when she was meant to build ten one-foot tall statues, and Spencer has to build the statues for the show as it’s being broadcast live.
Due to a tip from Freddie, Spencer learns that there are foreign models in the lobby of the apartment complex, waiting for their photographer who missed his flight. We find out that the models are all men, much to the annoyance of Spencer. He commissions them to help build the statues, and soon they get pretty into the rhythm of it all. However, eventually the group’s photographer shows up to take the models to their shoot, even as Spencer is SO VERY CLOSE to having all the awards built. Spencer asks to speak to him in the hall, goes outside for a second, and then rushes back in, saying the photographer agreed to give them all 30 more minutes. And just as he says this, you think... “Oh, god, Spencer’s holding duct tape”
And yep, Spencer ties the photographer up in the hall, entirely so he can keep this eurodance sweatshop running, and after struggling for 20 minutes, the photographer finally breaks free and rushes upstairs.
This might be the worst thing they’ve done so far in the show. Because unlike the episode where they build a nuke or the one where they cause a pile-up, there’s no sort of innocence implied about the topic, and it’s not a situation they were forced into like when they skydived into Japan. Spencer fought a man, tied him up, and held him against his will, and all to save the iCarly web show mild embarrassment.
So first of all, boy does Spencer love his sister. Second of all, you might be quick to call this kidnapping, but I believe this is actually False Imprisonment, a similar but different crime.
In Washington State law, a person is guilty of unlawful imprisonment in Washington if he or she “knowingly restrains another person.”
And so, I’m calling this, our iCrime #29.
Episode 7, as you’ll remember, features a terf war between the gang and another pet photography business, which turns dirty very quickly. Unprotected by the police, they break into their rival’s pet business, kidnap their cat, and blackmail them over the situation.
Now, the gang are entirely justified in this episode, if the law won’t protect you, you protect yourself, fuck the police and fuck Officer Carl.
Moving on, this takes up to iCrime #30, which we find in season 3, episode 11: iEnrage Gibby.
In the B-plot for this story, a newspaper incorrectly insinuates that Spencer is actually dead, and Spencer initially wants to correct this in the press before he’s informed that the art of dead artists sells for considerably more money than those who are alive.
He thus not only becomes reclusive to sell the narrative that he is departed, but ropes his off-screen friend Socko and later Carly and Sam into selling his artwork while enforcing the lie that he is actually no longer among the living.
Now, I’m no lawyer and as we know neither is Spencer, but my understanding of fraud is that to be charged with it, it needs to be proved that you A) knew you were lying, B) lied for personal benefit, and C) lied to cause some kind of harm to the other person, in this case financial harm by asking for extra money based on the narrative that Spencer isn’t alive.
I know this one is a little difficult because I couldn’t find any similar cases like this and there’s no paperwork for it, but in my opinion a court case could easily break out over this scheme. So I’m calling it iCrime #30.
In the same episode, Spencer puts Pop Rocks in his mouth, and then does this to Sam for an unusually long time.
She’s 15. I’m calling this a crime.
Later, in Season 3, episode 15, Sam shoves a hot dog down the pants of a Mexican ambassador, which is why she ends up in juvy and the explanation for why she’s missing from the story. In reality, assaulting an ambassador could easily land you with three years in jail, so we’re lucky we end up seeing Sam in the next episode at all. So that’s iCrime #32.
And, that’s all the crimes for the season. Do you see what I meant when I said these sections were gonna get a little less impactful as we go on?
Anyways, let’s rewind a little now and talk about the only story we have left. Season 3, episode 17: iPsycho.
In the story, the troup are planning on going to the annual Webicon, when they get a V-mail from a local fan, and god dammit the play button is visible when the video is playing, when will they learn?
Anyways, they get a V-Mail from a hyper fan named Nora Dorshlitt, who says that her 16th birthday is happening that year and since no one came last year she wanted to invite the iCarly gang.
Against all logic, they decide to stop in before the convention, and Nora is so excited that she puts on her favorite 8-Track and really gets the party going, as she stars a slow dance with Freddie as Carly dances with a geriactic clown.... Who soon leaves in a stretcher, as he has an aneurysm.
The iCarly gang have a great idea, however. They do a spontaneous live stream from Nora’s house, telling all of her school friends to stop by if they want to meet the gang and see the show. So the kids start flooding in to watch the skits, and oh hey it’s Bertha
So the kids start flooding in and it turns out to be the best party of the year. Nora kisses Bertha, which should be positive representation because you don’t see a lot of lesbian or bi characters in the era of children’s entertainment, but I know for a fact that they threw this in to hint that Nora is deranged, and is about to do something very unhinged. So it’s less than “woke” I would say. The party leaves, and everyone at school seems to love her, and the girl she kissed asks if she wants to hang out later, and she thanks the gang for doing something so amazing.
And I feel this swell of anxiety. Because we’re at the 23 minute mark. And normal iCarly episodes are 22 minutes, with the credits. And if we stop here, this is the nicest, most wholesome episode of iCarly ever. But I look at the counter.
And we’re only halfway through. And the episode is still called... iPsycho.
The gang say they had a good time, but they have to leave. Nora says she put all their luggage in the basement and to follow them down.
In the basement, they find a recording studio where her father records jingles, and she invites them to go look. And then, she locks them inside, saying that she intends to keep them forever.
[24:58 - 25:06]
As they try to call for help, she reveals that she’s stolen all of their phones, meaning that the truly are completely trapped.
So I bet y’all are wondering what Spencer is up to right about now?
Well, get this. He accidentally breaks part of his countertop. And then, he invites Gibby to have a summer camp at his place, but says they can only stop once he’s repaired it. But the more they try and repair it, the more they break, until they crack a whole in the wall that goes up to the ceiling!
Oh Spencer, oh Gibby, you two are so funny
Partway through the day, Gibby’s little brother Guppy stops by, apparently missing him. This kid is played by Noah’s actual brother, and from what I remember he exists so that Gibby could evolve past the original gimmick while still retaining a memory of what his character was in season 1. But that’s a while away at the moment.
Nora keeps the gang there overnight, texting their friends and family to convince them they’re okay, and only giving them food in exchange with a kiss with Freddie through the glass.
When the gang nearly escape, she chases them with an axe and a richard nixon mask, and they’re chased back inside.
Thinking fast, Carly says that Gibby’s birthday is the next day and that they promised to send him a birthday message, and when Gibby gets the message, noting that it’s not his birthday, he figures out the hidden message inside and makes it to Nora’s house. [41:23 - 41:31]
An INTENSELY choreographed fight sequence breaks out, as the pair break much of her living room before tumbling downstairs. She pushes him against a wall of boxes, and as his mouth bleeds, it seems he’s out for the count. But he takes off his shirt, revealing his true power, and the brawl intensified, all while Guppy lets the iCarly gang out.
Nora is knocked out for the count, and the iCarly gang are freed, all thanks to Gibby and Guppy.
The gang finally have a camp moment together, Nora goes to prison, and they celebrate that they’ll never see them again.
... OR WILL THEY?
BUM BUM BUUUUUUUUUUUUUM
CHANGE GARFIELD
So. You have just sat through... Four and a half hours. Of iCarly analysis.
Is everything ok?
So, at the start of this video, I made this pitch that iCarly was going to be the thing that set my life right, I was gonna be happier, I was gonna start working out every day, and so on and so forth. So, how did that end up going?
Well, let’s put it like this. I’m still playing Raid: Shadow Legends every day.
I’m in Gold Arena 4 now.
But yeah, so I didn’t uh. I didn’t do that other stuff.
At first I thought about cutting that whole segment out, but then I was like “You know what. I wanna be honest to my audience. And also, that Fan Boy and Chum Chum joke, is really really funny.”
The thing about iCarly, is that I really found it hard to watch. It’s got a very strange, gross energy that you never notice until you rewatch it as an adult. So my plan to watch one episode a day, from January to May, kind of didn’t work out because I kept getting depressed because this show made me feel like shit. And then I wouldn’t do any work. And I think it got a lot worse, when they announced that the revival was coming out June 17, and that thus, I have to get SOMETHING out by June 17. At the time I’m recording this closing segment, it’s June 14.
Every time, I hear about this stupid revival, I get a little more bitter about it. And hopefully that’ll pass by the time I actually get around to having time to watch it.
If watching the show every day was hard, I think this project became a million times worse when I also had to work on the video. If it wasn’t for my editors, who are on screen right now, this would not be possible at all.
And I really did try and do some self help in the last few months, I did, but what I’ve discovered is that when you’re making an iCarly analysis video that’s longer than the Snyder cut, you don’t have TIME for self help.
All I’ve been doing this past month is just watch the show, write, record, sleep, watch the show, write, record, sleep, you get the idea.
So yeah, sorry that I’ve only lost a few pounds between when this started, and where we are now.
I am really, really, excited, to get to the point with this project where I can just live a normal life for a few days, because it has been HELL this month.
But with that out of the way, we have just officially finished our discussion, on iCarly season 3. And, can we just stop here to recognize how much of an accomplishment it is for us to have done this?
To me, there was always this big separation between season 3, and season 4 of iCarly. And the way I looked at it, was that seasons 1-3, were the middle school era of iCarly. And seasons 4-6 were the High School era.
Now, that’s not 100% accurate to the actual text of the show, at the start of season 2 they say they’re attending “Ridgeway Middle School,” but a few episodes later Carly says she’s in the 9th grade, so you could maybe argue that in season 1 they’re in the 8th grade, and in season 2 they’re in the 9th grade, but that’s not really what I mean.
I mean, that when those first three seasons aired, I was in middle school. And it was one of the biggest things on TV. And when I entered High School, not only did I kind of stop watching kids shows, I felt like iCarly just stopped being a show that was promoted very much.
A new episode of iCarly suddenly felt rare, and a little meaningless, like being a teenager and find that toy you lost as a kid behind your dresser. Like, “oh, this is still around? Alright.”
And so while I would sometimes turn on iCarly to see what was happening, it became a lot more of a rare thing for me by the end, and based on ratings, it seems I’m not alone in that.
And that’s why I have decided... to split my iCarly analysis, at this exact point.
In other words, this is the end of “iBinged iCarly.” After this gets posted, I’m going to work as hard as I can to get a video about the final three seasons out, but I really do think this is a great place to break this up, because it is going to be a different experience for me watching the final three seasons versus the first three.
And for those of you on the edge of your seat, saying Quinton, how can I last without more iCarly analysis, what could I possibly do while I’m waiting on this second video?
Well, just. Live life. Breathe air. And don’t forget to go down to the description, and hit subscribe. This will notify you when the new video comes out, and the more subscribers I gain from this video, the more motivated I’m going to be to get you guys that next video. I’m trying to get to 500,000 subscribers this year, and if I’m being honest with you guys, I think the faster we get there, the more easily I’m going to be energized to work on the rest of these.
With that, I’ve been Quinton Reviews. And that’s all you need.
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