The adventures in Big City continue as Season 3 of Big City Greens continues on Disney Channel. While the third season debuted with the Halloween episode, “Squashed,” the latest episode jumps into town where we last left off at the end of Season 2, with Gloria taking ownership of the coffee shop next door with Gramma as a partner.
Boss Life
We jump right into the new cafe, run by Gloria (with Gramma as a partner) and get a glimpse into how everything is running at the new coffee shop. Look for Tilly on the stage playing her French-sounding accordion. While Gloria leads the operation, she takes a bit of time to dwell on her “Welp” rating which has just dropped from a perfect A+ rating because of Community Sue’s review of her crepes.
Meanwhile, Cricket feels that since he is the grandson of the key investor behind the cafe, he too should have some kind of boss role in the operation. While Gloria and Gramma seek out Community Sue, he figures out a way to take charge, which he thinks is do nothing at all. He ends up hiring Remy and the rest of his friends, turning the store operation into a disaster with an ever growing pile of pastries and endless cycle of training and problem solving that at one point is literally drawn out as a circle around Cricket so that problems are never solved.
Gloria, focused on remaking Community Sue’s crepes, discovers that once again, she has made the crepes too spongy. After Sue points this out, Gloria has a bit of a meltdown while Sue, a natural coach, says that her one review shouldn’t send her spiraling, there’s always room for improvement and it was constructive criticism and suggests losing less flour in the crepes. Gloria runs back to the kitchen and heeds the advice making a new and improved crepe, causing Sue to change her review.
However, the new rating holds little effect as the entire store is in chaos inside thanks to Cricket and his shenanigans, now standing at a “D.” Gloria, frustrated, releases all the children that were hired by a child, and thinks of Sue’s advice, saying there’s always room for improvement.
Papaganda
The Green family’s successful stand at the farmers market is still going gangbusters, so much so that Bill has doubled the amount of blackberries he has planted for this year’s harvest set to take place tomorrow. However, he is the only one in the family who is excited about the harvest, as Cricket and Gramma don’t want to be in the sun all day picking through thorny berry bushes.
Dejected, Bill goes for a walk through the rest of the farmers market and meets Janice, the proprietor of Janice’s Niceties, “Good Vibes Only” stand, full of clothing, knickknacks, and signs with cliche positive phrases. Bill explains that his family is in a negativity crisis, and Janice pulls out something we don’t see just yet and suggests Bill takes it home.
The next day, dark and early in the morning, he rounds up the family to start the blackberry harvest and inspires them by showing off his new purchase he has adorned on the side of the building, a crafted sign that reads “Live, Laugh, Love.” Tilly is swayed immediately and begins to help her dad. Cricket and Gramma are still full of complaints and negativity and Bill, who has relegated Tilly to hanging more signs with the phrase, believes that the pair must be “convinced” of the new positive lifestyle. Bill hides in the bushes to hear what they are saying amongst each other, and when he sends the two to deliver Gloria’s berries, sends Tilly to spy on them to make sure they aren’t complaining the whole but remembering to live, laugh, and love while they make the delivery.
The two make it to Gloria’s cafe and realize Tilly is spying on them, so trying to explain that they need help to Gloria turn on the coffee grinders and shatter the signs that Bill placed on them before running out the door. Gloria just shrugs and says she probably doesn’t want to know anyway.
Back at the house, Bill has covered the house in Live Laugh Love signage and is now speaking in an almost cult-like fashion while tying the two up and playing live laugh love positivity tapes and teaching the trapped pair to have happy positive attitudes.
The two get back into the harvest in a zombie-like, brainwashed fashion and Bill suddenly isn’t the one that is so positive, thinking that the whole thing stinks and isn’t working out. When Tilly asks him why he isn’t thinking positive all the time, he breaks down and starts ripping his new signage down saying “it’s impossible” to be that positive all the time. Together, they realize the value of emotional honesty and complete the harvest together.
One of the things I like about Big City Greens is that it's a series, remembering characters introduced and plot lines as it progresses, but at the same time can be like standard fare in this demographic where each episode can be considered a one-off and there is no progression, just characters finding themselves in crazy mix ups for 30 minutes a week. This week’s episode of Big City Greens is both of those. We get to see Gloria in the early days of her cafe trying to build her rating (which currently sits at its lowest), and then we have the crazy Live Laugh Love adventure on the back end of the episode, which aside from a sign somewhere or quick reference somewhere, likely won’t be back again. While the Halloween episode was technically the season premiere, this first real episode is a nice welcome back to the series after being gone for so long, and I won’t get that Community Sue jingle out of my head anytime soon.
The latest episode of Big City Greens is now available on Disney Channel and the DisneyNOW app.