After a relatively brief hiatus (lookin at you The Owl House), Big City Greens has returned to Disney Channel and is taking the Greens and their fans back to the country town of Smalton, where things aren’t exactly like they remember them.
The Move
After an intro where we see many of the city’s residents pointing out that the country neighbors are getting ready to move, we head to see Bill and Gloria packing up the truck. Gloria points out all of her character’s evolution in a brief moment of exposition saying she hated Cricket and the family and now Bill says she’s like his third kid. Cricket has packed himself and Remy into a box because Remy is tagging along for the trip like a study abroad program. Gramma is also staying behind with Gloria in Big City to look after the family home and her cafe investment.
Nancy is heading to the country too with her trailer in tow, planning on living in the trailer keeping the living arrangements as they already are.
What follows after this brief moment of setup is oddly one of the softer and more emotional moments in the series thus far, as the family packs up and heads out passing by many of the town’s residents and Green family friends. A cursory glance spots Andromeda (complete with bigfoot poster), Benny, Weezy, Kiki, Community Sue, Doug Perkins, the neighbors from the apartment building next door, officer Keys and others. A complete tonal shift in the music occurs as the familiar title theme plays and we build up to the title card. Big City Greens is now back in the country.
The family is just outside of Smalton, their new (and old) home, when Cricket gives Remy a homemade brochure, guiding him to the country, complete with leaf samples, insects, and pictures of the tree fort. This all builds up to a musical number from each of the Greens and what they’ll do when they get home. It’s in this number we learn about Bill’s fondness for his porch swing and country sunsets and Tilly’s friendship with all the animals and critters in the country.
The Greens finally get back home and we also learn that the bank never sold the house to anyone after they foreclosed, so height marks and familiar Green family objects, furniture, and heirlooms are still in place. However, Tilly says something feels off and everything is a bit different. Remy admires Bill’s hand carved animal collections but especially likes the one that blinks. Yes, there is a real deer in the house that gets spooked and escapes by crashing through the living room window. This sets Bill off on a chain reaction of fixing everything. It starts with the window, but he soon notices a leaking ceiling and a few loose floorboards. Nancy knows him well and tries to get ahead of Bill and stop him, though her efforts are moot.
Cricket, Tilly, and Remy go exploring as well, and Cricket’s country habits like descending through trees have apparently left him. The siblings also try introducing Remy to the Donaldson’s, their neighbor squirrels who don’t seem to remember the kids either and begin throwing their acorns at the children defending their tree. The only way to get back to their country roots? Head into the woods and find their tree fort. You know, the woods! It’s a lot like Big City Park but a lot bigger. It’s off to a bumpy start though when the Country King, Cricket can’t even break a stick into several walking sticks though like he used to.
The group also encounters Poison Oak, but fortunately Cricket has immunity to it from years of walking barefoot through the woods. But wait, he hasn’t been in the woods in several years now, so of course it reacts in a comedic way as his feet swell so substantially he grows about a foot in height.
Bill is turning into a feral animal trying to fix everything in time to get out on his porch swing in time for one of those country sunsets. Nancy tries coaxing him to his swing early by showing his iconic butt print on the swing, but all Bill sees are paint chips and frayed ropes holding up the swing.
Out in the woods, the kids refuse to admit that they are lost. Tilly seeks out the help of her animal friends, but alas, they don’t remember her either and she soon finds herself surrounded by angry creatures. After being chased deeper into the woods by the critters, Tilly and Remy finally admit, yes they are lost. Sounds like an act break to me!
Cricket and Tilly are ashamed to say it, but they are lost. Before the get the chance to eat Remy to survive, he points out that the leaves floating down the stream they are stuck by are from a sycamore tree, which according to the brochure Cricket made, is the same kind of tree that their fort is in.
Things are starting to seem familiar and they stumble upon a landmark tree stump that looks like Gramma. They discover their fort, rotted and abandoned. It totally makes sense, nobody has been there for a long time, but that doesn’t stop them from being so sad. Back at the house, Bill has totally lost it and he himself creates a chain reaction of destruction that destroys everything he already fixed. Then it all becomes clear, he is trying to fix everything all at once to get everything back to how it was, not realizing that it may not be like that ever again. Out in the woods, it takes Remy to point out to Cricket and Tilly (and echo to Bill as well) that things aren’t going to be the same when they first get home, that maybe it's not the country that has changed but maybe they have too. It’ll just take time for this to feel like home again.
The kids all set out to rebuild the fort and Bill enjoys his porch swing as the sun sets and the kids come home. Gramma interrupts this peaceful moment with a Famtime call featuring her forehead. We’re already jumping into the deep end in the country storyline, but this moment in the literal last minute of the episode seems quite promising for what will happen to the Greens while they’re back in Smalton.
This episode of Big City Greens is now available on Disney Channel and the DisneyNOW app. You can also catch up with the rest of the series on Disney+. For more about the series and what lies ahead for the rest of season 3, be sure to check out my interview with Chris and Shane Houghton, creators of the series, here.