User blog comment:Don25/The Sundae Muddy Sundae is the most hated episode/@comment-25285054-20170916045314

Alright, I'm gonna try and explain why I think SMS isn't that bad of an episode


 * While Courtney isn't at her best here, her portrayal is honetly a lot better than it was in the rest of the season.Stabbing people in the back and putting the competition before her emotions is what I expect Courtney to do. Her having an obsessive katie-and sadie esque friendship just feels incredibly unnatural, and the season expects me to accept that.even though Gwen and Courntey never really had a close bond before this episode. Courtney's "character development" is gone? Good riddance.


 * The episode is pretty nitpicked honestly. Things like the interns starving to death and Courtney losing her strong stomach are complained about a lot and while they are annoying, they're par for the course in a season like this.


 * One thing that makes this episode border on enjoyable for me is that Courtney is HILLARIOUS. From her random hatred of Zoey to the iconic ice cream store rant, her performance here is one of my favorite things about All Stars.


 * Gwen's character is actually done pretty well here. Her portrayal harkens back to her more vindicative character in previous seasons while still not undoing her character development. Courtney hurt her, and she wants to make sure she pays the price for it. While in my view Gwen was by far one of the worst, most ruined characters in All Stars, she's pretty sympatetic and likable in this episode.


 * The idea that the episode even nears the low quality of the episodes after is laughable to me.

Now, admittedly, the episode isn't popular for a reason and I did dislike some things about it:


 * Mal's role in the episode is infuriating and it's one of the main reasons I think the episode might be close to bad. Mal just seems to suddenly gain Courtney's chart, with absolutely no explanation as to why he would have obtained it. Then, nobody even begins to question why Mike would out Courtney for no reason,  even though it isn't exactly in character for him. Especially regarding Courtney, who normally would tear someone limb from limb for ruining her game-yet she doesn't think anything's wrong and doesn't even seem to care about him being the one to expose.


 * Going off of the Mal thing, the writing here is honestly pretty sloppy at some points. What exactly was witht he whole "vote for yourself" thing? It seems to be just Gwen messing with her but Gwen seems to act as if she somehow knew who Courtney voted for. The challenge was mostly fine but the way it ended was obnoxious-the winning condition is abrubtly changed seemingly just to spite Courtney, and we get another needless Zoey win for reasons I don't understand.


 * The episode just has this very...anti courtney feel. Like it was made by some dude on fanfic.net writing about her "karma"

Overall, I'm...not really sure what to think about SMS. On one, it's kind of a mess at times and certainly has a lot of flaws. The cynical, anti courtney feel of it made me a bit uncomfortable but at the same time, I genuinly feel like the episode did her charaacter more justice than the rest of the season. Ed Macdonald gained a reputation for being one of the worst writers for Total Drama after this episode, but to be honest I don't think it's totally deserved. For all the sloppy writing and plotholes this episode has, it understands the characters better than almost the rest of the entire season, and I get the impression the dude who wrote it actually watch the previous seasons. It's not a good episode, not by a longshot, but it has a enough I enjoy that I really can't hate it.