“Bear Left Then Bear Write” is the third episode of The Muppets and it’s just as good as the two before it. It has great guest stars, great humor, and a great plot. I’m really happy to see that the writers are able to keep the momentum going.

Recap

The show opens in the middle of a commercial break during a taping of Up Late with Miss Piggy. Yolanda approaches Kermit and reminds him to read the sketch Fozzie submitted for the show. Kermit’s face contorts, and he tells her he read it. Yolanda calls the script a dumpster fire and Kermit tells her she’s being too nice.

After the commercials Miss Piggy’s guest, Christina Applegate, tells Piggy she has a surprise for her. Piggy exclaims that she loves surprises, but Kermit is on edge immediately because he knows that Miss Piggy in fact hates surprises. He asks Gonzo if he knows about the surprise, because no one cleared anything with him. Gonzo tells Kermit that Christina brought a hilarious clip of Piggy, but he knew that Kermit would never okay it so he went behind his back.

The clip opens at Christina’s birthday party, where her friends gather to take a picture with her. Miss Piggy bowls her way through the crowd telling everyone to get out of her way. When she reaches the edge of the crowd, she trips and falls face-first into the cake. Finally, she falls over backward and dumps the entire cake on herself. End clip. Miss Piggy is mortified while Christina, and the audience, are in hysterics.

After the show, Miss Piggy goes to Christina’s dressing room. Piggy tells her that, as her friend, they are no longer friends. After a brief back and forth, Christina leaves laughing as she thinks Piggy is joking.

Meanwhile, Kermit hides in his office in the dark. He doesn’t want to talk to Fozzie because he doesn’t know how to tell him his sketch was awful. Fozzie is his best friend and Kermit can’t bear to hurt his feelings. Hiding in the dark doesn’t work. Fozzie finds him anyway and the two go out to get a drink at Rowlf’s Tavern.

Kermit is still unable to tell him the truth, so he lies. He tells him the sketch is too good for the show and it should be a movie instead. Then he makes things worse by telling Fozzie he shouldn’t waste his time writing sketches for him. This proves to be a massive miscalculation. Fozzie is so excited that the next night he announces on camera that he will Up Late to write a movie.

The next day Kermit calls Fozzie to try and talk him out of leaving. He comes clean about what he really thinks of the sketch, but Fozzie is already gone. He tells Kermit that he may not believe in him, but he believes in himself. He’s not coming back and he’s not telling Kermit where he’s going. But, at that moment, his GPS announces his destination and Kermit quickly writes it down.

Back at the studio, Gonzo, Rizzo, and Pepé are working on material for the show when Chip, the IT guy, shows up to fix Gonzo’s computer. When he logs in, he finds an email addressed to someone named Debbie. Spurred on my Pepé and Rizzo, Chip hacks into Gonzo’s online dating profile and they discover that Gonzo is using a picture of Liam Hemsworth to talk to Debbie and they have a date that night. Pepé and Rizzo are horrified, and Gonzo realizes he probably made a terrible mistake.

At the meeting that morning Kermit announces that, since Fozzie is gone, he brought in Nick Offerman to take his place. He tells Nick he owes him one and Nick takes the statement literally, asking for a cappuccino machine.

In Piggy’s dressing room Scooter and Miss Piggy have a secret meeting. Piggy tasked Scooter with the job of finding an embarrassing video of Christina Applegate that she can use for revenge. Scooter comes up short, so Miss Piggy decides that, if they can’t find an embarrassing video of Christina Applegate, they will have to make an embarrassing video of Christina Applegate.

Elsewhere Gonzo, Rizzo, and Pepé meet with Liam Hemsworth. They tell him about Gonzo’s deception and he agrees to pose as Gonzo for a date with Debbie. He will pretend to be Gonzo when she arrives, then he will reveal that he is actually Liam Hemsworth and hand her over to the real Gonzo.

Back at the studio Nick Offerman apologizes to Kermit for asking for a cappuccino machine. He says he wasted his favor on a coffee maker when what he actually wants is a boat. Kermit says he’s not buying a boat, but Nick seems to ignore him and tells him he will name the boat Cappuccino. Or maybe Janice.

Kermit goes back to his office and sadly looks through slides of himself and Fozzie. Suddenly he’s interrupted by Chip, the IT guy, who tells him that he needs to go after Fozzie. Chip tells Kermit that he needs to find Fozzie (or else he will).

Out in the woods Fozzie has a hard time adjusting. He swallows a bug and his tent blows away. Not to mention he’s hungry and didn’t pack any food. As he wanders through the woods he starts to smell Oreos and summer sausage. He looks up and sees a knapsack hanging from a tree.

Back at the restaurant Liam is on the date with Debbie. They’ve talked for awhile when he asks her if she would still like him if he weren’t handsome (if, for example, he looked like, “That blue guy over there.”). When Debbie says she only cares about what’s on the inside, Gonzo thinks that this is it. He braces himself to meet her, but, instead, Liam tells Debbie who he really is and that she’s the first person in ages to like him for more than just his looks. Without mentioning Gonzo at all, Liam takes her away to dinner and leaves him alone in the restaurant.

Out in the forest, Kermit is looking for Fozzie when a family runs past him, yelling that there’s a bear. Kermit keeps going and finds Fozzie leaping up into the air, trying to get the knapsack of food out of the tree. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a ranger shoots Fozzie in the neck with a tranquilizer dart. When he wakes up they’re in a ranger station. Kermit tells an extremely tranquilized Fozzie that he wants him to come back to the show. Fozzie will get his sketch on the air and Kermit will work with him every night until it’s ready. The two make up and Kermit helps Fozzie to the car.

In town, Christina Applegate opens her door to find Scooter with a cake. He tells her it’s from Miss Piggy, who we can see watching from her car. Christina obviously knows what’s up and offers to push the cake into her own face so Scooter won’t get fired. Miss Piggy, meanwhile, is covertly filming the scene from her car and is laughing to herself when a cop approaches the car. She tries to show him the footage, but he has none of it and orders her out of the car. Christina and Scooter watch from the doorstep and, as Piggy is taken away in handcuffs, Christina invites Scooter inside for coffee.

Review

This episode was great. It had so many good moments, and the guest stars were perfect! I don’t think I’m going to try to break this one down into lists of good and bad things like I have before, because it was almost all good with very little bad.

Like I said, the guests were great. Christina Applegate was perfect and her appearance really made me miss her short-lived sitcom, Samantha Who?. Did anyone else watch that? No? Just me then? Well, now I know why it was cancelled. She brought out the best (or worst?) in Miss Piggy and everything about their storyline was gold.

Liam Hemsworth was also funny and his character was used just the right amount. His bit was the perfect definition of a cameo in a Muppet production: he was a very exaggerated version of himself, with great dialogue, in a couple scenes that wrapped up perfectly (unlike Nick Offerman’s storyline).

I’ve loved Nick Offerman ever since I discovered Parks and Rec. I love every line of his delivery; he’s just so hilariously dry. That being said, he was my biggest disappointment of the episode. Not Nick himself, but rather the lack of Nick. I looked forward to his guest spot all week, but he was so underused it hardly seemed worth it. Yes he had just about as much screen time as Liam Hemsworth, but it went absolutely nowhere. The promo images seemed to promise a subplot with Janice, but, aside from one line of dialogue, this subplot was nowhere to be seen. Not to mention that his storyline was not resolved at all. He was brought in to replace Fozzie, but we never got to see him do Fozzie’s job. Plus, we didn’t get to find out what happened when Fozzie got back. I get the feeling editors may have cut a big chunk from the episode for screen time and then forgot to close that storyline.

Aside from the human guests, we got some great Muppet guests too. Foo-Foo was back, and so was Rowlf! His two brief scenes were very funny. Yes, his joke about the cone collar was recycled from the pilot presentation, but it was very funny so I didn’t mind.

We were also introduced (reintroduced?) to Chip, the IT guy, in this episode. He had a brief part in the pilot presentation and I think I’ve seen him in the background of some larger Muppet projects, but I know nothing about him. My first impression of the guy is that he’s weird. Like, he’s even weird by Muppet standards. His eyes blink! I don’t know what to make of him, but he could turn out to be a very funny addition to the show.

I really like Debbie, who I think is new. She does look a lot like Wanda from The Muppet Show, but she has a more updated look and definitely lacks Wanda’s knack for endangering herself. Unless you count dating strangers from the internet. I liked her brief appearance here and I hope they bring her back in the future.

Speaking of Debbie, where’s Camilla? Gonzo’s girlfriend, the chicken who is with him in just about every other Muppet project, has not been seen or mentioned once since the series began. And now he’s dating again? What happened between them? Did they break up? I feel like these questions are just as worthy of the screen time the Kermit/Piggy drama got. Come on! We Gonzilla shippers need answers! Gonzilla? Is that a thing? I think it should be a thing. I’m making it a thing. Gonzilla forever!

There were a ton of quick little scenes and character moments in this episode that were absolutely brilliant. I loved the clip Christina Applegate brought and Piggy’s slow, escalating overreaction that lead to her covert operation with Scooter was hilarious to watch. Fozzie as a “real bear” was so funny, as was the post-tranquilizer scene. There is a lot to love in this episode.

Favorite Quotes

Rizzo: “Okay, remember, Hemsie, just grab a drink, then ask her if she would still be interested in you if you didn’t look like the handsome with the cheekbones.”
Liam Hemsworth: “I got it. When she says yes, we slide in this cute little elephant beaver and he closes the deal!”

Miss Piggy: “What’d ya get on Applegate, anything embarrassing?”
Scooter: “I found a clip of her swimming with some Golden Retriever puppies. The only thing embarrassing about that was the way I said ‘Awwwww!’ and then clapped, alone in my apartment.”

Rizzo: “Oh, put a mint in your pie hole, Gonzo, there’s a smooch in your fyooch!

Fozzie: “You ever been shot with a tranquilizer dart, Kermit?”
Kermit: “No. But I did lick my third cousin once and the walls started melting, so I feel you, bro.”

Final Thoughts

“Bear Left Then Bear Write” was a great episode. It had very few flaws and was hilarious from beginning to end. As long as the writers can continue making this a show that holds up over multiple viewings, I will be a very happy Muppet fan indeed.

What did you think of this episode of The Muppets? Do you ship Gonzilla?

Edited by: Hannah Wilkes