The Big Wazowskis
Episode 4 of Monsters at Work begins with a familiar gag from the first Monsters Inc movie. Roze tells Mike he needs to file his paperwork. Only, Mike now has to approve not write the papers! However, his arch-nemesis Gary shows up and manages to sweet-talk his way out of filing his. With the Bowloffathon coming up, Mike is forced to do his paperwork rather than getting involved in the games. Gary teases him about this, prompting Mike to think on his feet and proudly declare that he’s going to sponsor a team. That team happens to be the MIFTers. With a team name settled on ‘The Big Wazowskis’, a spicy deal is proposed between Gary and Mike. The loser will need to do the other’s paperwork for a whole month. Game on! However, it turns out the MIFTers are actually a terrible team. They’ve never entered the bowling competition before. Tylor can hit strikes but the others can’t even hit a pin. Tylor lies to the MIFTers and brings in a replacement team to fill n for them. When the team find out about his deception, they’re crushed. When his new team leave, Tylor manages to sweet-talk his way into bringing the MIFTers back. They stick around and play, with Tylor helping to guide their bowls. Thanks to Tylor’s influence, The Big Wazowskis manage to tie with Gary’s team. This eventually leads to Gary and Mike sharing food together at the restaurants. As the episode closes out, Gary does another comedy class – this time tackling the idea of hecklers. Amusingly, Gary himself interrupts and heckles him.
The Episode Review
Monsters at Work certainly feels like it’s going from strength to strength. After last week’s baseball venture, this chapter throws in plenty of throwbacks to the past while keeping things topically on-point with the bowling references. Tylor’s character gets a bit of a free pass here though which is disappointing, especially after lying twice. He’s not really called out for it either, although the end moral lesson with Tylor helping the other monsters and learning the true meaning of friendship is at least something. Either way, the show throws up numerous references and interesting tidbits to the past, and the inclusion of Gary into the fold is certainly something that amusingly plays on old tropes from the past. While Sulley only gets a cameo role this time around, hopefully we’ll see a more Sulley-centric episode in the coming weeks!
