Genuinely impressed on how much this season exceeded my expectations. I mean I already knew the show was going to get better in this season, but I never expected so much enjoyable episodes. The first half of the season starts off sort of similar to Season 8, like they basically feel like extra Season 8 episodes in a sense (with one of them being my absolute least favorite SpongeBob episode ever), however this half did have some gems like "Plankton's Pet" and "Eek an Urchin". Not to mention a few of these episodes were quite bland/missed potential like "Evil Spatula" and "Squid Defense".
The second half on the other hand, marked when the show finally got better again, thanks to Stephen Hillenburg and the old writers returning. The season had many fantastic and creative episodes, that definitely have the feel of the classic era such "Pineapple Invasion", "Goodbye Krabby Patty", and "Pull Up a Barrel". "Bulletin Board" basically feels like a call out to Twitter in a way. "Mall Girl Pearl" and "Larry's Gym" basically utilizes the other main characters very well. Even if we did get some duds like "The Fish Bowl" and "Sanctuary", they are few and far between compared to the first half.
Also, I feel like the character flanderizations were toned down for the most part (mainly in the 2nd half of the season), Patrick seems to have recovered from this the most as he, for the most part, is not a douchebag, and "Patrick Man", "What's Eating Patrick", and "Patrick: The Game", basically the episodes that focus on him show him back to his original self. The other characters were decent for the most part too (again, mainly in the second half).
Basically, a season that had a somewhat rough first half, but the second half of the season was genuinely really great, and probably the best the show has been since Season 4. I hope Season 10 will be just as good as this season.
Rating: 8/10
