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SpongeBob SquarePants is nothing less than an addiction that one cannot overcome even by growing old. Perhaps, I am an example of this, too, for even today, I watch the show regularly and consider myself a die-hard fan.
The origin of this addiction lies in those tiring afternoons of my school days. The thing I used to look forward to most was, turning on my T.V. and vigorously changing the channels until I could hear the infamous “Aye, Aye, Captain!” theme song.
The joyous adventures and the witty remarks of SpongeBob and his neighbors would rid me of all sorts of worries. Now, when I look back, I wonder what could worry a seven-year-old, except for pesky Math exams. Life was a lot easier back then, right?
Even though SpongeBob SquarePants seems like a happy and cheerful show, it still has its suspenseful and gloomy moments. These keep the viewers hooked, anxious, and begging for more while also making them go through an emotional roller coaster filled with fun stories and meme-worthy laughs. One such episode that successfully made me laugh at one moment and worry at the next was “Dying For Pie.”
What happened in this episode that made everyone so anxious? Why was SpongeBob’s survival in danger? Why was Squidward blamed? To find out, join me on this journey of revising one of my favorite SpongeBob episodes.
SpongeBob Pie Bomb Guide: Bottom Line Up Front
The episode revolves around the dangers of an exploding pie which SpongeBob has seemingly consumed. It is foretold by Mr. Krabs that SpongeBob has till sunset to live, so Squidward sets out to make his friend’s last day on earth the best day of his life, as he blames himself for the dire situation.
This episode is followed by a sister episode called “Imitation Krabs,” in which Plankton attempts to steal the secret Krabby Patty formula by disguising himself as Mr. Krabs.
Key Information
- Season: 2
- Episode no: 4
- Air Date: Jan 27, 2001
- Characters Featured: Squidward Tentacles, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Eugene H. Krabs.
- Sister Episode: Imitation Krabs
- Rating from IMDB: 9.2/10
Dying For Pie: Episode Guide
Squidward’s Dream
The episode begins on a fantasy island inside Squidward’s dream. He is seen happily playing the piano and bobbing his head around. Embarrassingly enough, I was doing the same thing until SpongeBob rudely interrupted the piano session. When Squidward hears a bell-like sound that a piano isn’t supposed to make, he spams the key he thinks is at fault for making that sound.
It is revealed that our sponge friend, Mr. SquarePants, is ringing the bell placed on the piano like a maniac, which sure drove me insane. SpongeBob’s bell and Squidward’s alarm clock must be plotting together as both started ringing at the same time, waking up the poor octopus, which ruined his dream and perhaps also his day. I know something like that would also ruin my day.
Another Day At Work
In the next scene, we see Squidward driving his iconic boatmobile toward The Krusty Krab. His vehicle reflects his mood with the words written on its license plate, “Don’t Ask Me About My Day,” something I wish I could also have on my number plate.
Squidward puts his employee cap on and walks toward the door of the Krabby Patty. SpongeBob can be seen sponging (pun intended) the windows as he follows Squidward’s movements from inside the store. As per tradition, he is seen smiling while creating more annoying sounds, I guess he will never change, and neither does anyone want him to.
As Squidward steps inside, SpongeBob asks if he noticed him, but the latter is wholly ignored. This doesn’t lower his spirits, and he comes up with the worst possible nickname for Squidward Squidinator. If someone butchers my name like this, I will never see them again, but our squid friend is too tired to react in any way.
Employee Brotherhood Day
Squidward is then seen standing at the cash counter with sloppy and beat-up eyes. To add oil to the fire, Mr. Krabs comes and greets him in an overly enthusiastic way, and the reaction he gives is insanely funny.
Squidward sticks his tongue out and makes an unpleasant sound, indicating his state of emotions. Let me tell you, I tried to recreate his response, only to be embarrassed by the people around me.
Mr. Krabs questions Squidward that he is ready to exchange gifts for employee brotherhood day. Upon hearing this, it becomes evident that Squidward has had enough. He lashes out at his boss and remarks that he is not paid enough to act brotherly towards other employees, referring to SpongeBob.
As Squidward’s bottled-up anger started to leak, my jaw started to drop. Thank god it wasn’t Squid games.
The scene shifts toward SpongeBob, who is minding his own goofy business. He is cleaning a table with a buffer and, foolishly enough, scrubs his own face, ruining its entire structure. They say not to judge a book by its cover, but he made his face horrifying on purpose and laughed while knowing he had traumatized a young fan like me.
Mr. Krabs blames Squidward’s cold and unbothered attitude for the idea of ’employee brotherhood day.’ In my opinion, it was his way of bringing out an emotional side of Squidward.
SpongeBob’s Heartiest Gift
Before unveiling this gift, he makes a short yet wholesome speech, “Squidward, in honor of employee brotherhood, I present to you a gift.” Before the gift was shown in that brief moment, I wondered what SpongeBob could have gotten for his beloved co-worker.
He then pulls out a sweater, shining in all its glory; his excitement was enough to state that there was more to this gift.
The camera zooms into the sweater, and it becomes clear that SpongeBob has written “I love you,” but the ‘love’ was replaced by a heart, and Squidward’s face is embedded in it.
The entire moment was so wholesome that it brought tears into my eyes, as I would also love to have a custom sweater as a gift. Still, this sweater was strange as weird lint was falling off it.
Squidward comedically reads what was written on the sweater aloud as “I heart you.” He completely misinterpreted it, and it was hilarious. Mr. Krab then says, “Try it on, Mr. Squidward! It’s got you written all over it!” I still don’t know if he was referring Squidward to a thing as beautiful as a heart or if it was one of Mr. Krabs’ dimwitted jokes.
Squidward approaches SpongeBob and tries the sweater on; meanwhile, SpongeBob says that he wasn’t sure how big the hole for the head would be, so he used a watermelon as a reference. I laughed out loud and started to imagine Squidward’s head as a watermelon; weirdly enough, it doesn’t look unnatural over his torso.
After struggling, he finally gets the sweater on, and the scene shifts to SpongeBob. His facial expressions portrayed the entire story. He did seem nervous, judging by his eyebrows and anxious smile. The glimmer in his eyes depicted the excitement that his hard work was about to be acknowledged.
His hands were interlocked as he moved them back and forth, indicating his urge to know about Squidward’s opinion. In the most adorable voice, he asked for it. This part of the episode melted many hearts, including mine.
If subjected to such delightful expressions and reactions, I would still acknowledge the gift, no matter how good or bad. Squidward, being the brutally honest guy he is, trampled upon his feelings and expectations of SpongeBob.
SpongeBob’s Broken Heart
When Squidward puts the sweater on, he starts to itch all over and asks SpongeBob what the shirt was made up of, who then replies it was made of eyelashes. An overly excited SpongeBob is shown, missing his eyebrows. It was most definitely a disturbing scene to watch for me.
Squidward removes the sweater and throws it toward SpongeBob, which sticks to his face. He slowly pulls it down, revealing his tear-filled eyes, and it most definitely broke my heart to see his feelings being shattered like that. Squidward then asks if he can resume his minimum wage job, indicating his dissatisfaction with his pay.
Mr. Krabs urges that he must also give a brotherhood gift, but Squidward only says he will buy him a gumball. He not only disregarded SpongeBob’s hard work but also disrespected him; anyways, if SpongeBob doesn’t want it, can I have the gumball? He is shunned by Mr. Krabs, who reminds him of the rules that he is supposed to make a gift himself.
A persistent Squidward is walking towards the door to leave, and as he opens it, SpongeBob is seen standing with a sweater made of his tears. Even if it is physically impossible to do so, it does show SpongeBob’s dedication despite his broken heart. When Squidward sees this, he sighs, and it is apparent that he is about to do something about the gift, which did arouse my curiosity.
The Pie Bomb
We then see a grumpy Squidward watching a bunch of pirates out of the kitchen window, and their captain is quarreling over the carelessness of his mates. The captain shouts, “If you drop one single slice of me booty, I’ll have your booty!” I probably couldn’t understand this joke back in the day, but it made me laugh out loud when I heard it recently.
Squidward is seen approaching these pirates with a grin and says that he thinks the pies they were carrying looked good. He mistakes them to be homemade pies, but one of the pirates reveals they were in a bomb factory. This was alarming for me as only bombs are made in bomb factories, but Squidward seems disappointed as he wanted to buy one.
A pirate’s biggest curse is greed, and the lust for money got the captain to trick Squidward into buying a pie for 25 bucks. Squidward then asked about the pie’s flavor, and none of the responses matched the other; one said Cherry, one said Apple, and the last one was Raspberry.
This part annoyed me a little, as I didn’t consider Squidward this dumb; he didn’t even realize he was being tricked into buying an actual bomb.
Mr. Krabs wanted to taste the pie to ensure it was up to the mark and enhance the taste. He wanted to try it with milk. He took a small piece of the pie and walked toward the milk carton. Unfortunately, he trips over a book, and the pie falls from his hand in an epic slow-motion sequence.
As soon as the piece encountered the milk carton, it exploded, and as part of the impact, Squidward and Mr. Krabs flew out of the building. This part of the episode turned out to be more dramatic than I expected, and I couldn’t comprehend the size of the explosion caused by a small piece of the pie. I believe the world now needs a Non-Pie Proliferation Treaty.
SpongeBob Is Running Out Of Time
Mr. Krabs believes that Squidward tried to kill him over a little new age management, who, in his defense, nervously tries to explain what happened. Meanwhile, SpongeBob enters the room and is astonished to see a pie. He approaches it and reads the attached note, “To SpongeBob,” he realizes it is from Squidward.
A panic situation is created when the pie is nowhere to be found, and SpongeBob is seen licking his fingers and rubbing his tummy. He later thanks Squidward for the pie. As a jolly SquarePants leaves the room, the characters and the audience could sense the aura getting tense. Mr. Krabs starts to blame Squidward for what I consider to be an unforeseen tragedy that was about to come.
The sense of despair intensifies the gravity of the situation, and I was surely devasted because I, too, started to consider Squidward, the most prominent antagonist of this series. If only he had listened to Mr. Krabs and made the brotherhood gift himself, SpongeBob wouldn’t be on the verge of dying.
After hearing the judgmental words of Mr. Krabs, Squidward imagines a gruesome and tragic end of SpongeBob, where he explodes into numerous tiny sponge pieces while serving in the Krusty Krab.
Finally, he realizes the seriousness of his actions. Furthermore, he is alarmed when Mr. Krabs tells him that when the pie hits the lower intestine in SpongeBob’s digestive system, it will most definitely explode.
He shivers, trembles, whimpers, and consults a doctor, but it’s of no use. When I saw Squidward’s reaction, and due to his past reputation, I couldn’t tell if his response was out of concern for SpongeBob or if was it because he would be accused of his death.
They conclude that SpongeBob is a goner, and Mr. Krabs speculates that he only has till sunset; this left me and many other viewers hollow inside. He suggests that his last day alive shouldn’t be ruined by giving SpongeBob the news of his tragic death.
Squidward begins to cry and realizes that he must atone for what he has done and claims that he will make SpongeBob’s last day on earth the best one. However, the tone of his words seemed chaotic and bothersome. So much so that it got Mr. Krabs to write a note, “Watch out for Squidward.”
The List Of Fun Things
Squidward walks over to SpongeBob, who is seen cleaning the tables while singing cheerfully. He nervously tells him that there is a part two to his gift, and SpongeBob starts jumping in excitement. No matter how annoying it was, his reaction did make me sad.
He is asked by Squidward about the most fun thing he can think of, and surprisingly SpongeBob pulls out a list of all the fun things he would like to do. He whispers that he calls this list his “friendship list,” and the extra fun things are written in red. Conveniently for him, he has written everything in red.
Squidward agrees to complete the list but accidentally says he is about to die. Still, as cunning as he is, he can conceal that fact by saying, “die… of anticipation”. All I could think was, if only he was this clever while buying that suspicious pie.
They both leave the Krabby Patty, and a teary Mr. Krabs puts on a ‘help wanted’ sign. This made me wonder whether he cared about SpongeBob, as he was already ready to replace him. Then one of my favorite scenes from the entire episode happened when SpongeBob asks Squidward to be a little careful, or they might replace Squidward.
Little does he know the sign was actually meant for him, proving that sometimes ignorance is bliss. After this, they both start doing the things from the list, and as expected, every single one is ridiculous.
SpongeBob began by introducing his best friend Squidward to the entire town. A montage plays of him introducing Squidward to everyone. When that is over, the newly made best friend is relieved.
Unfortunately for him, he had to go through that again while wearing a goofy salmon outfit. Even though Squidward’s uncompassionate nature was why SpongeBob was about to die, I started to feel sympathy towards him because of everything he was going through to please his friend.
The embarrassing nature of SpongeBob’s list only seemed to increase. They told knock-knock jokes, walked in reverse, and made weird noises while also making strange faces. SpongeBob is also seen sitting on Squidward’s face navigating him around.
My sympathy for him turned into actual concern when both the characters are caught in an operation theatre with their hearts exposed. SpongeBob’s list took a gruesome turn, and he is seen poking Squidward’s exposed heart while performing open-heart surgery on him. I felt more uncomfortable when his heart squirted out blood, and it left me scarred for life.
The Sunset
The list is completed, except for one last thing: watching the sunset with Squidward. Unexpectedly, the embarrassing and uncomfortable list had one final wholesome thing. I felt at ease that there was something Squidward would look forward to doing. Then the sudden realization struck, and both he and I recalled that SpongeBob had only till sunset to live.
And the whole moment turned into utter disbelief and discouragement; all the memories of watching SpongeBob SquarePants started playing in my head, and I was at the acceptance stage of grief. Still, everything felt unreal and incomplete as my favorite character won’t even get the chance to say goodbye.
The duo is seen lying on the ground. SpongeBob sighs because he feels at peace and considers underwater sunsets the best thing. He is thankful for the three of them who were present as he utters the most hilarious and alarming quote from the entire episode “Yeah, this is great, just the three of us. You, me, and this brick wall that you built between us.”
I interpreted these words, both literally and metaphorically, as there was an actual brick wall between them and the fact that Squidward has neglected SpongeBob. And the same neglect is about to lead SpongeBob to his demise.
He is seen reminiscing about peaceful sunsets and utters more hurtful words that even if he dies in an explosion right now, he would be okay with that. It seemed like the inevitable was about to happen; he had already forgiven his friend for it. Judging by Squidward’s teary reaction, it seemed like he understood it really well. As they say, it is no use crying over spilled milk.
SpongeBob burps, and some smoke comes out of him. He says that he felt something dropped in his lower intestine, and he could not distinguish the smell, and he could not tell if the aroma was blueberry, grape, or cherry. It had become apparent that SpongeBob was about to explode into a million pieces.
Counting Down The Explosion
SpongeBob is excited to see the sun setting and claims he likes to count it down; talk about a ticking bomb. They begin the count down, and Squidward’s shadow is getting longer, indicating that the sun is coming down slowly but surely.
The music gets ever so suspenseful, and he closes his eyes, expecting a massive explosion. The anti-climatic end of their countdown makes SpongeBob realize they didn’t have the right timing.
I thought he wasn’t going to explode for a moment. My relief turned into rage and anxiety again when they restarted the countdown. It indeed was an emotional roller coaster.
With the beginning of the second countdown, the sun was finally about to set in Bikini Bottom, and SpongeBob’s life was about to end. Squidward doesn’t reach the end of his 5-second countdown, and he hears an explosion. I bowed my head in respect as I heard Squidward cry; there was this satisfaction in my head that he redeemed himself by making his last day fun.
The Truth About The Pie Bomb
Squidward’s narcissistic nature appears, and he overrides his action by saying he is a good person. However, another explosion occurs, and he’s buried under the wall due to the impact. SpongeBob is still alive and is blowing exploding bubbles!
It did relieve me to see him live. Now, I was more curious and shocked because, since the conversation with Mr. Krabs, it was concluded that SpongeBob’s death was inevitable.
Like me, Squidward was so shocked that he couldn’t utter a word. He kept babbling until SpongeBob reminded him they had already checked ‘babbling like an idiot’ off their list. Even after exploding into a million pieces, SpongeBob doesn’t miss a chance to make me laugh; wait, what?
After more misunderstanding and constant yelling, Squidward reveals the secret of the pie he got SpongeBob for the employee brotherhood day. SpongeBob takes out the pie from his pocket. Which got me thinking about how he was able to store such a big pie in a small pocket like his, but then again, it’s a cartoon anything can happen.
SpongeBob reveals that he saved the pie so they could share it. This did melt my heart, but it didn’t give me time to process and assess the entire situation. SpongeBob carelessly trips over a rock and accidentally throws the pie at Squidward’s face.
Upon contact, the pie explodes, and the magnitude is of unimaginable scale that it probably left a scar on the earth’s surface.
As the giant mushroom clouds appeared due to the explosion, my mouth was wide open, and my mind was unwilling to comprehend what had just happened. The entire Bikini Bottom seemed like an aftermath of a nuclear attack. Don’t worry, the episode only ends with Squidward saying, “ouch.”
My Thoughts On The Episode
As it is evident, this episode was nothing short of an insane emotional roller coaster, and I personally enjoyed all the ups and downs it introduced me to. It did reveal a compassionate side of Squidward, which no one knew existed.
For me, the best thing about this episode was watching Squidward’s true colors. It became apparent that if something happened to Squidward’s friends, he was ready to set aside his attitude and face innumerable annoyances for them.
However, I can’t help but think that maybe all his actions were a way for him to atone for his mistakes. After all, SpongeBob was about to reach his grave because of his carelessness. This show never stops to amaze me, and the episode ends on a sudden good note, which I didn’t expect.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answer: It was Employee Brotherhood Day, and the employees at Krusty Krabs were supposed to exchange self-made gifts. However, one can argue that Mr. Squidward was forced to observe that day rather than prepare a present.
Answer: SpongeBob made a sweater for Squidward from his eyelashes and another from his tears. SpongeBob literally gifted Mr. Squidwards the “self-made” gifts.
Answer: Squidward gave SpongeBob an exploding pie he bought from pirates for 25 bucks. But the pie turned out to be a bomb, which gives the phrase “a gift sure to remember” a whole new meaning.
Answer: SpongeBob had time till sunset. After that, the pie would hit his lower intestine, causing him to explode and die. So by looking at medical research, SpongeBob had about 3 to 4 hours till that happened.
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