The Powerpuff Girls Season 4 Ranking and Review

Season 4 of the Powerpuff Girls is pretty notable in that unlike every other season the vast majority of episodes this season are 22 minutes rather than 11 minutes. It includes 11 22 minute episodes and only 2 11 minute episodes. Partly as a consequence I feel like this season gains some consistency at the expense of some potency. It is the only season that doesn't have a single episode I dislike (Even Season 3 has Town and Out) but it arguably doesn't peak as high as the prior seasons.  

Season 4 Ranking:

13: Nano of the North: See this is what I mean, this episode is fine. I have no big reason for it to be at the bottom it's just season 4 is a really solid season and something has to be at the bottom. The worst thing about this episode is that it's rather slow, which is really against my tastes. I get that it's atmospheric but a lot of this just feels excessive. It's got amusing parts, like how the nanobots to beat the PPG in their tiny bot coalesce into a bigger robot only to be squished since it became big enough for the Professor to squish it. That makes sense and is funny. It's a fine episode.

12: Members Only: So I know this episode is generally really liked but I've never really liked it that much. The obvious comparison is Equal Fights, but in that episode the sexist was a villain and got punished, and the theme was a lot more subtle since the girls actually have to learn the lesson. In this episode it's like a rival group of heroes are sexist, and I mean they get embarrassed and emasculated by the girls, but there's no punishment or anything, they basically get what they wanted at the end. I get maybe sexism might just be too personal a thing for me, but I really felt like they got off light on this episode. It is still amusing at times and has some cool sequences, I liked Bubbles racing E-Mail and asking is one of them supposed to win before casually outpacing him. I liked Blossom destroying the big meteor in such a way as to destroy the little meteors. It's still not a bad episode in anyway. 

11: Film Flam: Once again, this episode is fine. It's also a little bit drawn out at places. The villain is just a conman trying to steal money from the bank, and it's kind of a basic plot, but there's some pretty funny moments. I do think it's cute that after the girls spend the episode excited to be starring in a movie, it ends with the Professor being excited himself to star in the movie about his defeat of Bernie Bernstein, the villain. 

10: Keen on Keane:  One of the two 11 minute episodes. The Professor and Miss Keane make for a cute couple and it's also pretty true to life the way the little girls try to play Cupid between them, something already seen in season 1. I like the way both try to make themselves look more impressive to each other in stereotypical gendered-ways with the Professor working out and Miss Keane dressing up and putting on heavier make-up, even though the reason clearly the two like each other is because of their shared intellectual nature. There was also a reference to an earlier episode which is fun. It does end a little bit...anti-climactically. I'm surprised Miss Keane would misbelieve that a cat would force the Professor to jump off a building given the city she lives in, though it's far from the most unbelievable thing in the show.

9: Not So Awesome Blossom: The OTHER 11 minute episode. Blossom thinks she's jinxed. She saves the professor from Mojo with a plan showing she's not cursed. Another episode that's pretty alright but I really feel bad for Blossom early on in this one. I thought it was sweet that the Professor, even after Blossom pours boiling tea on him, tries to stoically show no pain so she doesn't feel worse. There's also an amusing exchange between Mojo and Blossom where Blossom asks how Mojo knows she won't lie, and he responds "Because you're Blossom."

8: Superfriends: Another really famous popular episode and yeah it's pretty good. The way the girls befriend Robin is really sweet and speaks to the way children will often just make friends by wandering up and say hi. The conflict is elegantly simple, with the way Robin feels rejected by the girls because they have to keep leaving to save the city, and Princess manipulating her. It also obviously has oft mentioned hidden adult joke "Don't worry professor, I was an accident too" which was amusing. Overall it's good, no real complaints.

7: Stray Bullet: Like the last episode, this is an episode that's mostly just a "cute" episode. Bullet is a cute episodic character, a squirrel with Chemical X. I did think it was kinda weird giving Bullet Chemical X was clearly something she wasn't "supposed" to do, yet no one, not even the Professor brings it up later. With that said Bubbles being responsible and mature enough to leave Bullet to protect the forest where she belongs really shows her character development over the first four seasons, and even from Helter Shelter last episode. It was also pretty cute and amusing the forest has its own animal versions of everyone and everything including a groundhog mayor who uses a firefly to call Bullet like the powerpuff hotline.

6: Him Diddle Riddle: HIM has a bigger presence this season than any other. This episode is one that better takes advantage of its time than a lot this season as HIM presents numerous riddles and challenges to the girls to solve or else the Professor will "pay" leading to a funny joke at the end with wordplay that leaves even the Narrator speechless. I feel like this really shows the versatility of HIM as a character, that he can be even in the same episode extremely threatening and menacing while also a little bit silly just due to his warped priorities. 

5: Get Back Jojo: The top 5 episodes of this season I consider great and they're all fairly relative. This one isn't much worse than the episode right above it and so on. I liked the goofy film shown in class when they travel back in time, and obviously the ending is very sweet as it was the girls saving him that originally inspired Professor Utonium. This is also like the third time Mojo has accidentally saved the day. I'm not the biggest fan of time travel stories in general; they're a magnet for plot holes and while this one is pretty good at avoiding them, I do feel there are a few plot holes that come up if you think about it. Like if the PPG could be sent back to any time by the Time Portal, they could have just been sent back an hour before Mojo was sent so they could intercept him when he arrived in the past. But all time travel stories have stuff like that. It's a very sweet episode bringing a different light to the relationship between the Professor and the Girls.

4: Forced Kin: It's cool seeing the Powerpuff Girls and Mojo team up, which is to my recollection something that hadn't actually happened before. The aliens are a pretty decent episodic villain mostly just being super intimidating but the real highlight of this episode is Mojo, who is not only consistently funny in the way he anticipates the evil plans of the Alien Leader, but the ending is maybe his most famous moment where he goes completely feral and just physically stomps this giant alien mech stronger than the Girls. It's both funny and awesome. It's also the fourth time he's accidentally saved the day.

3: Power-Noia: This episode broadly speaking makes the best use of the 22 minute timeframe in the season as it focuses on HIM's nightmares for each of the three girls and each of the three overcoming it via their own unique personality strength. I do think Bubbles and Buttercups' fears could have been more tied to their personalities, but it's a really great episode full of sweet moments from the girls. Bubbles destroying a bunch of demon clown toys to help Blossom is a fantastic moment. The girls are even able to take down HIM in his own horrible nightmare realm, which isn't that far-fetched given they did similar to the Sandman back in Season 2 and were able to imagine a friend to beat Patches in the same season. This is an episode that clearly needed the runtime to really show all the girls fears and how they overcame them.

2: Knock it Off: Another famous iconic episode. I've seen this be called Season 4's "Speed Demon" and I can definitely see why. This is one of the darkest episodes in the series, and yet not more than necessary. The sequence where the failed PPG clones, after seeing the love the Professor shared with the girls, turn on the Chemical X-amped Dick Hardly and destroy him and the entire facility is still one of the most pathos-filled and dramatic sequences in the series. It's also heartwrenching to see the Professor taken away by the Girls as they lay dying from having the Chemical X removed from them, and heartwarming seeing them reunited. 

1: All Chalked Up: I've seen some people not like this ep because it's quite similar to Octi Evil, an easily season 1 episode. I don't really agree with that complaint, partially because it's 3 seasons later, partly because I just don't mind taking inspiration from good eps like Octi Evil, and partly because I think the differences are really important. This episode really shows Bubbles maturation over the course of the series as she is far more confident and emotionally mature in dealing with HIM this time, and while HIM does deceive her into creating the chalk monsters as expressions of her anger, her using the chalk to transform them into happy friendly monsters while telling HIM that it's ok to express your anger if you do it in a positive way, is both a really good moral, a fun solution to the episode problems, and also a really sweet cool moment for Bubbles. This episode is about the conflict between my favorite PPG and my favorite PPG villain and I think it's wonderfully done. I also thought it was very sweet how at the end Buttercup is trying but having trouble apologizing for breaking Bubbles chalk and she cuts her off with a hug and tells her "that's ok, I forgive you."

Season 4 Review:

Season 4 as a season is very consistent, more than any other season, partially due to the lower episode count. I do like this season pretty well, and I appreciate that there wasn't any episodes I didn't like, though I never felt like it quite reached the pinnacles of seasons 2 and 3. I noticed while watching a significant number of episodes this season felt a bit similar to episodes prior. I didn't really mind, but if you're less comfortable with familiarity than I am, I can imagine why you might not like it. Generally Season 4 is the season of consistency. Every episode felt somewhat familiar and consistent, it was rarely a big jump up in quality but never a big jump down either. It was good consistent Powerpuff Girls.