The Powerpuff Girls Season 5 Ranking and Review

Seasons 5 and 6 of the Powerpuff Girls are considered to be notably worse than the other seasons. With that said, it was still a jarring shift going from Season 4 to Season 5. Season 5 is not totally without value, and earlier seasons did have poor episodes but to understand the difference when there was a middle of the road type episode in the first four seasons I ranked it low whereas it was ranked high.

Season 5 Ranking:

22: Toast of the Town: This episode is baffling. In most episodes the Mayor is meant to be a senile old man, but in this episode he acts like a toddler. Not a cartoon toddler, a real life toddler with repetitive yelling and causing trouble and being demanding. I think I have a relatively strong tolerance for that in real life, but it's not at all entertaining in a show. It's baffling the way the episode treats the Professor as being in the wrong for not fixing the Mayor's toaster, which he was trying to do but had to stop because he was trying to keep the Mayor from rampaging downtown. There are episodes with worse elements than this episode, but this episode has nothing good about it. 

21: Pee Pee Gs: There's a common idea that has spread that there are no good or bad ideas, just good or bad execution. I STRONGLY disagree. It's true that any good idea can be ruined by bad execution but it is not true that any idea can be done well. This episode is about the PPG wondering who wet the bed. It's a gross idea and not entertaining. The whole episode is just them worrying that they're the one who did it. It's unpleasant to think about. I will grant it has one funny joke, when it's revealed Mojo was coming in during the dead of night and spilling water on their bed and they speculate it was to destroy their confidence so he could take over the world but he says no he just did it because "I don't like you." That was funny, but most of this episode is unpleasant.

 20: Shotgun Wedding: So this episode is mostly infamous for that one part where Fuzzy and I can't believe I have to say this, has sex with a bunch of dirt and mud. Like it's not exactly clear, but that's very clearly the implication. t's pretty gross, and the rest of the episode isn't particularly special either. It's Fuzzy thinking the Professor after falling in the mud is a beautiful female Lumpkin and trying to marry "her." There are ways that premise could have worked but they don't really do anything fun with it, they just skip to the wedding and while they are being wed the Powerpuff Girls are beating up all the Lumpkins there with Fuzzy and the Lumpkin minister just not noticing. It's kind of funny that the Professor is trying to study all the villains and their biology at first, but it's also massively dumb he did this without any protection given at one point he very clearly thought he was going to die because of Fuzzy.

19: Girls Gone Mild: The Powerpuff Girls are forbidden from using their powers since it might be imitable to normal little girls. This is another episode whose premise I don't think was gonna ever work. Yeah I get that Standards and Practice are annoying to work with but if people put on a superhero show, they expect to see superpowers. This episode is really slow and I can't buy that the parents of Townsville would not want the Girls to use their powers considering how beloved the Girls are in every prior episode. 

18: Shut the Pup Up: I find it weird that when PPG tries to make a "mean-spirited" character or episode, it ends up relatively tame by comparison. The plot of this episode has the girls taking in the talking dog and him constantly insulting everyone. However his insults aren't even really that bad which was the weirdest part of the episode to me. It wasn't pleasant still seeing the characters being distraught and the dog getting no repercussions. The ending is kind of interesting, the solution to the murder the dog saw, but it's not a mystery episode. They're not trying to figure it out, they're just waiting for the dog to actually say what he saw and once he does the episode ends. 

17: Sweet and Sour: This episode is a step up from the last few, though a step down from the next few. It's about a couple cute animals acting all cutesy while robbing people so that people don't mind because of their cuteness. This feels like a fairly good idea for a PPG episode, but the big problem is that it's frustrating to watch because the people never realize these animals even after they blatantly rub people over and over, and blame the Girls for "hurting poor defenseless animals." It's frustrating especially because it's unclear who keeps calling them to stop the animals. I did like the one joke where Bubbles is going through her toys and is like "I love you!" to the puppy and then the kitty respectively then picks up the Hunchback toy, pauses, and says "I....think you're swell." That's a pretty cute joke, especially when we find out later it's Buttercup's toy. You'd think it's tie into how they beat the animals, but nah.i

16: Bubble Boy: So now we move from the episodes I thought were bad to the ones I thought were fine, even if they had notable problems. Bubble Boy has Bubbles try to infiltrate the Rowdyruff Boys by pretending to be Boomer. I do like the way that Season 5 gives the RRB actually differentiated personalities with Brick being the arrogant leader, Boomer being the dumb one, and Brick being the violent insane one, meant to darkly mirror the Girls. With that said this episode is mostly a lot of gross things being done to poor Bubbles which I didn't like. I also didn't like how Blossom and Buttercup know it's only a matter of time until Bubbles is discovered trying to buy time for them to think of a way to capture Brick and Butch yet neither are even trying to think of any plan. It makes Bubbles' actions pointless.

15: City of Clipsville: This is just a Clipshow episode. There are some original clips, in particular there's a funny one where the Girls are teenagers, but it also has a rather gross one after they were turned to babies. It has the problem of most Clipshow episodes in that it's kind of boring, and the ending joke where it's revealed the entire episode was actually them remembering something is the cliché joke to end a clipshow episode on. 

14: The Boys Are Back in Town: Not the worst Season 5 episode, but not a worthy successor to the original Rowdyruff Boys episode. HIM is cool this episode, and him resurrecting the RRB and taking away their weakness is good. The entire first half of this episode, one of the few 22-minute episodes in the season, is fine. However I really didn't like the scene of the RRB torturing the girls with gross things, shorter though it was on rewatch then it was in my imagination. If you're noticing a similarity, it's that I really don't like gross things.

13: Curses: A lot of children's cartoons have an episode a lot this. The child or childlike character learns a swear word without knowing its meaning and just start repeating it everywhere causing shocked reactions, most famously Sailor Mouth from Spongebob. What was different about Sailor Mouth is that there was...an evolving narrative after the point Spongebob and Patrick learned the word was a bad word. Curses and most episodes of this type don't have that. It's just the girls saying a bad word over and over until they learn it's a censored bad word and not to say it. It's mildly amusing at times seeing the reactions. I liked the big tough prisoner covering his ears saying his innocent ears can't take it and the professor embarrassedly trying to apologize to the girls and tell them why he used it while also pretending to the crowd he was not the one who taught them it. But that's really all the episode has to offer.

12: A Documentary: A relatively unpopular episode that I will give a mild defense for. The one thing people say about Documentary, an episode about an amateur filmmaker trying to make a documentary on the Powerpuff Girls shot from his camera's perspective, is that it is an interesting idea, but boring, and I won't deny it's a bit of a dull episode. With that said I thought it was amusing how freakishly obsessed Brian Larsen is with the Powerpuff Girls in particular getting his family to dress up as the PPG for a "re-enactment" of them stopping Mojo or even trying to get an interview from Fuzzy by going onto his property.  It's not the most exciting episode, but I thought it was mildly amusing.

11: Save Mojo: Another relatively unpopular episode that I will give a mild defense for. I think of this episode as a better version of Sweet and Sour. While that episode had the antagonists being three one-off villains, this ep had Mojo manipulating a bunch of Animal Rights Activists into protecting him from any repercussions for his actions. That it's not the entire City, but just a small group of people helps immensely with the frustration, at least for me, because it doesn't feel like everyone is unfairly against the Girls this episode, just a bunch of hobbyists. This episode is a lot less frustrating to me because it doesn't seem like the entire world is against the Girls like it was in Sweet and Sour. I also find it amusing how the activists somehow interpret everything Mojo does as natural animal instincts even building explosions. The ending was just as good a solution as Sweet and Sour and Mojo in particular repeatedly saying "Help, I'm being Oppressed" unintentionally became funnier in hindsight due to the overuse of the word "oppression" after this episode came out. While it's still repetitive and kind of frustrating, I think it's a much more solid version. 

10: Monstra-City: This episode has a problem a lot of Season 5 episodes have, which is that has an idea and just sort of repetitively does the same thing with it several times. This episode is about the Monsters and the citizens of Townsville having to co-exist and the Girls repeatedly chastising them for fighting each other. I find it amusing, and this isn't really the episode's fault, but you could take the ending where the girls get back Monster City for the monsters and all the monsters leave Townsville and go back as basically saying "yeah different groups of people should keep to their own areas." I know that's not the intent, but given most of the episode is about the Girls telling the monsters and humans to get along in a tone that gives off a "we should all get along with people different from us" vibe, it's a bit of an accidental aesop. This episode and Sweet and Sour gives a really bad feeling that the city of Townsville only care about appearance, letting the cat, rabbit, and bunny get along with anything because they're cute but hating the monsters for being ugly.

9: Divide and Conquer: So this is a neat little episode centered around the Amoeba Boys. Their comical ineptitude is still pretty funny this episode, and after some shenanigans they learn to multiply themselves and the girls sorta use math to stop them. I don't really have that much to say about this episode, it's a pretty humble episode. It's jokes are pretty amusing and basically what you'd expect from an Amoeba Boys episode. It does make the girls look dumber than usual when Buttercup can't do basic math, and Bubbles is seemingly proud she knows 1+1=2, but it's a fine episode.

8: Seed No Evil: A frozen caveman criminal is found and accidentally thawed who goes after the Mayor and his seeds. This episode has some mild logic problems, and doesn't have a lot of the actual Powerpuff Girls themselves, but is a pretty funny episode with a really good opening sequence where they have the Powergruff Girls, the cavegirl version of the Powerpuff Girls apprehending the seed-thief in caveman times, the entire thing being a caveman version of a normal PPG episode. 

7: Boy Toys: A pretty fun episode featuring Princess teaming up with the PPG to fight the Rowdyruff Boys, only for the Girls to end up tricking both into causing the RRB to destroy Princess' weapons trying to fight each other. I really like how the premise just writes itself with the evil Princess initially wanting to join the similarly evil RRB but being refused because the sexist RRB don't wanna hang out with a girl, leading to the girls and Princess to unite against a common enemy. Maybe this isn't fair to put on this episode, I would have liked Princess to more agency in her final major role, and perhaps more could have been done between the two given just how opposite Princess is to the RRB and given Princess has her PPG-level technology, but overall it's a fun crossover between two villains that it makes a lot of sense would have animosity; the stuffy pampered Princess, and the sexist, uncultured, and gross Rowdyruff Boys.

6: Bang For Your Buck: This episode has a fun premise and is mostly a build-up to one big final joke at the end like a bunch of classic PPG episodes like Monkey See, Doggy Two. Mojo is having a yard sale and the Gangreen Gang and the Powerpuff Girls both have to raise money to try and get a giant deathray-looking machine, leading to a lot of humorous antics. I did think it was weird how the episode clearly depicts that the Gangreen Gang is getting a lot more money quicker due to their ill-begotten means, such as the Girls getting a quarter for helping an old lady across the street, when the Gangreen Gang just steals a lot of money from her, yet the episode treats them as neck and neck. With that said there's a ton of funny little bits over the episode, such as how Bubbles enters a pet race, and somehow the fish in a bowl wins. 

5: See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey: The most famous Season 5 episode. This is an episode that is really loved and really hated and I think I can understand both perspectives. It has some of the most beautiful and interesting animation in the series, it has beautiful music, and more than anything it is easily one of, if not the MOST, ambitious episode in the series, both in premise and execution. It's trying to talk about grand themes more than almost any episode in the series in the form of this 22-minute musical with basically no spoken dialogue. However it's plot has large logical flaws and it it feels like it has a scene missing showing the Gnome as evil. It's characters act out of character with Blossom trying to pull rank on Buttercup over a life-changing decision and all three girls acting like they just want to be "normal little girls", something they've never expressed before. And it's themes, while grandiose and noble in theory, are a bit confusing in presentation. This is one of those episodes I respect a lot more than I enjoy, just for the heights of its ambition, it's artistry, and the subject matter it tries to tackle. It made it harder than any other episode this season to decide where it ranked. I figured this was a fair place to put it, at the absolute top of the episodes that felt like they had notable problems, as while this episode very much does as well, it also has the best upsides of any of those episodes, and probably the highest highs of any episode this season. 

4: Substitute Creature: This is an episode that could easily be mistaken for a Classic PPG episode, outside maybe the modern artstyle. The girls class has a substitute teacher whose a monster. The girls are suspicious of him and his evil appearance, only for it to be shown he was an honest and sweet person with the obvious lesson, don't judge people for their appearance. I think this episode is really sweet. I really loved the way the kids at the beginning are throwing a parade in town for their beloved Miss Keane. I also like all the imaginings the girls have of what Mr. Green is going to do, stylized to look like manga. It's a sweet episode befitting it's moral. It also retroactively makes Monstra-City more baffling if monsters can just normally live in Townsville and get normal jobs, though I guess he's not a GIANT monster.

3: Burglar Alarmed: A funny and sweet episode where some burglar actually tries to rob the Powerpuff Girls, but the Professor needs his sleep so the girls stop the burglar without waking him. This episode has plenty of funny bits and sweet bits. For instance the way the Burglar holds the sleeping Professor's body hostage pretending he'll yell in the Professor's ear trying to threaten the girls but not knowing why they want him to stay asleep so bad, or when the Girls tuck in their professor for a change after finding him asleep in his lab, hard at work. Burglar Alarmed regularly comes up in the best episodes of Season 5 and it's easy to see why. 

2: Lying Around the House: This is easily the funniest episode of the season to me. It IS kind of inconsistent with how the girls, in particular Blossom would never tell a lie, but I think the message and the presentation of the message are good, and I thought some of the jokes were quite funny such as Bubbles blatant attempt to lie at how her drawing got on the wall by saying that it's clearly impressionistic while she sticks strictly to realism. The ending joke where the Mayor says he just gave his re-election speech and we see a giant lie-kaiju in the background is one of the best jokes in the series to me.

1: Silent Treatment: The girls are drawn into a silent movie to stop a silent movie villain who has kidnapped the Professor and wants to steal his voice. This episode is a love letter to old cartoons and films and uses a lot of their techniques in a fun, interesting way. The episode isn't the most experimental episode of the season, it's not See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey, but it NEARLY is and it implements what it's trying to experiment with perfectly. I would almost believe this is what an early film version of the Powerpuff Girls would look like. The villain is memorable and interesting, it uses cool animation techniques, it has a cool premise executed very well, this episode is really a list of reasons why it should be at the top. 

Season 5 Review:

Season 5 is a dramatically weaker than the prior seasons. It's got some good episodes, and it's not like past seasons haven't had bad episodes, but the sheer amount this episode of bad to meh episodes show the difference. It's not like it's dull though. If anything I think a lot of the problems this season were that they had a lot of ideas but didn't properly weed out bad ideas. Most of the bad episodes this season aren't episodes with good ideas and poor implementation, they're episodes with very limiting premises being implemented as well as one could expect the episode premise to go. Even in the mixed episode you see this tendency again, not of good ideas with bad implementation, but a mixture of good and bad ideas executed reasonably. My biggest complaints this season are the notable increase in gross-out humor, which I very much dislike, and a general slowing down of the pacing. Of the things I would say in its defense, I would say this season is still clearly not out of creativity, and even the worse episodes of the series usually have premises that are at least "creative". Everything about this season is creative, if perhaps better if it was more thoroughly edited and vetted. Similarly I would say the season is still pretty good at having little funny and cute moments here and there.