Average Jeff (Clarence)

"Average Jeff"
Discrimination is not the best idea for a kids show like this.
Series: Clarence Part of Season: 1 Episode Number: 18 Air Date: October 2, 2014 Writer: Spencer Rothbell (also Story) Mark Banker Skyler Page Director: Derek Evanick Diana Lafyatis Previous episode: Nature Clarence Next episode: Lizard Day Afternoon

Average Jeff is the 18th episode of Clarence.

Plot

Jeff stays in the Crayon group while suffering an identity crisis in the test. However, he attempted to join the quill group but was rejected.

Why It's Below-Average

1. This episode shows discrimination towards boys and girls, where boys stay in the Crayon group while girls (and a few boys, like Breehn and John-George) stay in the Quill group. Near the end of this episode, it is revealed that the group experiments failed due to gender bias, proving that this episode is pointless.
2. Jeff is at his absolute worst in this episode, because he attempts to join the Quill group, but gets shoved in the Crayon group, despite that group being the below-average people, while Jeff is smart.
   • The students from the Crayon group are likable since they rouse around and play, while Jeff gets tortured.
   • Tonya the Tapir serves no purpose outside of harassing Jeff.
3. The reason why Jeff goes to the Crayon group, is because Mrs. Baker accidentally puts it on his paper without a mistake. She even admitted that there is "no mistake" proving that she is somewhat stupid.
4. Mrs. Baker is also a bit unlikable to Jeff because she forces him to stay in the Crayon group and kicks him out when he arrives in the Quill group.
   • She admittedly states to Jeff that "this is not a mistake", even though she intentionally placed him in that said group. However when Breehn is placed in the quill group, despite being male and the group is exclusive to girls, it really is not, thus making her a butt-monkey.
5. The experiments show discrimination and they come up as poorly written:
   • The crayon group includes boys who do nothing but play (and rough play) and mess up the school.
6. The quill group includes girls (and two boys) who teach with Mrs. Baker.
   • Speaking of the quill group, boys are appearing in school, like Breehn and John-Geroge as the only male students in this group, thus coming out as unbalanced.
7. Jeff's hallucination while Mrs. Baker drags him off in the quill group is a bit disturbing.
8. Plot Holes:
   • How does Clarence get a bandage on one of his eyes?
   • Since when does Tonya the Tapir appear in the classroom?
9. Bad Ending: Even though Jeff becomes average in the crayon group, Tonya suddenly appears in the classroom and freaks him out.

Above-Average Qualities

1. The teachers are likable in this episode.
   • While Jeff is at his worst here, he is still likable.
   • The students from the quill group are likable, despite the discrimination.
2. The opening scene with a nod to American Psycho, with Jeff pretending to be like Patrick Bateman is good. It happened twice eventually.
3. Pretty decent and well done title card.

Reception

Initially, this episode was critically acclaimed and it was one of the best episodes, but when season 1 ended, it got changed from critically acclaimed to universally panned and it was one of the worst Clarence episodes. This episode's negative reception was due to discrimination towards males and females, Jeff being villainous, despite not being his personality, and him getting harsh punishments.

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