Crime After Crime (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends)

"Crime After Crime"
Behold, an episode where Mr. Herriman punishes everyone for no reason other than to hide his carrot addiction.
Series: Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Part of Season: 3 Episode Number: Season: 8 Overall: 35 Air Date: November 18, 2005 Writer: Lauren Faust Director: Robert Alvarez Randy Myers Paul O'Flanaga Previous episode: Go Goo Go Next episode: Land of the Flea

Crime After Crime is an episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. It’s the eighth episode of season three and the thirty-fifth episode overall.

Plot

Mr. Herriman punishes everyone except Bloo to make sure that nobody knows about his carrot addiction as the latter tries to get punished to avoid dinner.

Why It Should Be Punished

1. Mr. Herriman is possibly at his absolute worst as he is even more unlikable than he was in "Everyone Knows It's Bendy" and "Imposter's Home for Um... Make 'Em Up Pals" given that the former was from the same writer, because just like in the aforementioned episode, he punishes everyone, but in here, he does it so no one would find out about his carrot addiction. So basically, the episode's plot consists of Mr. Herriman punishing everyone for no reason.
2. Frankie is also extremely unlikable here as she unlawfully kicks Mac out of Foster's Home and nearly gets him falsely arrested by the police albeit she didn't know there was stolen jewels in his backpack when she threw it out to him. She is also mean and unfair to Bloo as she takes her frustration from the episode out on him when he did nothing wrong to her.
3. Speaking of Mac, despite being likable, he's literally shoehorned in in the last five minutes of the episode and serves no purpose here, as Mac even nearly gets arrested for something that's not even his fault, which is a bit dark for Foster’s standards.
4. The ending of the episode also tries way too hard to make Bloo suffer, even though Bloo did absolutely nothing wrong in this episode.
5. Bloo gets punished for the sole fact of not being punished by Mr. Herriman, yet Bloo destroyed everything in the house, invaded Madame Foster's privacy by entering her room and jumping on the bed, destroyed half of the Foster's building with a wrecking ball, vandalizes the entire house and almost endangering Mr. Herriman's life by making him slip down some stairs, yet the episode doesn't punish Bloo for those crimes, instead Mr. Herriman, who is still under his addiction influence, congratulates Bloo for his wrongdoings in this episode. Mean-spirited, right?
6. Aside from Mr. Herriman punishing everyone throughout the episode, there's an extremely mean-spirited running gag which involves Madame Foster smacking poor Frankie's hand with a wooden spoon whenever she (as in Frankie) messes up the dish due to the spackle from the kitchen ceiling falling into said dish when Bloo, Mr. Herriman, Eduardo and Mac all jump on the bed, and they repeat that joke four times.
7. There's an incredibly pointless subplot where Wilt tries to punish himself whenever he thinks that he's "breaking" the rules.
8. Plot holes:
   • Bloo said that Herriman cannot punish Mac.
   • The reason for Mr. Herriman punishing the Foster residents with no supper and telling them to leave their rooms is because those rooms have carrots hidden and that he wants no one to find out about his carrot addiction, so instead of outright punishing the Foster residents and sending them to their rooms with no supper, why doesn't Mr. Herriman just politely ask the Foster residents to leave the rooms?
   • Mr. Herriman made a statement to Bloo that he will do whatever Bloo tells him, so in that case, why doesn't Bloo just ask Mr. Herriman if he could skip supper?
     • On that note, why couldn't Bloo just lie to Frankie that he "was punished by Mr. Herriman" to avoid eating dinner?
   • If Frankie had noticed the crack from the people jumping on the bed, why didn’t she have just ether moved the bowl of “It” somewhere else, or fixed the crack?
9. While the most likable, Eduardo gets mad at Bloo for not getting in trouble and yet getting Eduardo in trouble, despite the fact that Bloo has told him he wanted to get in trouble to avoid eating. But instead of helping Bloo, he just punishes Bloo unfairly along with Frankie and Madame Foster. This alone is very out-of-character for Eduardo, especially since he's a very gentle and kind guy who's one of Bloo's friends and hates punishments.
10. Frankie, Madame Foster, and Eduardo never get any comeuppance for their harsh actions towards poor Bloo.
11. The episode is also a rehash of the season 2 episode “Beat with a Schtick” as that episode also focuses on Bloo trying to get punished to get out of an imminent and unpleasant situation.
12. Although intentional, the bowl of “It” Frankie constantly cooks is very disgusting and unpleasant to look at. Because of this, the scenes where Bloo eats the “It” are very disgusting and painful to watch.
    • In fact, according to Bloo, he even said that the "It" smells like vomit.
13. Continuity error: There are several errors in the episode that contradict the overall continuity of the show as listed below:
    • Mac, at one point in the episode, says that he is too young to go to jail and has never been to jail before. However, a previous episode “My So Called Wife” shows Mac getting arrested and them sent to jail for trespassing
    • Bloo claims in this episode that Mac does not eat at Foster’s but Mac is shown eating at Foster’s in multiple episodes including “Bloo Done It”; “Imposter’s Home for Um… Make ‘Em Up Pals”, and “Dinner is Swerved”
    • The episode “The Trouble with Scribbles” has Mac say that Clumsy, a resident at Foster’s can’t walk more than two steps without falling over, but in this episode, Clumsy can run without falling over after Mr. Herriman punishes him
14. Horrible ending: Eduardo becomes a jerk to Bloo and, he, Frankie, and Madame Foster all unlawfully punish Bloo for not being punished by making him eat all the nasty food Frankie made. Meanwhile, Herriman gets arrested for supposedly stealing jewels, and Wilt joins him. Then, dinner time happens to be carrots.

Redeeming Qualities

1. At least Herriman gets punished for what he did to everyone.
2. Coco is likable, as she makes threats to Mr. Herriman.
   • In fact, Coco is arguably the most intelligent in this episode, as she knew Mr. Herriman was hiding something.
3. Although mean-spirited, Bloo's plan to not eat the "It" by jumping on Madame Foster's bed in an attempt to get punished by Mr. Herriman and sent to his room with no supper is very funny.
   • Also on that note, Bloo's line is incredibly classical: "SAY GOODBYE TO IT!".
4. Overall, with the exception of its plot, there's nothing entirely wrong or bad about this episode, and speaking of which, it's at least by far the most tolerable bad episode in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
5. Bloo, surprisingly, and Mac are likable in this episode.

Reception

"Crime After Crime" received mixed-to-largely average reviews by fans and critics alike, with some praising its complex plot and the gags, and other criticizing Mr. Heriman's attitude of punishing everyone for no reason, and the unfair ending were Bloo is forced to eat the dish.

Trivia

• The writer of this episode also wrote "Everyone Knows It’s Bendy".
• This episode has the most complex plot in the show, with many events and running gags that occur, all of which tie to Mr. Herriman's carrot addiction.

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