Hot Salad Water (Teen Titans Go!)

""Hot Salad Water""
Are you sure this is not a rejected Family Guy episode script repurposed as a Teen Titans Go! episode?
Series: Teen Titans Go! Part of Season: 4 Episode Number: 26 Air Date: June 30, 2017 Writer: Christopher Gentile Director: Luke Cormican Previous episode: BL4Z3 Next episode: Chapter One: I Saw You Dance

"Hot Salad Water" is the 26th episode of the 4th season of Teen Titans Go!.

Synopsis

When drinking tea makes the other Titans behave like British people, it's up to Robin to save America from another British invasion brought by the Queen of England herself and save his teammates.

Why It Should Drown in Hot Salad Water (no pun intended)

1. Bad episode title: While the tea plays a central role in the episode, Hot Salad Water comes from what Beast Boy called the tea, he only says it once.
2. This episode was supposed to be the show's 4th of July/Independence Day special, but the reason it fails is because it poorly preaches nationalism and is blatantly xenophobic to the United Kingdom. In fact, the episode's plot sounds more like something that would happen on modern Family Guy (which actually made fun of the British TWICE), not Teen Titans Go!.
   • To an extent, the episode can even (unintentionally) insult other countries related to the United Kingdom or Commonwealth (examples include Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria, and (ironically) even the United States itself).
3. Some of the details make no sense because the United States and the United Kingdom have been allies ever since the two fought against Communist and Fascist countries! Even though adding North Korea, Cuba, Nauru, Palestine, Russia, China, Yemen, Lebanon, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Iraq, Belarus, Syria, Pakistan or Iran as the bad guys wouldn't make that much of a difference, it would at least make sense since those countries do not have friendly relations with the United States (though this is for political reasons, and even those countries have good people there).
   • If it wasn't for Britain, either Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union (although the Soviet Union was an ally of the United States in both wars, despite the US greatly downplaying the role of the Soviet Union due to the Cold War) would have probably won!
   • To quote Winston Churchill about Americans: “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.”
   • If it wasn't enough, they wouldn't have made military organizations like NATO and even the UN.
   • The US wouldn't exist if the UK never made or step onto America for various reasons.
   • And also, wouldn't the United Kingdom want to take over the United States yet make said place a Communist/Fascist country?
4. Robin acts as a nationalistic and xenophobic supremacist in this episode.
5. False information: The episode makes it clear that tea originated from England and only the English drink tea, this is not true. Tea actually originated in Asia thousands of years ago and is popularly drunken in the continent. Nowadays, the English are turning to coffee because has became costly.
   • They also state that Americans drink soda like the way Asians and the English drink tea, which is also not true. Soda was not invented until 1767 in Europe, but it was perceived as medicine until the late 1800s. Also, Americans are turning to healthier options as they learned soda is very unhealthy.
6. The America Song, while a parody of the song "America, F*** Yeah!" from Team America: World Police, is actually annoying. It's also inappropriate that the writers parodied a profanity-heavy song in a show aimed at children.
   • Not to mention, it is extremely nationalistic and ironic since it references the United States' extremely high incarceration rate, and also almost everybody in the song is portrayed as obese despite this episode trying to glorify the United States.
7. Historical inaccuracies:
   • Most notably, the Statue of Liberty wasn’t built yet and didn't reach the United States from France until 1885, over 100 years after the revolution had taken place.
   • Also, the colonists weren't forced to drink tea and they liked it. But when the British started taxing tea unfairly, the colonists protested in different ways, like the Boston Tea Party, and by drinking other beverages instead, like coffee.
   • Robin also said that soda is a national drink of the US but the first sodas weren’t invented until 1807 and United States' national drink is bourbon. Maybe they did not include said drink to avoid references to alcoholic beverages in a show aimed for younger audiences.
   • Robin also uttered that tea is the favorite drink of Great Britain. However, in recent years, tea consumption has been in decline in England, even though it is still popular among most British people. Starting from the 90s, more British people have been switching their beverage preferences to coffee because of its cheapness.
   • The United States in Robin's flashback into the 1770s has all the current contiguous states, but in reality, America had only 13 states at the time which were formed from the original 13 colonies. In fact, even the original American flag had 13 stars, which represent the 13 colonies.
   • The said map featured in Robin’s flashback also shows Virginia and West Virginia as two states, which the latter didn’t even exist and were still part of Virginia and wouldn’t gain statehood until during the Civil War in 1863.
8. There isn’t anything wrong with drinking tea. It's like saying "there is a thing wrong with drinking water" when there is nothing wrong with that either. In reality, tea is a healthy drink just like water.
   • Not to mention that not all tea is British tea. Tea didn’t originate from the United Kingdom, to begin with, as it originated in China (though doing an episode about China using tea to try to take over America wouldn't fly in such a politically-polarized climate, especially on a kids' channel).
9. This episode feels like it hardly did any research on Britain.
10. Nonsensical plot point: Tea does not instantly make you British.
11. Completely illogical: How can drinking tea help England to recolonize the United States?
12. Xenophobic Moral: The episode teaches children to fear British people and hate the country, which is xenophobia.
13. The part where Starfire eats a teabag is unfunny and gross.
14. Anglophobic ending: the Queen of England is depicted as an evil dictator (Which is ironic considering The United Kingdom's Head of Government WAS the Prime Minister, NOT the Queen) who wants to take the United States back (which didn't age well because of her death 5 years later in real life) and the Statue of Liberty and a bald eagle fight the Big Ben clock. They defeat the Queen of England and the Titans throw the tea in the ocean, celebrate being Americans and drink soda.
    • Also, The Queen (as an evil dictator) portrayed in the episode is so similar to the Shah of Pahlavi Iran, which is also a Dictator of Pahlavi Iran.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Although inaccurate, Robin's retelling of the Civil War is cool.
2. The beginning is decent because the Titans are deciding what to drink, and it was fun hearing why they don't want to drink anything in Cyborg's built-in fridge.
3. The America Song, while annoying, some can find it quite catchy.
   • The visuals are also interesting.

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