The Krusty Krab kitchen, the summer of 2012...
"I'm sorry, Mr. Krabs." The horrendously disfigured Spongebob said meekly. "We thought it was just one of your stories."
Krabs was positively furious. "I'm losin' business because ye thought I was tellin' one of me stories!"
"Yeah, that 'bout sums ith upth?" the equally deformed Patrick said cluelessly (and barely intelligible), making the crab growl and seethe.
"I don't know why?" Squidward mused through the kitchen window while rubbing his chin. "But you two remind me of some abstract sculptures I made back in community college?"
"Spongebob!" Krabs roared, still extremely enraged. "Of all the stupid, reckless, scatterbrained, disrespectful….rrrrrrrrr!"
Spongebob flinched, fearful that his boss would literally explode on the spot. Instead, Krabs just jabbed his pincher in his chest.
"How many times do ye 'ave t' suffer the consequences of yer ill-conceived ideas before ye start heedin' the warnings of an old sea dog!"
Spongebob was reduced to tears (there's something new). "I'm sorry, Mr. Krabs! We should have listened to you, this is all our fault! Please forgive us!"
"Huh?" Patrick grunted while picking his nose hole, which was currently where his belly button should be, along with the rest of his face.
"Sure! Ye're sorry now! Now that yer faces be stuck like this!" Krabs retorted bitterly.
"I'll have to look at that thing every day?" a taken aback Squidward gave his coworker an annoyed look, before rolling his eyes. "Never thought I'd miss his stupid "customer service" grin."
"Please, sir! I beg of you!" Spongebob dropped to his knees and pleaded. "You gotta help us undo this!" he sweated bullets and pointed at his mangled face hectically.
"Help ye?" Krabs said indignantly. "What do ye think me warnin' was? A polite suggestion?"
"Nah, we thought ith was a tall thale?" Patrick shrugged.
"Please, Mr. Krabs!" Spongebob had literal streams pouring down from his eyes. "We promise, we'll never, NEVER ignore your words of wisdom again! Never, ever, never again! Please, just help us get back to normal!"
Groaning, Krabs facepalmed and dragged his pinchers across his face before it snapped back into position.
"Alright, ye witless rapscallions!" he retorted curtly. "There be one way t' undo this!"
"There is?" Spongebob grew hopeful.
"Yes, there is!" Krabs retorted, still enraged. "But I'm warnin' ye ahead, it won't be quick... or pretty!"
Spongebob gulped.
"We need a professional masseur for this!"
"Masseur?" Spongebob grew concerned. "But, sir? We already visited one. Sandy! And she just made it worse!" he explained while pulling on his scrunched-up face.
"Sandy? I'm talkin' 'bout a professional masseur, ye barnacle-head! Not some fur-brained, air-breathin' amateur!" Krabs barked as he walked past him and towards an old candlestick telephone that was in the kitchen for some reason. Need we forget that Krabs loathes modern technology?
He makes a call and we hear another person talking on the other end of the line in typical high-pitched gibberish.
"Yes! It's an emergency." Krabs clarified while sending Spongebob and Patrick an exasperated look, which made them wilt with shame. "Send me yer best masseur! There be no time to waste!"
Cue bubble transition…
We get a shot of the Krusty Krab, as we hear a voice (provided by Doug Lawrence) exclaim, "Dear Neptune!"
"This is the worst case of "face freeze" I have ever witnessed!" the voice belonged to a shocked Don the killer whale, clutching his tool kit. Apparently, he works as a masseur/face surgeon when not working out with Larry at the Goo Lagoon.
He was in the poorly-lit backroom of the Krusty Krab along with its owner.
"Thanks fer the insight, Captain Obvious!" Krabs said impatiently. "But can ye fix 'em up?"
Don rubbed his chin. "I've never had to deal with a case this severe, but I'll try my best."
Spongebob and Patrick had their arms and legs strapped to a vertically-placed medieval torture rack, with a torch on each side being the only source of light in the room.
Don pulled out a conch shell phone. "I'll need to dial up my assistant for help."
"No need for that." Krabs told him. "I'll lend ye one fer…." He paused and looked like he was dealing with severe indigestion "…free…" he hissed out those words like pure venom.
Shaking off the horrific thought, Krabs looked to his left and barked, "Squidward!"
"At your service…" the octopus said monotonously, carrying a tray with various pointy and shiny operation tools, while also wearing a nurse outfit with a matching hat.
"Alright, I'll leave ye t' it. Good luck." Krabs walked away while Don kneeled to open his tool kit.
"I have a question?" Spongebob spoke up. "Why are we strapped up?"
"Because you need to stand absolutely still for this procedure." Don said professionally.
Spongebob swallowed a lump. "And why is that?"
As usual, Don was very frank with his patience. "Because this is going to be painful." He explained as he pulled on some sterilized rubber gloves, and then pulled out a huge, corkscrew-esque device from his kit, making Spongebob and Patrick grow wide-eyed with fear.
"Very, very painful."
Patrick panicked. "Spongebob! I change my mind! I don't mind my new face!"
We cut back to a shot of the Krusty Krab as the screen shakes and we hear construction noises, punctuated by Spongebob and Patrick's screams of agony. It soon fades to night time and "Troop Movement" starts playing.
With his patient's off-screen, we see Don pounding and reshaping Spongebob's face like raw dough. Then we see him pulling and stretching Patrick's pink skin, as it emits an elastic noise.
We get a close-up of his nervous and sweaty face as he collects said sweat with a small sponge before we see a close-up on him putting it back in place within a small hole on Spongebob.
He reaches up to Squidward and the nurse gives him a scalpel before using the tray to shield his eyes in fright. Normally, he would have relished seeing Spongebob and Patrick going through horrendous pain, but this was too horrific even for his taste.
Don continues stretching and reshaping their faces like they were made of playdoh, accompanied by cartoony noises. We see him stretching Patrick's upper lip, before pulling and squeezing Spongebob's nose back into shape.
We see a close-up of his anxious face, as he's sweating and veins are pulsating on his forehead.
We see him using his scalpel.
Then he pulls Spongebob's skin back again and then employs a staple gun, resulting in more horrifying screams.
"Nurse! We need anesthetic!" he reaches out to Squidward, who nervously gave him a huge vaccine before craning his neck off-screen and loudly vomiting.
We see Don pounding with a huge hammer, sending teeth flying.
We see him cutting with scissors.
We see him sewing.
We see him using a power drill.
We see him use an art brush. He stops and looks displeased with his work, then starts re-painting it.
We go outside again, and see a clam perched on a post, who starts crowing the moment the sun comes up.
We cut back to Don, looking more relieved and cleaning his sweaty face with a rag. "Finally…" he exhaled.
Cue bubble transition…
We see the Krusty Krab and then hear the disembodied scream of a woman as we cut to Spongebob and Patrick, both wearing monstrous headpieces that kept their facial muscles in place, complete with metal clamps on their foreheads and multiple straps that, among other things, kept their eyes peeled open and their mouth's stretched into grotesque Joker-like grins.
"Thank you for your assistance." Krabs shook hands with Don.
"No problem." The killer whale replied. "And you too, just wear those face-braces for a week and your faces should be back to normal."
Barely able to talk, Spongebob just gave him a weak thumbs up.
Krabs reluctantly handed over a big wad of cash to Don, the whale's smile faltered as he couldn't pry it out of Krabs's pinchers. The two struggled over it for a few moments before Krabs's arm popped off and Don pushed it along with the cash into his pocket.
"Pleasure doing business." Don rolled his eyes and walked away.
The disgruntled crab turned to his fry cook, who walked up to him along with Patrick.
"Well, I hope ye at least learned yer lesson, lads." He pointed at them with his remaining pincher.
"Oh, yeth! Wheth suth learned outh lhesthon…" Spongebob nodded frantically, not wanting to relive last night's horror for anything. "Weth neveth, neveth disobey yuth asth longht asth weth lith…" he rambled while Krabs shielded himself from all the spit that came out of the fry cook's mouth.
"Ah'mth movin' over thu makin' silly noiseth…" Patrick agreed while having a thought bubble that showed a flashback from many years ago, where Patrick was steering the Flying Dutchman's ship and going "Liddle liddle lee!"
"Yeah, well…we'll see 'bout that." Krabs was rightfully skeptical. "I oughta dock yer pay for all the money your lil' facelift cost me, but…." He let out a long, tired sigh before shrugging "….I figure ye've suffered enough, Spongebob."
"Donth wothy, Misth Khabs!" an enthusiastic Spongebob held up his spatula, once again oblivious to the fact that he was spitting all over his boss. "Ah'll workth TWUTH asth hadth thu make upth foth ithth…"
"Yeah, yeah, jus' keep this in mind!" Krabs held his pincher up. "From now on, when ol' Mr. Krabs says something, you obey it. Got that!"
"Ath hath, sith…" Spongebob saluted him.
"And also, if ye have a problem, seek out professional help."
"Yeth, sith…" Spongebob nodded. "Ith wonth happen againth…"
Krabs chuckled wickedly and rubbed his chin. "Oh, I'll make sure of that…" he said with a shifty aside glance.
Cue bubble transition….
"What in tarnation! Ah demand an explanation for this!" Sandy lamented as she was escorted out of her treedome by Officer John and Officer Nancy, with her hands cuffed behind her back.
"Quiet! You have the right to remain silent!" Officer Nancy yelled.
"Yes, you're under arrest for being a land-eh…I mean for impersonating a masseur!" Officer John told her.
"What!" Sandy was outraged. "This is ridiculous, ah want a lawye-AHHH!" she got cut off as she was tossed into the police van and the officers shut the door.
"Tell it to the judge, fuzzball!" Officer John told her as the van drove off.
"Finally, I thought we'd never be rid of that air-breather." Officer Nancy laughed with relief.
"You said it." Officer John agreed before pulling out his police bat. "Wanna beat up a parking meter!"
Officer Nancy smiled enthusiastically and pulled out hers, completely oblivious to the robber fish in a striped shirt and ski mask running past them with two huge bags of money.
"Sure do!"
Police corruption, what a hilarious way to end a Spongebob episode XD Y'know, between this and my take on "Bummer Vacation", I think I cemented my own headcanon reason for why Sandy and Mr. Krabs rarely talk to each other. To put it simply, like a lot of older people, ol' Eugene is a big, fat xenophobe XD If you ain't a water-breather, you ain't welcome in his neck of the woods.
So "Face Freeze"? Another infamous episode that some people will claim is one of the worst Spongebob episodes ever made? And if you're someone who thinks that, to put it mildly, please go and have your head examined, because this is nowhere near as awful as most of the episodes that I've already tackled in this fic XD Don't get me wrong, it is still a bad episode, but it's more bad in the sense that it's yet another episode that is utterly lacking in substance, akin to "Atlantis Squarepantis" or "Spongebob, You're Fired!", rather than being infuriatingly or even offensively bad in the vein of "One Coarse Meal", "Demolition Doofus" or "A Pal for Gary".
I'll give "Face Freeze" this much. It ALMOST succeeded in what it was apparently trying to do. I wouldn't go as far as to call it a rip-off of "Hooky", as both adopt a similar, archetypical "scare them straight" cautionary tale plotline, but yeah, "Face Freeze" is still very much an inferior version of "Hooky" and other episodes like "Life of Crime". Its first major offense is a lack of comedy, being yet another episode that relies entirely on one gimmick, Spongebob and Patrick making stupid faces. It's not really horrifying as much as it is just tedious and repetitive.
But of course, the biggest problem with this episode that keeps it from at least being a serviceable plot is the ending, or rather the lack of one. Like really? What's up with that ending? If that wasn't an admission that the writers just threw their arms into the air and said "We don't know how to end this episode!", I don't know what is. It's that transparent. So tackling this episode ended up being rather easy.
For all its faults, at least this episode didn't have any major leaps in logic until the very end, where the "face freeze" suddenly became contagious? Since this was yet another "scare them straight" cautionary tale from Spongebob, the natural conclusion for this episode was with Spongebob and Patrick facing the consequences of their actions. They ultimately end up restoring their mangled faces, but the price for that makes them regret ever making a single stupid face XD