Teen Titans S04E05 Review: Trippy Cow-Abducting Fast-Food-Chain-Mogul Alien Tofus

Teen Titans, Season 4, Episode 5: Employee of the Month

While 'Cyborg the Barbarian' is a prime example of a filler episode that was absolute garbage, 'Employee of the Month' is an example of a fun filler episode. Both of those episodes features only one Titan as the spotlight role, with Beast Boy having the spotlight in this one. See, this episode is actually entertaining, even if the plot is the most ridiculously made-on-acid-someone-was-smoking-some-good-coke-in-the-writing-department while this was going on. So basically, Beast Boy goes to work as a part-timer in a fast food restaurant, something we can all probably relate to at one point or another, to save money to buy a moped. He finds out that, oh my god, the proprietors of said restaurant are actually sentient tofu aliens that are abducting cows, and feeding tofu to humans with their food chain. Yeeeah.

Despite that, it still manages to stand head-and-shoulders above the dullness of the previous episode. This isn't quite prime comedy material like some of Teen Titans' earlier efforts, but man, this really washes out the inanity of the previous episode. A lot of the hilarity is, admittedly, confined to the first half of the episode, with stand-outs being Cyborg hiding in a robot-cow and going MOO-ya, and Beast Boy's long, long tirade about why a moped is awesome.

The Source is a hilariously inept villain -- honestly, any villain themed on tofu is just shit -- but absolutely bonkers and fits the tone of the episode particularly well. It's definitely a pretty fun, if somewhat mediocre, episode.

It does embody the sheer insanity of the season four joke-slash-filler episodes, though, and comparing this to one of the depressing Raven-the-daughter-of-satan-destined-to-bring-doomsday episodes it's definitely jarring, but in a good way.