Shrimp Spaghetti

S1 E2: Shrimp’s Odyssey

Smiling Friends, 2022.

In Shrimp’s Odyssey, the Smiling Friends finally attempt what we, as a society, have always feared: helping a sentient shrimp find love without becoming entangled in our own desires, delusions, or digestive misidentifications.

The episode opens with Pim eating compost worms as if they were bar snacks—a tableau that quietly asks, “What is perception?” and then answers with: “Pim needs glasses.” Charlie, ever the pragmatist, declines on account of inherited peanut trauma, and the duo receives their latest mission: Shrimp, a shrimp, has been dumped by his crustaceous beloved, Shrimpina.

Thus begins a bifurcated journey. Charlie handles the exterior: a My Fair Lady–style glow-up involving department store terrorism-chic, radioactive tanning, and spinal compression. Pim, meanwhile, handles the interior—or more accurately, spirals into romantic obsession after meeting Shrimpina, who is a) a barista and b) conventionally hot. He imagines a life of domestic bliss with her, including—but not limited to—aging, dying, and presumably joint tax filings.

It all comes to a head at Spaghetti Disco (a phrase which, if said aloud three times, summons Guy Fieri), where Pim plans to confess his feelings. But he sees Shrimp, red-lit and full of carbs, sobbing into Charlie’s lap. Pim, experiencing what can only be described as a moral awakening brought on by pasta and lighting design, chooses to restore Shrimp’s happiness instead.

What follows is a final descent into chaos. Pim picks up the wrong woman, Jennifer, not Shrimpina, due to optical neglect. And yet, by some cosmic fluke or narrative mercy, Jennifer is instantly enamored with Shrimp, his tiny suit, and his obsessive passion for the MMORPG Mouse Quest. They make out. Pim and Charlie watch. A mission is somehow accomplished.

Make it! Shrimp Spaghetti from All Recipes.