Smiling Friends Season 2 Episode 1
"Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director's Cut)" is the first episode of the second season of Smiling Friends.
Synopsis
Pim and Alan help Gwimbly get a brand new video game named after him, while Charlie faces a difficult, aggressive client who seemingly refuses to smile.
Characters
Conspiracy
As Pim and Charlie walk towards the office, Pim tells Charlie how Mr. Boss has been acting strange lately, mumbling phrases in an unknown language and shouting in a loop, which Pim says was the scariest experience of his life. When they arrive at the office, they find Alan spraying a low-poly figure with dirty brown water. Pim immediately recognizes him as Gwimbly, a childhood video game character who is now homeless and living out of Cameo. He and Alan decide to help him get his job back at the game studio while Charlie stays at the office.
At the office, Charlie is harassed by James, who demands that Charlie make him smile, taking full advantage of the fact that Charlie has to go along with his whims until he can make him smile. Throughout the episode, Charlie tries his best to comply with James' demands, only to be violently mistreated, even going so far as to rip James' nose off his face.
Meanwhile, Pim, Gwimbly and Alan arrive at Insane Groundbreaking Games, the company that created Gwimbly's breakthrough game in the late 1990s. When they approach the CEO of Insane Groundbreaking Games with the prospect of featuring Gwimbly in a new game, they are harshly rebuffed, as the CEO is far more interested in making games with DLC and microtransactions than a single-player platform game. He made the announcement by unveiling the company's new mascot, Troglora, a modern first-person shooter. Troglor demonstrates his firepower, which the CEO orders him to stop as he is not allowed to fire inside.
Distraught, Pim assures Gwimbly that he will help crowdfund his new game himself. Enraged by this idea, the CEO climbs aboard Troglor and orders him to kill Gwimbly and his accomplices in order to retain full control of Gwimbly's license as an IP.
Pim contacts the villain of the original game, Count Groxia, to be part of their new project, but he turns them down. Gwimbly then mentions that his partner Mr. Millipede can join as well. Soon after, they discover his gravestone after he succumbed to a fentanyl overdose. As Gwimbly and Pim mourn, CEO and Troglor suddenly appear and chase the trio back to the Smiling Friends headquarters.
As Pim locks the door, he warns Charlie and James that they are under attack. Troglor shots open the door and the CEO taunts Gwimbly to come out. James insults the CEO and the CEO orders Troglor to shoot him. However, Troglor cannot not shoot inside due to the CEO's earlier request. James immediately stabs the CEO in the skull, killing him. Gwimbly sympathizes with him as Troglor has now lost a master. Troglor invites the team to team up and then punch Gwimbly, turning them into a Super Smash Bros. style fighting game. Pim notes that the crossover game has given Gwimbly a new life, while Alan is grateful that Gwimbly is no longer hanging around the office. Mr. Boss appears and announces that he was featured in a fighting game and did motion capture while he was gone. He then inexplicably starts convulsing and screaming endlessly on a loop, scaring Pim, who had previously told Charlie about a similar incident with Mr. Boss. As his condition becomes more erratic, Pim and Glep rush in to apprehend Mr. Boss while Charlie contacts the authorities.
In the post-credits scene, James is shown in his dirty apartment, feeling deep regret and shame over his treatment of Charlie. She holds a framed picture of Charlie intimately as she begins to cry.
