“People fear what they do not understand.” “You must be perpetually terrified.”

Justin’s rating: A shocking amount of mouse poop. Shocking.

Justin’s review: You know what’s an awful feeling? When you spend a long, long time watching a TV series that you love… and then you get to the series finale. It’s terrible, isn’t it? It’s like someone just took your best friend away. I know several people who refuse to watch the last episode of their favorite shows, preferring to start over and never get to the end because of that feeling.

Fortunately in the case of the folksy Corner Gas, the end of the six-season show wasn’t actually the end. Five years later, the cast came together for a movie, and then following that, a four-season animated series. Ten seasons and a movie is a pretty great run for a show about a gas station in the middle of nowhere, Canada.

At the onset of Corner Gas: The Movie, the apocalypse of a sort has arrived in Dog River with riots, fights, and fires. Explaining this to a newspaper reporter come to judge how quaint the town is, dim-witted but good-natured Hank skips back in time to go through the fateful events that led to this calamity.

A few things have changed in the intervening five years: Karen is married and pregnant, Davis is being forced into retirement (and becomes a private eye), Oscar has a pointy stick (and a horse), Wanda opens a speakeasy (in Davis’ man cave), and Emma gets a scooter. Oh, and the town is perilously broke, pushing them into a possible merger with their rival village, Wullerton (spit) or a corporate buy-out from a super-evil coffee chain.

While some of the townsfolk starts to brainstorm ways to save Dog River, others begin packing to leave. Stepping up for the first time in his life, Brent buys the local bar and leads everyone in an effort to make it the quaintest place in Canada.

While the movie is, for all intents and purposes, a 90-minute episode, there is one noticeable difference from the show. Janet Wright, who plays Emma, was declining in health at the time (she passed away in 2016). As such, she spends most of the movie sitting and looks shockingly different, especially if you come to this straight from the series finale.

Even so, this film easily clears the bar that I set: For this to be just as silly, witty, and likable as the show. It really didn’t need to be much different or more epic, just a bit more of the same — one last trip to a favorite old haunt. There’s a good spirit to these proceedings and plenty of laugh-out-loud lines, and every character has their own adventure or escapade.

Plus, it never gets old watching Karen and Oscar steal a horse from each other. Why is there a horse? You’ll have to find out for yourself, but be warned: Once you go down this rabbit hole, there’s no escape. It’s horses all the way down.

Whether you look at this as the coda for the show or an intermission between seasons, Corner Gas: The Movie doesn’t disappoint. It’s a safe but goofy trip back to Dog River with an ensemble that clearly loves doing this together.

Intermission!

• I love that the movie starts out with the characters acknowledging that it’s been since April 13, 2009 since they’ve been together.
• The parking lot for the gas station and cafe seems smaller than the TV series
• FINALLY SOME ACTION… and robotic Wanda with eye lasers… and Wolfman… for a change! Of course it’s in a dream sequence, but still.
• Whole lot of fighting in Dog River that day: “Oh, that’s new.”
• “You’re hard to insult.”
• “I fixed the car! …it broke again while I fixed it.”
• “Droppage” didn’t catch on, “gravity” did
• “ASAP? Are you from the ’80s?”
• The four Norseman of the apocalypse
• “That’s not an idea. That’s just you saying the word ‘water’ 12 times. Now I’ve got to pee.”
• Davis’ man cave is amazing
• Brent has a zen bhuddist, winnie the poo, look the other way and Freddy Kruger won’t get you philosophy
• The Wolfcop pinball machine
• Oscar traded a car for a horse: “Only you would think that buying a horse and buggy is progress.”
• “There’s a million mysteries out there.” “There are 500 people in town. That’s 2,000 mysteries per person.”
• The “Quaint We Ain’t” t-shirts
• “That could not have come at a worse time.”
• “23 tools right here!” “I count 24.”
• We finally get to see Wullerton!
• “This isn’t Angry Candy or Birds With Friends…”
• Wullerton is “creepy friendly”
• “Pretty tough talk when your backup’s a baby!”
• Wanda t-shirt cannoning a kid made me laugh the hardest: “Better dial that back a titch.”
• FLOWER FIGHT
• “Here you go, pouty pus.”
• “They dida… with the kissy thing.”