Squidward in Therapy

1. Squidward watches a customer eat a disgusting deep-fried ultra-supreme Krabby Patty and squirt mayo into his mouth. Squidward says he hates Krabby Patties, and SpongeBob takes his comment as a joke.
2. When SpongeBob finds out Squidward never had a Krabby Patty, he gets on his case about trying one, harassing Squidward, who keeps saying no. Finally Squidward caves in and tries it. He makes a show of tasting it: he pretends to love it for a split second, then calls it disgusting and stomps it into the ground.
3. SpongeBob leaves in tears. Squidward digs up the burger, eats it, licks the ground, and weeps for his wasted years. He realizes he needs to get his hands on a Krabby Patty, but without SpongeBob seeing: “After that performance, he would never let me live it down.” Squidward pretends that somebody else has ordered a Krabby Patty. While SpongeBob is flipping Krabby Patties on the grill and the sight and smell is making Squidward's pupils dance in his eyeballs, SpongeBob apologizes—just when it hurts. SpongeBob comes out calls out for whoever ordered the patty—and eats it himself, with Squidward watching!
4. A dream of marrying a giant Krabby Patty drives Squidward over the edge. He sneaks out late at night and enters the Patty Vault. SpongeBob arrives on cue to ruin the moment for Squidward. While Squidward sweats and mutters, SpongeBob puts the pieces together: “You like Krabby Patties, don't you, Squidward?”
5. Squidward slams the door and confesses. He swims through the Patty Vault eating every patty in sight. SpongeBob yells out warnings, and Squidward keeps on eating. Squidward finally stops, looks down, sees his thighs, and blows up. He ends up as a disembodied head, while a chuckling doctor holding his tentacles in a bucket says, “I remember MY first Krabby Patty.”

I could see this as a few different allegories at once: one about addiction, one about religion, and one about being closeted.

Addiction is obvious. The only thing to see here is that, true to Squidward's character, he barely has any willpower except what he needs to protect his image. He can't resist the Krabby Patty when he's alone, but he gives it everything he's got to resist the Krabby Patty when somebody might see him enjoying it.

I said religion, and I guess I meant Christianity. This episode shows us damnation: the damnation of Lucifer, who denies God for no reason but his own pride; or of Don Giovanni, who gets dragged to Hell by the statue simply because he can't be compelled by force to repent. The Krabby Patty, which SpongeBob calls an “absolute good,” has the character of a sacrament. SpongeBob appears in a heavenly cloudscape when he says the burger is “good for your soul.” Squidward says, “Oh please. I have no soul,” and we see him in a chamber of hell. It's as if Squidward is being pressured to repent from the outside, which only makes him want to refuse more. Don Giovanni goes on being damned because the statue goes on twisting his arm. Squidward goes on refusing the Krabby Patty, although he loves it, because of all the people who want him to love it. But Squidward is too weak-willed not to repent, and it goes this way: first a private acceptance, then a confession to SpongeBob at the threshold of the sanctuary, (the Patty Vault), and finally a joyful entrance. But the twist is that he gets damned for repenting anyway!

“You like men, don't you, Squidward?” That's what I imagine whenever I see this still of SpongeBob's smug squinty grin. What Squidward goes through in this episode is a lot like what I went through as a closeted queer kid. Of course queer kids have it worse in towns where they get beaten up, but there's a subtle terror even in happy tolerant Democrat gay-straight-alliance sorts of neighborhoods. In those places, part of the terror of being closeted is knowing how much they want you to come out. You think, “I'm surrounded by friendly, accepting, woke people—people who would have accepted me earlier—but because I waited too long to admit this is how I am, I can never do it.” You know you're queer, everybody around you seems to suspect it, but you just can't give them the satisfaction of saying “I always knew it.”

This episode shows exactly how parents, friends, teachers, and counselors should never treat anybody. Squidward is putting on airs about hating Krabby Patties, and then lying about it. The exact wrong thing to do is press the matter. Squidward can change his mind, but that requires dignity and privacy. The world lets him have neither. If SpongeBob just weren't there the next day, then Squidward could have one Krabby Patty in peace; instead, Squidward has to resort to the Patty Vault, where he winds up overeating and blowing up. And when he gets there, SpongeBob is there to clock him. SpongeBob is equivalent to the high school friend who sticks around to remind your new friends of your cringy persona in middle school.

And the crowd is even worse! Probably the cruelest element in the show is the mob of anonymous fish who always show up in the frame when it hurts somebody. This time the smiling crowd appears from behind doors and out of barrels to recite: “The only people who don't like a Krabby Patty have never tasted one!”
Got that, Squidward? You're weird and different and you suck because your taste isn't normal. Fuck you.