Smiling Friends season 3 episode 6 ending explained: Who is Pim’s new partner Squim?

Smiling Friends is an Adult Swim animated series created by Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel. It follows employees of a small company that tries to make sad people happy. The main characters are Pim (voiced by Cusack), Charlie (Hadel), Allan (Cusack), Glep (Hadel), and their boss (Marc M.).

Season 3 started on October 5, 2025, and runs eight episodes. Adult Swim has already ordered Seasons 4 and 5. Each episode is about 11-15 minutes long and mixes dark humour with absurd situations.

Episode 6, titled “Squim Returns,” aired November 16, 2025. It shows the return of Squim, the first smiling friend Mr Boss ever hired, and who retired. He is back with a whistle-blow to work on one last job with Pim, as Charlie is sick. 

Despite being exceptionally optimistic and enthusiastic, Squim's relentless positivity and insensitivity cause problems, leading to him unintentionally upsetting people rather than making them smile.  At the end of the episode, the police shot him dead, but his soul survives after 14 hours of intensive surgery.

Smiling Friends season 3 episode 6 ending explained: Pim’s new partner and Charlie’s food poisoning

The episode opens with Pim watching television when Allan and Glep show up at the door, all dressed up to go to anime con. Pim gets a call from Charlie, who says that he can't come to the office as he is sick. Pim says he knows Charlie is pretending to be sick and will play the new game all day.

Charlie fakes a cough and hangs up the phone. He gets up from his bed and sits in his gaming chair to play the Grand Strategy game while eating some unhealthy kebabs.

Meanwhile at the office, Mr Boss gave Pim a two-person job of domestic dispute. Since Charlie is sick and will not come to the office, Mr Boss pulls out a whistle from his drawer and summons a yellow creature called Squim. He is said to be the first smiling friend Mr Boss ever hired, who is retired, but now he is back to do one last job with Pim.

Squim appears with full-on energy and greets Pim by shaking his hand, saying “Squim to meet you”. The Boss dismissed the two of them, saying he had some boss duties to do.

Charlie, on the other hand, is seen eating those spicy kebabs when he gets a call from Mr Boss. He again pretends to be sick by fake coughing when Mr Boss confronts that he knows Charlie is lying as he can see him on the online stream, playing Grand Strategy.

Mr Boss furiously snaps at Charlie for lying to him and not coming to the office. He then threatens Charlie that if he doesn’t come to the office by noon then he will be fired. Charlie, terrified to lose his job, gets up to leave for work when his stomach starts to ache and churn badly.

While going to the job location, Pim and Squim share a brief moment of bonding. When asked about how smiling friends were back in the days, Squim said it was fantastic, and it taught him a lot of important life lessons. He says, “Positivity is the key to all tough situations”.

Pim really loves this advice and Squim assures Pim that he should not let anyone ever tell him that being in a positive mood is bad. With this banter, they reach the manhole where they find a rat and a worm fighting over their share of garbage.

The two parties were continuing their argument when Squim started doing his “be positive” dance. With that, the rat and the worm resolved their fight and went back to being best friends again. Pim was really impressed by Squim's positivity and they head towards ice cream parlour.

Inside the shop, the owner, Mr Ice Cream meets Pim and his new partner. He then tells how he and his wife together opened this shop 30 years ago.

Squim after learning Mr Ice Cream’s wife is now dead, started his weird inappropriate dance again to make the environment positive. This makes the owner cry and makes everyone feel more disturbed. 

On the bus, we see that Charlie’s health has worsened. His vision is all blurry, his head spinning and sweating profusely. He ends up vomiting on the bus, which makes the other passengers disgusted, and the bus driver hits a pole.

Charlie gets off the bus, with his head still feeling dizzy, and he is acting like a zombie.  He has almost reached the office, but couldn't make it. He sits in the middle of the road, blocking all cars and creating traffic commotion. A song with “devil” plays in the background.

Pim gets irritated with Squim and complains about being insensitive at the ice cream parlour. Meanwhile, the police are pointing their gun at Charlie who is now seen as an unstable madman, when Squim appears in front of him and starts doing the squim dance. The police officers shoot Squim down, while his soul still makes sound.

At the hospital, Charlie got to know that the kebabs he had eaten had a deadly parasite (now contained in a jar) in them which caused his sickness. Pim felt sorry for not believing in Charlie when he said he was sick. But Charlie told him the truth and how he was faking his sickness and calls is “karmic justice”.

Mr Boss is impressed with Charlie’s loyalty to him and how “everything ended up working well at the end”. Pim was sad about Squim’s death when Mr Boss told him that Squim’s soul went for a 14-hour surgery and he would survive. With this, Squim’s soul appears in a wheelchair with a not-so-positive and cheerful mood.

Stream Smiling Friends Season 3 on HBO Max the day after it airs on Adult Swim, or watch live Sundays at 11:30 p.m. ET.

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