Blood Moon
Ball
Here’s an episode where all the strengths of this show come
together to turn out something great and memorable. It’s got a lot of creativity shown with a
premise of a ball taking place in the underworld on the night of a red moon
that occurs every 667 years. It also
explores Star’s past when she’s invited to the ball by her ex-boyfriend
Tom. We get a glimpse of what he’s like
when Star turns down the invitation and explains that they broke up because of
Tom’s anger issues. Despite this, Tom
assures her that he’s changed with constant assistance from a life coach and a
bunny to pet to prove it. Plus, while
one might think that this whole anger management thing is just an act, as
the episode goes on, we see that Tom really does want to make a good impression
with Star at the dance. He keeps
everything low-key much to the disappointment of the guests who want something
more exciting, and every time Star doesn’t comply with what he wants to be
done, he calms his anger with bunny pets.
Ultimately, Tom is a well-written character with some good depth being
neither completely right nor completely wrong.
Then we have what’s proven to be the strongest element of the show so
far, Star and Marco’s friendship. When
Marco first hears about Tom and sees what he’s like, he feels that Star
shouldn’t be trusting him, let alone go to the ball, showing how valuable Star
is to him. Though he tries to be
accepting of Star attending the ball, his own doubts and fears of the name
“Blood Moon Ball” are prevalent enough to get him to go after Star for her
protection. This leads to him arriving
at the ball just as the blood moon shines to signal the start of a dance Tom
intends to use to bring him and Star together in matrimony, giving Marco’s
protectiveness some justification. Marco
ends up grabbing hold of Star just as the blood moonlight shines on them and
the two share a charming, well-animated dance and Star doesn’t realize who
she’s dancing with until he takes his disguise off . There’s also a lot of tension from the dance when Tom’s anger reaches
its boiling point beyond control and only Star’s wand can stop him, also
proving that she can look out for herself.
This idea clashes with Marco’s care for Star as the episode ends with
Star saying how annoyed she is that Marco’s always trying to protect her and
really wants him as a friend. It’s the
most mature and convincing Star has been as of now. She doesn’t villainize Marco for his
protection and has reasons of why she shouldn’t be watched over so much, and
Marco genuinely understands, keeping their friendship on good terms. What we see of these characters makes for an
appealing experience, and the creativity, new location and maturity add to the
memorability of everything. 10/10
Fortune
Cookies
When it comes to Ludo and his plans to get Star’s wand,
they’ve honestly become repetitive at this point. He and his army pop up at a random part of an
episode, he expresses great annoyance at their incompetence, and Star and Marco
do some cool moves relating to their strengths to stop him. They’re still fun to watch and there are
slight variations, but writing-wise, they just make Ludo a laughable nuisance
as opposed to a legitimate threat. That all
changes with this episode when he hires a monster called Toffee to build the
monster army into better shape, or rather Toffee hires himself. From this point on, Ludo’s plots to get the
wand become much more serious and threatening as opposed to an episode’s
comedic occurrence. Toffee stands out as
serious and calculating as opposed to Ludo being loud, agitated, and
insane. Toffee actually builds a
strategy around the given situation instead of just jumping into fight. In this case, he has Ludo’s army take
advantage of Star’s latest obsession with fortune cookies where she believes
that every fortune inside of them is real, and even has a funny relation to her
old life on Mewni to back up her beliefs.
On the whole though, this plot may have its moments, but compared to
Ludo and Toffee’s part of the story, it’s very tame and way too basic. Speaking of Toffee, the more serious tone
really picks up when one of Ludo’s henchmen switch one of Star’s
fortune cookies just as the whole army arrives to attack. The fortune convinces Star that “love is
always the answer” so she deals with the monsters by hugging them. However, this is all part of Toffee’s plan as
it keeps Star’s wand out in the open ready to be taken thus showcasing Toffee’s
major talent of strategy, and Ludo is constantly shown to be too anxious to just
rush in and grab it. As a matter of
fact, the only reason the plan fails is because Ludo blurts out that the love
fortune was part of the plan when one of his henchmen enjoy the hugging too
much. Plus, the love Star showed gets
the henchman to be honest about what’s been going on, prompting Star to fight
back the way she always does and learn that fortunes in fortune cookies aren’t
real after all, just as you’d probably expect she would. Even with this failure though, Ludo is still
satisfied with how close they came, and as he laughs maniacally while feeling
optimistic of getting the wand, Toffee just stands menacingly unmoved, letting
the audience know that this isn’t the last we’ll see of him. After all, his first impressions really let
us know how serious of a threat he is.
That’s the biggest strength of this episode amidst this simple
plot. It lets us know that
storytelling-wise, things are going to change. 9.5/10
The Ranking
- Blood Moon Ball
- Mewberty
- Diaz Family Vacation
- Fortune Cookies
- Sleep Spells
- School Spirit
- Party with a Pony
- Quest Buy
- Monster Arm
- Cheer up Star
- Star Comes to Earth
- Brittney’s Party
- Matchmaker
- Lobster Claws
- Pixtopia
- The Other Exchange Student
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Star and Marco have a "Freeze Day" and King River drops in for a visit and turns out to be a "Royal Pain" for Star.
If you would like to check out other Star vs the Forces of Evil reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
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