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Mr. Candle
Cares
What
would a season of this show be without Star’s magical antics while observing
Earth customs? While most episodes
like this were mostly present in the name of being funny, this one stands out
for being a fairly good study on some of the characters involved.
The Earth custom featured here is getting an
idea for a future career, and this high school hears them from the guidance
counselor Mr. Candle. In particular,
Star wants a career where she can roam free and tame beasts while Marco wants a
career that ties into his intellect. However,
Mr. Candle offers them careers that neither of them are happy about, and for
Star it’s a big problem because it’s something she’s been set up to become
since the beginning, the next queen of Mewni.
It’s interesting not just because it makes sense for Star’s character,
but it also highlights the major responsible aspects that come with being queen
right away as opposed to the free-spirited perks like how most family material
approaches the subject.
In addition, the
plot of getting career suggestions people aren’t happy with does have a nice
twist to the setup. Marco discovers that they may not be accurate at all after
catching Mr. Candle talking with Tom, Star’s demon ex-boyfriend. It turns out that Tom had Mr. Candle rig all
his career suggestion sessions so to have Star become queen so Tom could ultimately
win her back as the new king of Mewni and under no circumstance wants her to
end up with Marco. Determined to get a
better career than janitor on Garbage Island, Marco proceeds to tick Tom off
and expose Mr. Candle as a fraud by saying he and Star are a couple. While it is bold for him to expose the liar,
it is stupid for Marco to get this cocky by making Tom so mad, especially since
he knows how big his anger problem is, and that’s what happens when Tom drags
him to the underworld.
Fortunately, the
strengths of Marco’s character are in effect when he calls out Tom for making
Star think all she’s good for is being queen.
However, Tom’s anger issues give him the need to destroy Marco… by
beating him at Ping-Pong, and it isn’t long before Marco feels the burn of
playing the sport with a demon. It’s
during this scene though that brings about somewhat of a bond between Marco and
Tom. As they play, they talk
about Star and everything great about her, including how she’s never held down
by authority and does what her heart tells her, which also gets Tom to realize
he can’t win her back by force. It’s a
positive step towards maturity for him especially since his attitude has put
him in desperate need of one since his first appearance.
With the message on how Star should just be
her own free spirit and not let a career judgement control her brought about in
an intriguing way, Marco proceeds to pass that lesson onto Star herself, who
for all this time has put herself through ridiculous rituals to get out of
becoming queen, culminating in her adopting a punk goth appearance. Even if Star is still going to be queen
anyway, the message is still inspiring since she can still run Mewni her way
and be true to herself.
In the end, we
have Star being more comfortable with her future, Marco continuing to give
sound advice, and even Tom becoming much humbler. It all comes together as a fascinating take
on a common plot thread.
A-
Red Belt
Being
a karate star is a surprising thing to come from a moralistic character like
Marco, but it is an interesting about him when he’s involved in
action. As a matter of fact, karate is
one of the main things Marco lives for as the opening scene of the episode
shows. It’s an eerily staged dream
sequence in which he’s left all alone in the dark while everyone he knows
floats away on balloons as a sign that they’re moving on with their lives while
he’s left in the dark. The only
potential thing he has to build a sustainable future for himself is getting his
red belt in karate, but even that’s hard to achieve. The whole dream sequence is not just a
greatly staged moment of dark creativity, but also a relatable metaphor for how
some people feel when facing the difficulties of forming a good future.
This becomes Marco’s goal for the cartoon as
he strives to go from green belt to red belt, securing his future as a karate
master. However, the training sessions
from his sensei turn out to not be what Marco imagined. Instead of the usual fighting skills Marco
has been specializing in, he’s instead tasked to do menial jobs for Sensei, and
it’s easy to see that he’s not really getting close to becoming a red belt at
all. As it turns out, this is exactly
the case as the Sensei was just being a jerk by getting Marco to do his chores
around his house, which is really his mothers’ house he happens to live
in. While Sensei living with his mother
does add something to his character, the fact that he was tricking Marco into
doing those chores the whole time kept the episode from getting to the meat of
Marco getting his red belt thus hurting the appeal. There is at least a legit reason for Sensei
not providing Marco what he needs to advance.
He too is just a green belt which is somewhat of an interesting twist,
but really makes you question how he got to be a sensei as well as how he got
some students to go all the way up to black belt.
So the episode turns its focus on getting a
new red belt instructional videotape for both Marco and Sensei to follow on
account that the one Sensei used to train got stuck in the VCR before he could
finish it. As someone who has a fondness
for old VHS tapes and hearing stories of how VHS collectors found various
tapes, I get a lot of enjoyment out of this story direction, and truth be told,
there are some fun moments to it, especially Marco having to fight a nerdy
looking thrift store owner for the tape who turns out to be big and
muscular. Adding to the fun is the use
of old VHS mechanics as the storeowner fights back with tapes as nunchucks as
well as the power of the eject button.
Plus, the search for the tape actually proves beneficial for both Marco
and Sensei when Marco ends up winning the fight and the tape by following one
of Sensei’s chore instructions. Then
they both simply follow the tape and Marco gets his belt.
While what we have is entertaining enough to
get Marco to where he needs to be, you can’t help but feel that glossing over
the progress of him and Sensei actually working towards the red belt position
wasn’t a smart move for the story.
There are also short scenes of Star trying to find a hammer to hang up a
poster without magic cut into the story.
While they’re fun and show Star willingly start growing to not be
so reliant on her wand, they don’t mesh with the main story and feel like
distractions from what should be focused on.
Still, I admire the episode for what it does right and see it as
relatable to those who think about their future, and those with VHS nostalgia.
B-
The Ranking
- Ludo in the Wild
- Mr. Candle Cares
- My New Wand
- Red Belt
The next Star vs the Forces of Evil review looks at Star learning to ride a bike, and spend a whole episode trying to get her wand back from a dog.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the Rocko's Modern Life episode featuring "A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic" and "Canned."
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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