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Game of
Flags
Not
only is this episode about adventures in Star’s home dimension of Mewni, but it
also looks into her family which is always a good way to expand on a
character’s background. Also apart from
River occasionally visiting his daughter, Star’s family hasn’t been an
important part of episodes only there for a few short scenes which is why it's meaningful that they're a big part of an episode this time.
This episode is about Moon’s side of the
family, the Butterfly family, and River’s side, the Johansen family, coming
together for a family reunion. Neither
get along due to personality clashes like the Butterfly family being proper and
having good manners, and the Johansen family basically being the exact opposite. Star, however, just wants to join them at the
grown-up table instead of the kiddie table where she looks after her
cousins. Star enjoys watching the
fighting between her parents’ families, which in turn is a good starting place
for her arc this episode as you will see.
As for the fighting itself, it mostly feels unreasonable for happening because
both families are different from each other.
Why would the families hate each other this much over nothing more than
them being their true selves? It makes
it easy to feel for Moon, the only family member who makes attempts to keep the
peace and prevent Star from getting caught in such a violent feud. It’s also pleasing to see Moon be considerate
of Star’s disappointment instead of outright shooting her desire to be included with the adults down. It makes her more fleshed-out and likable
than your average overprotective parent.
Of course as this series has proven, simply saying no isn’t enough to
stop free spirits, so Star sneaks off to take part in a game of flags, where
both families battle each other as they race to bring flags to the top of a
volcanic mountain. The game itself is
really fun with different areas of the mountain for the families to tackle and
their reactions to getting beaten including greeting Star warmly as they’re
thrown off the mountain. Yes, it’s still
an issue that they’re trying to hurt each other for little reason, but the fun
of these scenes alleviates their sting.
However, the game becomes interesting when Star gets caught up in the
game so much, she throws her own father off the mountain. It’s interesting because it’s a starting
point of how clear it is that Star has been badly influenced by her family’s
relentless and unwarranted fighting. The
fighting may be part of the game, but it’s still doing a lot of harm and making
the families look like savages. Star appears to notice this and later surprises
everyone, including the audience, with her actions despite seeming to join the
fighting anyway. She makes her relatives
chase her as she steals their flags and doesn’t fight back when they grab her
culminating with development to the concept of mewberty when Moon appears in
her butterfly form to stop the fighting.
It’s then when Star explains that she was trying to get all the flags to
bring the family together by claiming the hill for everyone.
Just as Moon says, this is the most adult Star
acts all day, and it features some of her strongest character growth through
starting out wanting to be treated like an adult, then finding out the truth
about what she wants, then finally doing what she can to make them better. That’s what makes this episode so good from
Star’s natural and believable character growth and being set against something
so fun and background-building makes it all the more investing.
A
Girls’ Day
Out
Thanks
to her unruly and hyperactive personality, Star is constantly getting into
trouble sometimes to a bigger magnitude than you’d expect. This episode capitalizes on this fact when
she’s sent to detention for throwing the class hamster Marisol out of the
window. It’s out of this action that the
episode brings about many admirable qualities mostly involving the
characterization of this show.
While the
main characters and villains are well-written for the most part, much of the
side characters really fall flat with basic traits like the love interests, or unappealing traits like Star and Marco’s
classmates. Occasionally, we have a
well-written side character with Ms. Skullnick, Star’s teacher turned into a
troll, and that’s the case here with her grumpy teacher personality clashing
with her love for Marisol, but still very few of them stick out.
When Star enters detention that all changes
with what this episode does for the character, Janna. In the past, Janna was mostly a side character
who never got too involved with the plots, only there for about one quirky
line usually involving flirting with Marco. Starting here, she and Star bond a
lot and she remains one of her closest friends following this episode. Right away, Janna proves herself as such a
likable character as she acts laid back about being in detention through making
the best of things, and she’s very respectful of Star who she makes the
mayor of detention, something that’s apparently been decided before Star even
arrived.
As the episode progresses, Star
starts warming up to Janna and the detention crowd. She starts out wanting to
leave as she rushes through various assignments as mayor of detention before
noticing how challenging one challenge, getting fresh batteries for a remote
so the kids can watch TV, is. From
there, she searches for the batteries with Janna by her side, and it’s
made all the more intriguing by Janna’s intel of getting around the school to
the site of the batteries without being noticed which adds to her likability of
her laid-back attitude. It makes for an
interesting dynamic between Janna’s strengths as a degenerate
and Star’s innocent and bubbly yet destructive and unruly personality. Star’s spells mesh well with Janna’s strategies while Janna pushes Star’s actions in the right direction when she
becomes too distracted or loses track of time.
Along with some close-calls of getting caught and a fast dash back to
the detention room, what Star and Janna get up to is a very entertaining show
of their characters. The last scene of
Star deciding to join Janna and the other kids in watching TV instead of
leaving like she planned shows how genuine their bonding as friends has become
and it’s one that’s worth wanting to see more of.
There are a few misfires with the episode
though like how the unruliness of the characters we follow can get a little
overbearing at times, and Marco is severely neglected and taken advantage of
when he’s thrown into all the hassles of retrieving Marisol which isn’t very
pleasing. However, these moments are
really minor compared to the start of a likable friendship and that makes
the episode worth watching.
A-
The Ranking
- Ludo in the Wild
- Game of Flags
- On the Job
- Mr. Candle Cares
- Wand to Wand
- Starstruck
- Girls’ Day Out
- By the Book
- Starsitting
- Star on Wheels
- Camping Trip
- My New Wand
- Red Belt
- Star vs Echo Creek
- Fetch
- Goblin Dogs
The next Star vs the Forces of Evil review brings a lot of intensity and character development out of a sleepover, and we return to Quest Buy where Star and Marco have to buy something or die trying.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews, we're bringing on another new show to the review roster with a look at the first episode of Xiaolin Showdown.
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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