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Into the
Wand
This
episode starts out as another escapade of Star learning to better handle her
wand. It turns into one of the show’s most creative experiences adding to the background
of this show’s world.
Continuing with the
confusing state of Star’s wand, this is an episode where it being
cleaved is a problem with Star’s spells not coming out right. She asks Glossaryck for help, and he tells her
to fix it by going inside the wand and remove what doesn’t belong. His instructions are as vague as usual, so it
make sense that Star gets separated from him.
It’s a very mind-boggling experience to navigate the inside of her own
wand, which by the way bears little resemblance to how it looked in the previous episode. I, for one, don't consider that a bad thing as the wand's interior in this episode is much more interesting as it changes by the minute.
First it looks like she’s in her room, but it’s a vision of it. Then she loses focus of Glossaryck’s voice and
ends up in a completely different location.
From there, even more strange occurrences appear. Her school showing up wherever
she turns. She finds her mom’s pig-goat creature named Chauncey who was supposed
to be killed in battle in a random burger factory. The principal’s chair
becoming her father’s throne. The royal castle appearing on the football
field. The freakiest thing of all is
that the longer Star stays in her wand, clones of herself appear existing as
their own beings. They threaten to replace the Star that’s been around the
longest. This unsettling feeling follows
Star through the rest of her mission with not just a big job to do, but her existence
on the line.
While being followed by
several other Stars, the real Star ends up in a special room of all the queens of Mewni. It’s here where the show’s world gets more
interesting than before as we uncover pieces of its backstory. Each queen portrait has a plaque with a
passage about them, but two queen portraits are of major significance. One is of Eclipsa, a queen specializing in
dark magic who ran from her husband to elope with a monster. This is huge because while all the other
queens have fought monsters, Eclipsa was in a relationship with one. This begs
lots of questions if the morality of Star, and her lineage, towards
monsters has ever been justified. Also, a queen who
disappeared from the throne existing in her royal bloodline leaves Star with
something big to deal with.
As for the
other big portrait, it’s of Star’s mother, Moon, defeating Toffee, who’s revealed
to be immortal. This reveal leaves more shocking truths for Star to take in knowing her
elegant mother fought a dangerous monster, as well as something to
safeguard. It’s Toffee’s single finger,
the only thing remaining from when Moon shot him. Deducing the finger as the thing that doesn’t
belong, there’s one last intense moment in the wand. Glossaryck rushes in to
get Star through his eye just as she’s about to get beaten by her many
clones.
After dumping the finger into
her closet, the episode ends with an actual wholesome scene between Star and
Glossaryck as they take in the craziness of their adventures. It’s a genuinely nice calm down after such a
huge adventure. Standing out for big
reveals in the show’s lore and history with a creative aesthetic shining all
the way through, this is one of the show’s best ways of leaving a strong impression.
A+
Pizza Thing
Not
only is this just another episode of Star hanging out and doing an activity
with Marco, it’s also one that involves Pony Head. Just like with her appearance earlier this season, she’s too much with her arrogant attitude, and this episode encourages
the trend.
She and Star exchange gifts
with each other for Friendship Thursday. While Star appreciates her gift,
Pony Head shows little gratitude for what Star gets her since she can’t party
in it. She also doesn't accept that the planned entertainment is watching
TV. It’s moments like this that make you
question why Star is even friends with her.
This impression on Pony Head is made more concerning. She ditches
Star and follows Marco who’s out getting pizza just to check out the “Earthian
nightlife.”
It gets worse when Pony Head
whines her way into letting Marco invite her along, and she doesn’t even keep
her promise to not force in distractions.
To be fair, there are some enjoyable moments from Pony Head’s
distractions. There's an impromptu rave with everyone involved wearing skinny
jeans, and she drives a car with her magic after mistaking it for a taxi and
scaring its driver away. Since these
moments are enjoyable enough and even exciting in parts, Pony Head doesn’t seem
all bad and instead seems like someone who just wants to have fun. However, her
general rude behavior and weak reasons for her actions don’t make her very good
either. That's why it's concerning when Pony Head crashes the car into a junk yard,
and it gets crushed and compacted, and this is a big deal because she stole
it. She does make up for it by using her
magic to make a new car though, even though it drives off by itself. That way, it can
be argued that the episode does start working out in her favor.
When she and Marco finally do get to the
pizza place, he has her sit in the corner while he gets the pizza. Just as he’s
about to buy it, for some reason, Marco points out that there aren’t as much
mushrooms on the pizza, and the chef throws it away. The fact that Marco later says it doesn’t
matter begs the question why he even brought it up in the first place. This just doesn’t seem to be a very good
payoff to the hard time he had. It gets even worse when the chef proceeds
to chastise him for criticizing about the mushrooms and unreasonably
quits.
The plot tries to make it seem
like Marco was wrong to shut Pony Head out, and they could’ve gotten the pizza
if she was involved. However, for all
the trouble she caused, Marco had very good reasons to not trust her, so the
end result of her bad behavior being rewarded isn’t a good one. At least the ending is fairly cute when a
random little kid talking about why he likes pizza gets Marco and Pony Head to
make up and cook their own. It’s
debatable if the pizza truly comes out good, but them coming together is still nice.
However, Pony Head still brings the episode
down quite a bit for her overbearing unruliness and the story making it seem
like her attitude was necessary doesn't help. There are some good funny moments and the
payoff with her and Marco is very satisfying though. Nevertheless, an episode mostly consisting
of what’s wrong with her character is not worthy of being called great.
D-
The Ranking
- Ludo in the Wild
- Into the Wand
- Hungry Larry
- Game of Flags
- On the Job
- Sleepover
- Is Mystery
- Mr. Candle Cares
- Wand to Wand
- Starstruck
- Girls’ Day Out
- By the Book
- Friendenemies
- Gift of the Card
- Starsitting
- Star on Wheels
- Camping Trip
- My New Wand
- Red Belt
- Spider with a Top Hat
- Star vs Echo Creek
- Fetch
- Goblin Dogs
- Pizza Thing
The next Star vs the Forces of Evil review features Glossaryck deal with nonsense on his way to a meeting, and a growth on his neck threatens Marco's chances of asking out Jackie.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews, we meet "Katnappe" from 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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