Friday, September 27, 2019

Married (Hey Arnold Season 5 Episode 16) - 'Toon Reviews 34

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Married


When developing Arnold and Helga’s relationship, the final season is the best time to explore their take on matrimony.  That is, after all, the ultimate showing of love by bringing two people together for the rest of their lives.  This setup delivers great insight into how both characters feel for each other. 
It all happens when PS 118 is abuzz over a supposedly fool-proof origami marriage predictor Rhonda has put together to see who they’ll marry.  Arnold shows no interest at first while Helga continues to pine over him wishing she’ll be the one to marry him, but doesn’t think it will ever happen.  Eventually, Arnold gives in and takes Rhonda’s marriage test.  As if by fate, every time he takes the test, 110 in fact, the results always say that he’s going to marry Helga. 
Their perspectives of this are uniquely personified by elaborate character building dreams.  Helga, who absolutely loves the idea of marrying Arnold, dreams of their marriage leading to an exciting life for both of them.  The health, support, and care they show feels like a burden Helga has finally lifted showing the real her to the boy she’s adored from afar for so long.  To her, being with Arnold is just as glamorous as elaborate honeymoons, becoming president, or going on secret missions to stop a terrorist.  It’s a grand showing of her big ambitions in life as well as the genuineness of her love for Arnold.  I will say she goes too far by constantly dreaming of Lila becoming a crazed lunatic going after Arnold.  It further makes the show forget how she’s actually supportive of Helga ending up with him.  At least these moments are very funny. 
Now, Arnold’s marriage dream is more interesting.  He absolutely revolts the idea of marrying Helga saying she’s the one girl he never wants to marry.  This is extreme considering how supportive of her he’s actually been, especially in the last two seasons, but this attitude actually makes sense.  While Arnold does start seeing good in Helga, since she doesn’t show the goodness  overtly to him regularly, spending all his life with her is going too far.  As a result, his view of the marriage is a nightmare in every sense.  Her aggression is shown to a disturbing degree and she abuses Arnold by making him do all the heavy work.  He also seems to have some awareness of her bad home life with his dream portraying her parents as their usual neglectful selves. 
The dream is hard to watch for the most part, but the payoff completely makes up for everything.  Taking charge of the nightmare, Arnold confronts Helga, demands why she acts mean, and to top it all, sees through her mean exterior, aware that she’s not this bad.  This is huge because through taking place in Arnold’s mind, it’s shown that he can tell Helga’s true feelings for him without her telling anything.  This is further proven when just as the dream ends, you can tell that Helga is about to say she loves Arnold. 
So despite the dream, Arnold ends up becoming more open to marrying Helga.  It may seem he’s off the hook when Rhonda declares the results of her marriage predictor null and void, but it’s best not to jump to conclusions so soon.  Much of the series as we know it shows enough health and care between them to indicate that this couple could very well come to pass.  For that, this double-length special is among the most interesting insights into one of the biggest relationships of the series.

A+


The Ranking

1.      Arnold Visits Arnie

2.      Chocolate Boy

3.       Married

4.     Beaned

5.      Helga’s Locket

6.      The Racing Mule

7.      On the Lam

8.      Ghost Bride

9.      Grandpa’s Packard

10.  Ernie in Love

11.  Rhonda Goes Broke

12.  Big Bob’s Crisis

13.  Sid and Germs

14.  Family Man

15.  Phoebe Breaks a Leg

16.  Rich Guy

17.  Principal Simmons

18.  Harold vs Patty

19.  Fishing Trip

20.  Sid the Vampire Slayer

21.  Old Iron Man

22.  Gerald’s Game

23.  A Day in the Life of a Classroom

24.  Suspended

25.  Stuck in a Tree

26.  Big Sis

27.  Gerald vs Jamie O

28.  New Bully on the Block

29.  Phoebe’s Little Problem

30.  Curly’s Girl

31.  Bag of Money

 

 
The next Hey Arnold review further aims to get Arnold and Helga together by ending his crush on Lila by playing along with Timberley crushing on him, and Eugene heads an elaborate musical with his optimism put to good use.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews Xiaolin Showdown takes us to "Pandatown."

 

5 comments:

  1. The ending of Arnold's dream and the fact that Helga confesses to him somewhat as her usual self shows that (if only on a subconscious level) Arnold has some idea that she does in fact care about him.

    Oh and Lila being the terrorist leader in the Cobra Commander mask in Helga's dream was funny as hell. Enjoyed this episode.

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  2. This episode is a ton of fun, but I'm actually glad to see that it still ranks just below Arnold Visits Arnie, because it makes a lot of the same implications as that episode, just in a far less subtle way, at least from Arnold's side of things.
    Like you say, Arnold's dream is kind of unpleasant to watch and is only elevated by his confrontation with Helga at the end, which is of course really him wrestling with his own subconscious feelings, which was great but I preferred the way they handled it in the aforementioned episode. Of course, this episode's climax is the logical next step in that vein if Arnold's understanding of Helga was to keep progressing.
    Helga's dream is the real highlight of course, revealing the endless world of possibilities she sees for herself if she was just able to be honest with Arnold, and if he returned her feelings. I don't even mind the Lila antagonism just because... well, it's not real, it's Helga's mind enjoying petty revenge as she would.
    It's the very, very ending that I find most endearing, with that vision of the future Phoebe has of Arnold and Helga happily married and staring off into the sunset... and Craig Bartlett said in an interview somewhere that they considered editing out Phoebe from that scene, because to him it wasn't Phoebe's vision, it's just a jump forward into the future showing us what will actually happen.

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  3. Replies
    1. I will consider it, but I'm afraid I can't make too many promises about new shows to the roster. I'm setting my sights on bigger things in life and blog-wise, I'm currently focusing on finishing the shows I already started reviewing.

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  4. I was never really a fan of Helga and Arnold's shipping. Helda's stalking and acting like a bully (even if she's just putting a front to act tough) are not really excusable even if there's a reason for such behavior. Just because she has a rough family background doesn't pardon her behavior. I have a crappy family life and a bad childhood too, but does that mean it's okay if I stalk a girl I like and think that I deserve to be her one true love? When the genders are reversed, in fact, it's downright creepy.

    It's also ironic that Helga pictured Lila to be the psycho stalker when she's probably the one who would grow up to be someone like that. I remember a Hey Arnold fan film in live action that showed an adult Helga to be someone exactly like that. lol

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