Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Understanding Willow - The Owl House Season 1 Episode 15 - ('Toon Reviews 42)

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Understanding Willow

Once again, the best parts of the series align to craft an unforgettable experience with this episode.  In fact, it’s a real winner of animated storytelling driven by imagination, character chemistry, and especially emotion.

The characters at the center of this story are Willow and Amity and how much they’ve grown apart.  Willow is content enough with having Luz as a friend, but she’s very much put down by how Amity hangs around that group of mean girls and lets them belittle Willow. This also shows that for all her progress of growing as a character, Amity still has a way to go in coming around. However, there’s also further proof that she doesn’t necessarily enjoy being with this gang.  Then there’s follow-up to how these two used to be friends featuring a lot of key details and background making up for that brief exposition on the subject a few episodes back.  There’s a photo class where students pluck out memories portrayed as photos from other students’ heads.  Among Willow’s memories is a major one about her friendship with Amity which she unsurprisingly does not want to see.  Through this, there’s a bit of a red flag where even though it bothers her, she doesn’t want to think about it, which never leads to anything good.  Wanting to be a good friend by figuring out what happened and bring some comfort, Luz decides to pull a ‘shenanigan’ by making the memory visible after Willow turns it away.  

Afterward, Amity happens to pass by the photo lab and sees that very memory.  Desperate to protect her reputation, she proceeds to burn it, but not before showing remorse for her course of action, demonstrating true morality among her coldness.  The thing is that even Amity can’t truly live up to her perfect standards as her attempts to destroy that one memory leads to a big mistake.  They end up causing a fire that destroys all the other photos, and the repercussions are bigger than one may think.  Since those photos represent actual memories, them being consumed by flames mean the same thing is happening to the real memories inside Willow’s mind.  She starts feeling unnaturally hot, and then acts all senile when talking to people.  What’s more, when Luz and her friends confront Amity about this, Amity reacts with perfectly humane guilt.  This further benefits her character as does the overall story direction.

The only way to save Willow’s mind is to go in and personally fix up all the damage.  Luz is of course ready to help her friend, but in line with the effects of the situation, Amity’s involvement in the resolution is what really stands out.  She’s visibly uneasy and nervous about being reminded of her past as well as guilty of her current actions, in turn revealing more depth to her character, and it already has a lot.  That said, having Luz as a true friend to follow makes the experience easier for Amity, as well as helpful in many ways. Willow's mind itself has an imaginative setup of being portrayed as a single forest of uniquely designed trees, each one holding a framed picture to represent the memories.  They find that one can just enter memories through going through the pictures, and see how they’ve been rendered black and white from the ashes of Amity’s fires.  All it takes to restore the memories and in turn Willow’s mind is to clean up all the damage, thus bringing them back to full color, and allowing them to play out all the way.  

Throughout the process, Amity frequently looks back on and talks about the memories with fondness, as if to show how meaningful her friendship with Willow was.  Truth be told, the memories of everything they did together and the fun they have are nothing short of cute, and perfectly show that they were incredibly close.  It easily feels like Amity never really wanted this friendship to end, and cutting ties with Willow spurred most of her negative qualities.  I’d like to think that with Luz by her side, she seems more open than ever to reveal her true self, getting encouragement, comfort over guilt, and reassurance all the way.  Frequent handholding for a long time and excessive blushing around Luz also says a lot.

Despite all of this, even Luz isn’t enough for Amity to get active in fixing the one memory that started the mess.  Whenever it’s brought up, she wants to avoid it at all costs, the nervous tone in her voice indicating that there’s something she really doesn’t want to relive or talk about.  Like with Willow wanting to avoid thinking about Amity altogether, Luz continues to be a true supportive friend by trying to tell Amity that confronting the memory is the right thing to do.  As Amity only lashes out at Luz’s suggestions, one other thing native to this mind is the only thing to get her to do exactly that.  Within Willow’s mind is a creature made of fire that’s set on destroying not just any memories, but memories that Amity was a part of.  It’s like an extreme version of what Willow was trying to do by putting Amity ‘out of sight; out of mind.’  

In a creative maneuver of Luz getting the fire creature to land in water, there’s a major twist to this setup.  You’d think that the fire was a manifestation of the fire Amity caused, but it’s actually the Inner Willow, fueled by nothing but anger at Amity and driven to destruction.  For that, it makes sense that she’d want to finish what the real Willow started by destroying all traces of her ex-friend.  By going this route though, the story goes on to reveal exactly how these two former friends fell out so badly.

Having no say, everyone is dragged into the memory that ended Willow and Amity’s friendship, and it’s easily the emotional center on all fronts.  From Willow’s perspective, all of her and Amity’s good times were about to mean nothing when Amity suddenly declared she didn’t want to be friends with a weak witch like her.  That’s evidently a heartbreaking moment Willow could never have prepared herself for, and even current Amity shows genuine regret.  As current Willow is about to get particularly destructive after reliving this memory, Amity finally comes clean about another side of it.  By doing so, it reveals what has got to be the biggest source of her worst traits.  There’s a scene of what happened prior with Amity being confronted by her parents, both portrayed as mysterious silhouettes displaying dominance.  They berated Amity for having Willow around when members of this family should only associate with strong witches.  Whenever Amity tried to show heart by still declaring Willow her best friend, they had none of that and insisted Amity choose a new friend, the mean girls she’s with now.  If that’s not enough, Amity’s always known they were mean, confirming that she was never really their friend.  The real kicker is that her parents were going to severe her ties with Willow, probably through something horrible Amity wouldn’t do it herself. In that sense, really Amity ultimately shut Willow out in desperation.  Further regarding the parents, given being hidden in shadows, their abusive ways of caring more of status than their daughter’s happiness, and Amity’s reaction to them , you get the threat.  In fact, this might only just be a small part of their authority and menace, and it feels just as tragic for Amity as it was for Willow.

After living through this painful memory again, Amity proceeds to take the biggest step in self-improvement for this episode.  Though her actions come from an understandable place, she takes responsibility, saying she herself was too weak to stand up to her parents and keep Willow’s friendship.  Now, however, she’s ready to take full steps to truly make amends, promising to never let anyone make fun of Willow.  At the same time, Willow decides that it would be better for her to keep all her memories of Amity, even the bad ones, because they’re still a part of her.  Just to demonstrate the health of this move, her mind becomes more vibrant than ever when all the work is done.  In addition, when Amity and Luz return to the real world, there’s a positive effect on matters.  Willow is officially back to normal, but also has awareness of what went on in the mind.  Realistically, she and Amity aren't friends again, but as she puts it, what happened now can be considered a start towards that.  This is the best Amity can ask for, and her silently leaving the Owl House with clear fondness over her time with Luz and her friends today says a lot about the peace she’s come to.  It’s like she’s getting an idea of where to find true friendship, and her letting a live butterfly party invitation from her fake friends go is further symbolic.  Sure, she’ll have to prove this later on, but it’s still rewarding development on her part, and, as I said previously, she already has great development to begin with.

This series knows how to bring together what it does best for grand experiences, and this episode is no exception.  The creative concept is used to great effect, the featured characters astound with chemistry and development, and the emotional aspects are at a high point.  It’s a fully praise-worthy work that inspires the imagination and self-reflection.

A+

Fan Art



The Ranking

1.      Understanding Willow

2.      Lost in Language

3.      Adventures in the Elements

4.      The Intruder

5.      Covention

6.      Escape of the Palisman

7.      The First Day

8.      I Was a Teenage Abomination

9.       Witches Before Wizards

10. Something Ventured, Someone Framed

11.  A Lying Witch and a Warden

12.  Sense and Insensitivity

13.  Hooty’s Moving Hassle

14.  Really Small Problems

15.  Once Upon a Swap

The next Owl House review covers a grand event of an episode analyzing the nature of one's deepest fears, and presenting great heart to some of the series' most endearing relationships, all within the setup of prom Grom. 
Next time on MC Toon Reviews in Amphibia, spend "A Night at the Inn" and spend time with "Wally and Anne."
If you would like to check out other Owl House reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

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