Time After Time Part 1
As
this season reaches the end, past experiences should set the audience up for
the stakes to raise significantly. The
thing about the end to this season is that the final two episodes also mark the
very end of the series, with expectations of its quality being particularly
high. There are certainly very bold
moments throughout this and its following part, but it’s debatable if the whole
thing is a strong cap off to everything.
Now, throughout Season 3, there have been frequent talks about one of the Xiaolin Warriors being chosen as the leader. Unsurprisingly, this becomes the main focus of this final arc, and as usual, all the Warriors become somewhat competitive for the new position. They have to come up with their own personal quest to find out whose strength is the best so to determine who’s worthy of huge leadership. On the whole though, their competitiveness isn’t as prominent as it usually is with focus going to one particularly huge quest.
A major temple raid by Chase Young in spite of the growth and wisdom our heroes have gotten as Wudai Warriors inspires Omi to pull off the ultimate quest. He’s going to resort to time travel by going to the past to prevent the ultimate evil event of Hannibal Bean turning Chase to the side of evil. The only problem is that the only Shen Gong Wu capable of sending him to the past, the Sands of Time, was hidden in the future by an older version of Omi. There seems to be a good fix with a memorable past event inspiring Omi to freeze himself and wait 80 years so he can allegedly meet his elderly counterpart. However, it’s not too hard to point out the drawback with this plan. Since Omi is out of commission being frozen, there can’t be another counterpart of him to even grow old. It’s like he doesn’t even exist.
Now, though this somewhat obvious factor constantly stares the audience in the face, credit should be given to the show actually pointing it out once Omi actually reaches the future. The future itself is one particular highlight through going all out with several dark undertones, by extension showing consequences to the Warriors not being together as a team. It’s a dark and gritty atmosphere all throughout with much of humanity imprisoned, and robot armies rampaging the planet. As for the sole protectors of the peace, they’re imprisoned too right up to being locked up basically for life given their old age when Omi finds them, and have lost all Shen Gong Wu. What’s more, in all of the vastness of the series’ rogues’ gallery, the one responsible for such dystopia in the world is Jack Spicer. It may seem very strange given how he’s easily the most laughable of the villains, but this does make sense. It has been shown a few times that when he has access to powerful forces, Jack’s really good at taking advantage of circumstances, and ruling the world at an old age certainly shows he’s done that.
Anyway, with Omi now present after
80 years, Jack is all set to put together a long-awaited gladiator battle where
all his old enemies will be ripped to shreds.
In spite of their old age though, the Warriors still turn out to be
strong enough to get out of this bad situation.
Raimundo in particular turns out to be a quick thinker as a plan is
organized to escape the fight, take on the robots, and find where Jack’s kept
the Shen Gong Wu. How he managed to
uncover the Sands of Time among them, I really don’t know. Still, the outcome is effective when just as
Omi gets the Sands of Time, there’s a devastating occurrence where Jack and his
robots reach the others, and straight up kill them as Omi watches. Such a dark moment definitely brings this
finale saga to huge heights, but there’s enough of a hopeful note as we end
with Omi going to his desired time period to prevent all of this.
However,
it should be noted that as we enter the second part, as well told and
constructed this dark future is, it’s going to feel disconnected from where the
rest of the story goes. So much time is
spent here, and the impact it leaves is very strong, but it makes it easy to
forget why Omi’s after the Sands of Time to begin with. It just seems to be a long time just to get
to a necessary plot point of obtaining that Shen Gong Wu. Just to clarify, the somewhat fluctuating
focus will become more apparent with the next part, as for now, the actual
material is still good by itself. It
does what it’s meant to do by making the tail-end of the series stand out as a
big event with its dark atmosphere, higher than average stakes, and new big
paths ahead. As to whether this makes
for a solid series end, just wait for the next review.
A-
The Ranking
1. Bird of Paradise
2. Wu Got the Power
3. Oil in the Family
4. The Treasure of the Blind Swordsman
5. The Dream Stalker
6. Time After Time Part 1
7. Finding Omi
8. Hannibal’s Revenge
9. Omi Town
10. The Life and Times of Hannibal Roy
Bean
11. Chucky Choo
12. The Return of Master Monk Guan
This blog's look at Xiaolin Showdown ends with the next review with the conclusion of this big series-ending time travel saga.
If you would like to check out other Xiaolin Showdown reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
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