Time After Time Part 2 - (Xiaolin Showdown Season 3 Episode 13) - 'Toon Reviews 45

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Time After Time Part 2

While the story of the first part of this series finale was mostly self-contained without a huge connection to the main goals, it was still well-told and tonally consistent.  The second part is much more focused on Omi’s goal to go back in time to stop Chase Young from turning evil, but the quality of the execution is kind of debatable. 

For one thing, for such a big event, and one set to end the entire series at that, the whole episode doesn’t really feel too big in scale.  Things happen so fast at a typical episodic pace instead of allowing the time to properly take everything in.  You can tell that the show is trying to attribute itself to the legacy it built for itself by placing Omi in the actual historical event that started it all.  It’s when Grand Master Dashi, along with his accomplices, Master Monk Guan and Chase Young, defeated Wuya.  The catch is that there’s a huge continuity error where it was said that Dashi used the Shen Gong Wu to beat her, and did it all alone epically with the Shen Gong Wu.  Here, no Shen Gong Wu are used, the inclusion of Guan and Chase further builds a sense of fallacy, and it all ends like a standard battle and not a triumphant sense of good over evil.  I’d also say that Omi playing a role in this past battle can clearly mess up the timeline, but then again his whole plan was doomed to do that from the start.  The point is that as series finales go, you can already tell that intentions are good, but a lot of key things have clearly not been thought out.

Then after that establishing scene, focus goes back to Omi’s attempts at keeping Chase Young from turning evil.  For the most part, the portrayal of that moment in time is actually well represented.  The dialog between him and Hannibal Bean is believable in terms of what’s said and how Chase approaches the situation.  He’s dismissive, but Hannibal is ever seductive in the ways joining the dark side can benefit Chase over Guan.  Then when he’s given that mystical soup, time is taken to show Chase thinking it over, considering both sides of the matter.  In the process though, this portrayal of events makes everything seem so shallow.  I mean, it was frequently suggested that Chase turned evil just by drinking a soup, but there could have been a deeper meaning to his change in side.  Maybe the soup just gave him his powers and eternal youth, and Chase’s turn from good to evil would be gradual.  Instead, all potential mature context is compromised with it seeming like the soup is all to blame for Chase’s change in morality.  On another note, it further raises questions for how Chase and Guan are still alive after 1500 years while Grand Master Dashi is no longer with us.  The last episode showed Master Fung still alive after 80 years, albeit significantly aged, but that’s not even the case with these three.  It ultimately comes off as a weird choice without any true compelling basis.

So with the soup apparently being the biggest thing to blame for Chase’s eventual descent into evil, Omi simply swaps it for a regular harmless soup, and the morality change doesn’t happen.  At first, it really seems like something was accomplished considering how pure Chase’s good virtuous ways seem to be, suggesting him being a very valuable asset.  However, this does not solve anything, for when Omi gets back to his own time, darkness still prevails.  It turns out Hannibal just switched his target to Guan, and turned him evil.  On one hand, this is a believable course of action to take after the original plan backfired.  Still, there’s no clear indication that Omi could have known this would happen or that Guan had the same feelings of jealousy Chase had.  Maybe the point is that he should have thought things through, but it’s not entirely convincing.  Also, how could time have been different if he was able to use the Sands of Time to go back and stop the new plan if Hannibal didn’t destroy them?  That’s a matter that could have made a difference, but given the message this episode ends up teaching, it’s very disappointing that this is never explored.

After Omi and Chase escape the scene of battle caused by Omi’s change to time, there’s another look at an alternate setup for the Xiaolin Warriors.  They’ve now been forced out of the temple grounds and live in the wild to breed crops and do simple farm work instead of fighting evil.  There are a few interesting elements to their current state of being like how they got here, why Master Fung isn’t with them, and how Jack is now aggressively good.  The problem is that they’re all dumped during exposition and aren’t shown, presenting the storytelling as held back.  It’s also strange that when Omi explains what they should be doing, they act like what they’re doing is how things have always been and are surprised by Omi’s claims.  Shouldn’t they be confused as to why he’s even here since he clearly wasn’t with them while they were living this life ages beforehand?  It all boils down to drawbacks that often come with time travel stories.

Now, a notable positive to all this is further proof of the growth and development of Raimundo.  He’s very frequently taken charge in solving problems a lot, especially throughout this season.  With this resolution being in the final episode, it’s like a grand culmination of his character moments, and this is before the episode’s actual ending.  The plan is to stop the time paradox by finding the frozen Omi that started all these events and freeing him.  During their attempts to get the Shen Gong Wu to help them with this goal, they get captured.  To get out, Chase willingly takes the soup that was originally meant for him, and he instantly turns into the evil being he’s known as.  It’s as if barely anything changed with him, and him being good was not given the time it needed to be fully explored.  There is legitimacy to his claims that him being evil is just what’s meant to be, but again, things could have been different if Omi was able to stop Guan from going evil.

Anyway, one other thing that actually works in the episode’s favor is its Xiaolin Showdown, the last one of the series.  The big thing about it is how it brings the whole concept of Showdowns full circle, mainly if you consider the very first one.  That one was just a simple race over one of the earliest revealed Shen Gong Wu, the Eye of Dashi.  That’s exactly what this final Showdown is over, and it also shows how much they’ve grown in scale.  Now it’s over the inventive setup of saving Dojo dressed as a fairy tale princess while everyone works in a tag team.  

The intense climb up the tower is against all four of the well-known Xiaolin Warriors against the most powerful enemies, Chase Young, Guan, Wuya, and Hannibal.  The different Shen Gong Wu on display and how everything changes from player to player on each side has all the intensity and excitement needed to make it such a spectacle.  Then again, these Showdowns typically were some of the best stretches of imaginative entertainment this show has offered in the first place.  In the end, the side of good triumphs, and they get the simple lightning shooting Shen Gong Wu needed to take care of the frozen Omi to fully stop all time paradoxes.  All it takes is both Omis coming together to undo the events of these past two episodes, placing everyone back to a time where none of this ever happened.

Though what happened with the timelines is undone, it’s still remembered to play an impact on how the episode ends.  In fact, if you think about it, much of the entire series impacts the ending.  A leader of the Xiaolin Warriors is finally chosen, and it just happens to be Raimundo.  Considering how, as previously stated, he’s clearly the best developed of our heroes, it makes the most sense that he’d get this position.  In a way, it’s an interesting turn of events.  With Omi being the main character of the show, it’s easy to think he’d be the one to rise as the leader, and the events of this saga play to that expectation.  It’s a clever subversion that the main character ultimately falls short of what it takes to earn it.  However, it also shows how disappointingly underdeveloped he is.  He had the whole season to learn from his mistakes and faults, yet as what happened shows, he never got over his egotism enough to think things through and not put others down.  Even here, it only takes a few seconds for him to go from disappointed in not getting the leader position to happy and accepting of Raimundo rising to power.  The scene is overall a good conclusion, but not perfectly staged.  That said, as we officially end things with the Xiaolin Warriors happily going off to fight literally all their enemies, it’s a fitting final shot.  Some might say it’s disappointing as it sets up a new order to the dynamic only to just end the show, but I find it works for how everything’s closed.  It puts our heroes in a position of what they do best, and gives great hope to all the changes.  If only it also had a better story to lead up to this.

As an episode, this has a lot of noticeable logic holes and other sides to complex issues that get ignored, but has a few redeeming strengths as well.  As a finale to the series, it lacks the grandeur and finality to have everything go out satisfyingly enough.  Everything happens fast, there’s a lack of the scope needed to mark the episode as a big event, and very little actually stands out.  In fact, it makes things like the leader decision and last team shot feel out of place.  In short, this doesn’t really work as a final episode, but it’s still serviceable for what it is, and with what it does get right, it does deserve credit.

C

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.  Time After Time Part 2

12.  Chucky Choo

13.  The Return of Master Monk Guan

Final Thoughts

As we finally wrap up another series with the end of this look at Xiaolin Showdown Season 3, one can’t help but be drawn to reflect on what it’s done throughout its run.  When I look back on it for the most part, the recollections typically involve a lot of fun and creativity as far as animated action shows go.  These days, it feels like that may have been personal nostalgia talking since actually revisiting it has uncovered several qualities that keep it from being one of the true greats.  With the final season, this point seems more apparent than ever.

Like most action shows, this one has always had huge ambitions in terms of staging and storytelling.  While it certainly has the uniqueness and creativity to make it stand out, the ambitions it set up for itself were not always met.  For Season 3, we basically reach the embodiment of high ambitions but less than stellar execution.  The biggest instance of this is with the actual adventures.  This season in particular has many interesting ideas for adventures that have the potential to feel epic and grand, as well as enhance the feel of the world the series has created.  Good ideas and intentions are one thing, but it takes solid executions to really make them work, especially to fit the high standards that come with big adventures.  The thing with Xiaolin Showdown is that the interesting ideas typically are not executed in the best possible way, with something always holding it back.  In the past, it was usually due to the over-simplicity to most of the protagonists’ personalities or morals being too heavy-handed.  In Season 3, there are even bigger reasons to why some stories don’t work as well as they do.

As this is the final season, one would hope that the adventures the cast of character get involved in would be especially big and grand as the series is sent off.  The problem is that very few of them actually feel like they live up to that status.  Some might say it’s because they’re only shown in one episode when more often than not, they should affect multiple ones.  However, in the previous two seasons, there have been plenty of big creative stories that were told much better than the ones here.  Season 3’s stories feel like they’re the most held back from their potential for several reasons.  Some of them tend to pad out stories with plot points that don’t have a strong connection to what the story is all about.  This especially shows near both the beginning and end of this season.  In the season premiere which sets out to resolve the lingering issues from Season 2, there’s little reason to warrant the whole encounter with the chi creature.  Sure, it was meant to get good Jack evil again, but that’s only a little thing, and the story probably would have flowed better without so much time on it.  The creature doesn’t even appear again after this, really lowering its impact from its initial reveal in the previous season’s finale.  The same can be said for the time spent in the dark future in the first part of “Time After Time.”  For all its cool concepts and heavy atmosphere, it still deviates from what the main story is setting out to tell, making the experience feel noticeably less engaging.  Other ways they feel less engaging include introducing big character building questions in one episode only to never mention them, much less fully answer them, again; create conflicts that are supposed to be huge, but have no real major repercussions or especially difficult ways through them; or just throw various little elements with big effects together, causing none of them to leave a huge impact.  There are also times were episode flaws are shown to a more extreme extent. Conflicts often center on characters being unlikable with contrived reasons to justify things that aren’t revealed until the end, hindering the enjoyment.  Other times, they’re caused by a character whose intentions and true morality are hard to figure out.  Not to mention, elements show just how confusing they really are like the life longevity of old masters and how black and white the villains really are despite past signs of depth.

Speaking of villains, one reoccurring issue with this season is how they’re handled.  The irony is that the villains were consistently one of the strongest selling points to the series, but in the final season, they’re noticeably underutilized.   It is customary that every season introduces a major antagonist, with this season introducing Hannibal Roy Bean, a literal bean said to be the strongest forces of evil.  His overall impressions though are very mixed.  He at first seems to fulfill the role of a threatening villain with appropriate cunning and never letting up on elaborate schemes of malice.  At the same time, many qualities of him make him hard to take seriously from his extremely puny size, to his unsettling face, to his funny southern drawl voice.  This is supposed to be the root of all evil, seriously?  I get the point of how things that look innocent can actually be quite threatening, but I really don’t think it works with Hannibal.  He just lacks any sort of charm and charisma which makes most of his screen time fall flat.  A bigger issue arises when you consider what his role means for other major villains.  In the past, the likes of Chase Young and Wuya always offered their own unique flair on the villain side of this show’s setup no matter how big the cast grew.  Only now with the inclusion of Hannibal, their roles feel noticeably and disappointingly squandered.  Chase may have his moments, but he’s barely an active player getting up to anything significant in this season which doesn’t do justice to his appeal.  Wuya is even more disappointing with her spending the whole season in her flesh form for once, but getting even less to do.  I know that when she took on this form she was already without her powers, but still.  Not to mention the vast rogue’s gallery is reduced to cameos without any memorable moments.  Yes, they were only side characters before but it shows the cast is not being taken advantage of.  At least Jack still offers plenty of his own villainous charm.  On that note, the underuse of villains can also relate to the handling of other main show elements like Shen Gong Wu.  The drawbacks in their attempts at creative aesthetics really show here through mixed impressions.  For every cool one like the Moby Morpher, Rio Reverso, and Denshi Bunny, there are also honestly lame ones like the uninspired Ants in the Pants or mundane Cannon Blaster.  As you can see, the approach to the season is pretty lacking and makes it come off like a lot of the creative spark going into it is significantly fading.

Now, you can probably tell that Season 3 is set up to be the show’s weakest, and that’s unfortunate with this being the last one.  However, being the weakest doesn’t mean that it’s completely without merit, and there is still plenty of merit to be found here.  For all the story ideas that don’t seem to go all the way, there are still some that hit the mark nicely.  A quest for a mystical bird beautifully showcases the strengths of our heroes; there’s a solid Wild West adventure searching for the Wudai Weapons; a look into dreams is nothing short of creative; and a major elemental battle between Omi and Hannibal Bean is simply epic.  Also, even though the dark future in the “Time After Time” saga is largely disconnected from the main story, it still impresses in staging and atmosphere building.  There’s even somewhat of a consistent endgame plan at its most apparent in this season, and it actually relates to character development.  This is notable because character development has never been a huge strength for this show, at least for the protagonists.  In fact, the lack of good development from them is very much apparent with Season 3.  At this point it should be expected that the likes of Kimiko and Clay remain little more than supportive teammates (though it is disappointing that Clay doesn’t get a single starring role here), Master Fung exist to give vague wise proverbs, and Dojo be extremely neurotic.  However, the biggest disappointment would have to come from Omi whose ego problems remain the issue they’ve always been since Day 1.  Nothing is done to overcome them and it frequently adds to many really bad world-threatening situations. It even gets to the point where when he does accept not being the best of the best at the end, it doesn’t feel believable if I can be honest.  That’s not a natural growth; it’s him discovering what’s right because the plot demands it. 

Then there’s Raimundo; from the start he’s stood out the most in terms of development with a many less-than-ideal qualities for him to work through, which he has.  For someone who started as reckless teen right down to being the last Xiaolin Warrior to make Apprentice, he’s clearly become much wiser in terms of strength and decision-making.  A frequent thing to Season 3 is how Raimundo’s development is clearer than ever.  In most episodes, he’s the one who thinks things through, and most of the decisions he makes turn out to be very logical and yield the best possible results in given situations.  Even little moments of mistakes he makes and him doubting his abilities are nice touches in making his arc feel very authentic and rewarding.  In spite of fluctuating results with this season, what ultimately happens with Raimundo is satisfying closure.  How often he resolves problems well and actually grows from his experiences lead to the series ending with him becoming the leader of the Xiaolin Warriors.  This is the kind of development that would benefit the show which makes it a shame that there isn’t a lot of it.  I will say that it is an interesting shakeup that Raimundo ends up more developed and comes to a grander place than the much more focused Omi.  That’s a rare instance where the highest honor doesn’t go to the main protagonist, and a solid lead-in to a final shot of the Warriors happily running to fight all their enemies.  With all this said, despite all faults, it’s clear to see that anyone who’s enjoyed Xiaolin Showdown will still have a reasonably good time with Season 3.

One more thing to say before we wrap up is that I am aware that there’s also a spinoff series that came years after this called Xiaolin Chronicles.  In case you’re wondering if I plan on reviewing it, I am not.  This is mostly due to my stances on reviewing in general where I’d like to focus on things I actually see as worth watching, and this is one of those things that just doesn’t feel like it.  I actually saw some bits and pieces of it back when it was new, and from what I remember, it hardly feels like a good companion.  It’s simply hard to shake off the major differences in voices and Shen Gong Wu names.  I know that there’s a legit reason for changes, mainly from the show being made outside of Warner Bros, but it still feels wrong.  Plus, just from reading some episode plots and observing the weak critical and audience reception, I’m inclined to just let it be and move onto better shows.  I mean, the final season of the original series is problematic enough.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Chronicles exasperates them.  This could change in the future, but I’m just at a point where I feel like I should be more mindful of what shows I choose to review.

So in the end, Season 3 kind of ends Xiaolin Showdown on a weak note with lesser, unmemorable stories, and a lack of prior strengths among other things.  Fortunately, it still has great merit from a number of moments and adventures that do work and at least one piece of notable character development at its core.  Basically, the final results aren’t as great as they could have been, but this season’s impact is one I feel is good enough to call positive.  That’s all the more reason for me to end my look at the series here.

Worth a Look

So this blog’s overall views of Xiaolin Showdown are officially in the books, thus putting the end to another animated series.  In the end, it’s much more of a show that I enjoy more for nostalgia’s sake than one I look at as a high quality work of TV animation.  It’s got a lot of ambition, but whether it’s from the tone thinking more of just kids than universal audiences or short-sighted visions, it doesn’t always live up to it.  However, it has ways of hitting high creative marks from its multitude of creative premises, globetrotting aesthetic, and the occasional high stakes adventure.  There’s less of them as the show goes on, but that doesn’t mean the show hasn’t left any significant mark.  This is a show that leans more into the obscure sense, but it’s nevertheless one to leave a positive experience.  If you ever get the chance to check the show out, it might not be the best one you’ve seen, but it’s a chance worth taking just to see how good an impression it leaves.

The next review set for MC Toon Reviews will be of a new season of adventures from Netflix starring everyone's favorite blue-haired adventurer, Hilda. So until next time:

Stay Animated Folks!