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Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Hooty’s Door
When it comes to media, certain signs can often give a sense of how good an episode will be. However, there are also instances where the story can turn out not as good as the premise suggests, or in an even more fortunate circumstance, a lot better. This right here is the biggest thing this episode has going for it. A lot of the signs point to it being nothing more than a fun diversion from bigger things in favor of antics of a character mostly here for laughs. What actually happens makes what ultimately unfolds one of this show’s most substantial works with lots of welcome development for the world, underlying story, and characters.
Going into the episode, one can be easily inclined to collect their thoughts on the character, Hooty the worm-like demon with an owl face who controls the entire Owl House. For most of the show, most of his roles have had him as a designated comic relief, getting in people’s businesses with witty remarks in a very high-pitched voice. In this regard, he’s funny a lot of the time, but it does show that he’s a character who works best in smaller doses. A lot of him can run the risk of being too overbearing and annoying, and that’s reflected through much of the characters often being disturbed by him. At the same time, Hooty is by nature far more important than most may think. He’s not just a resident of the Owl House; in a manner of speaking, he IS the Owl House. With that place being central to the main cast and their arcs, Hooty is taking on a bigger role than first impressions of his character may suggest. In fact, his role so far this season can be seen as his role gaining more relevance and integrity. Much of this has been seen through him forming a sincere and genuine friendship with Lilith while she was staying with the main cast. That’s even shown to have a healthy way of continuing now that she’s gone to live with her parents. The framing device for this episode features them as pen pals (or typewriter pal in Hooty’s case) with Hooty typing Lilith a letter on recent events at the house.
From there, the episode goes for an interesting structure where all its acts are divided into segments, each one devoted to Hooty helping an Owl House resident with a problem. What’s more they’re all out of inspiration from Lilith who in one of her own past letters let him know that being the actual Owl House, he has just as much worth as its residents. It’s easy to feel skeptical since the last time the show followed a structure like this, it fell very flat. When thinking about it, that setup failed back then because of the stories themselves having the protagonists cause problems to the world around them without owning up to them. Here, the stories are very fulfilling with welcome growth and fitting status quo changes, and it’s remarkable that Hooty has a lot to do with them all throughout.
Looking into the segments themselves, the first one features Hooty’s attempts to help King. In accordance with his main arc throughout the season, King’s problem is his uncertainty about where he came from or what kind of demon he even is. This makes sense considering his long standing beliefs that he was an almighty king of demons was proven inaccurate. When he’s not paying attention, Hooty whisks King away through an owl pellet (which are big blobs of things owls regurgitate, just so you know) to his own kind of class. This class itself actually does a commendable service for the lore of the show, even if it is presented in Hooty’s usual over-the-top, antic-driven manner. Since King wants to know how he fits as a demon, the topic is fittingly about the nature of demons. Through Hooty, it’s revealed that on the Boiling Isles, demons evolved from the muck of the Titan and are classified in three groups, bug, biped, and beast. Each one has their own unique way of interacting, all of which Hooty has King try out with interesting results, most of which are backfires. He tries communicating through dance like a bug, but it turns out insulting, even if unintentional. He attempts to work a magic spell which biped demons are capable of, but can’t even work one against a smaller demon like the Dana Terrace-caricatured Tinnella Nosa. Finally, it’s decided to do a blood test to see if King qualifies as a beast, whose results reveal that King is really just himself, and that’s all that’s needed to be Hooty’s friend.
While most instances of this message would be presented as endearing, King’s reaction to it brings up some honest hard truths to it. He already likes himself for who he is, but that doesn’t change there being huge unanswered questions about his true self. Messages like this make it seem like these questions don’t matter despite how much they’re bothering King. Add on the fact that his own dad abandoned him as a child and never even responded to his video in the previous episode, and it’s no wonder King is left so upset.
The apparent dead end and lack of care and empathy over getting nowhere in answering big questions could be a frustrating and disappointing outcome to all this. Instead, there is a solid payoff where in King’s venting, he lets out a scream with a powerful seismic wave, suggesting that he DOES have a power after all. This doesn’t have an effect on Hooty who’s too sad that his attempts to help King made him upset to notice. That said, this segment starting out feeling like it won’t lead to anything but ultimately bringing a welcome change in the end sets up a trend of events for this episode. From here though, the remaining segments pick up in the ways the developments come to pass when it comes to staging and storytelling. However, Hooty’s reaction to it seeming like his help failed earlier should also be considered.
The second segment follows Hooty’s attempts to help Eda which is far more dramatic in tone, and brings up a lot of defining moments from her past. Her problem is that she’s stressing herself to stay awake and find a way to protect everyone from the Emperor, having recently heard he has something big planned. This worries Hooty because such an emotional state tends to put Eda at risk of falling victim to her curse. So, for the sake of her health, Hooty basically drugs Eda with a confectionary treat laced with sleeping nettles. They’re meant to have her sleep for hours, but they do more than that by intensifying one’s dreams and trapping the victim within them. Eda is instantly whisked away into her dreams, all of which driven by the monster she turns into whenever her curse enacts, the Owl Beast. Despite being caught in this unprecedented situation, Eda makes the best of things by using it to confront the Owl Beast once and for all. At the same time, the memories of how the beast impacted her life come up in a series of very insightful flashbacks.
The first flashback looks into Eda’s youth, which in turn gives insight to her home and family life. The biggest insight is how this flashback marks the first appearance of Eda’s dad, Dell. He was briefly mentioned before, to which Eda responded with a simple look of despondency, but this flashback presents reasons for this behavior. From the emotional reactions to the young Eda seeing her dad, it’s clear that they had a close and loving relationship. While it wasn’t tense feelings that came between them, what did is something much more unprecedented and emotionally shocking. During warm and caring interactions including Dell playfully setting off a party popper, Eda’s curse enacted at the noise, and she attacked Dell as the Owl Beast.
Just to show how huge this attack was, its effects appear to be very graphic with enough details to show that Dell lost an eye because of this. The whole situation with the curse was already bad, but this instance gives it more weight than ever. Eda is unsurprisingly driven to blame the Owl Beast for this, but it shows that she herself still has a good amount of guilt for it too, demonstrating major complexities.
Speaking of complexities, Eda’s dream suddenly whisks her away to another flashback of how the Owl Beast has impacted her life. It especially feels personal through tackling her love life. Specifically, it reveals something huge yet highly emotional to her relationship with Raine Whispers. She always felt that keeping the curse secret would protect everyone, and Raine was no exception. However, it shows that a move like this is more harmful than helpful as Raine was only left betrayed and frustrated by Eda constantly lying to them. In this very flashback, it’s even revealed that Raine was driven to join a coven and insist that they and Eda see other people because of all the lies. In other words, this whole sequence is to show that Eda and Raine were in a relationship, but broke up. The fact that they still love each other as the events of the previous episode proved does show how far they come, but it’s still no doubt a heavy weight for Eda to bear. It’s a far cry from her denying anything wrong happening at the moment the curse started flaring up after Raine made those disheartening statements. Once again, present Eda knows that she should have just let Raine help instead of pushing them away, but still puts a lot of blame on the Owl Beast itself. That’s when the matter of her curse reaches a whole new perspective.
Eda is put through another flashback, but not one of her own life. Instead it gives insight to the Owl Beast’s background. With Eda taking on its form, the staging of the event interestingly shows where the Owl Beast even came from. It was once an innocent creature, but then it was captured by a mysterious figure dressed in robes decked with symbols of moons. All that figure did was look down upon the poor Owl Beast while catching it in a net and laughing maniacally. Then it lost all its will by being transformed into a scroll containing the curse which would later be found and sold at the night market, and eventually placed onto Eda. Other than being credited as “The Collector” nothing is revealed about this character’s true personality or purpose at least here, making the Owl Beasts’ situation very tragic. It’s basically just as much a victim as Eda is here, and this brings some much-needed relief to this whole excursion.
With a visual of a red string tying both Eda and a younger vulnerable looking Owl Beast together, the truth of the matter becomes clear to both of them. They’re both victims of unfortunate and unfair circumstances, but the fact is they’re still stuck together. They’ve been fighting each other for so long, but that’s only made thing worse. Really, the only thing they can do to make things better is accept each other’s presence and work together through the ordeal. It’s also here where Eda discovers a new use for her elixirs. Instead of using them to quell her curse and the Owl Beast, she lets it have some so they can truly be together. In the end, they both come to a truce until they can really find a way out of what they’ve been trapped in, and that makes this whole segment very inspiring. Anyone, at any age, no matter who they are, is likely to have some difficulty to bear. Fighting them and treating them like a burden can make things worse as represented not just by Eda’s many falling outs, but the general occurrence of her becoming monstrous. However, accepting all issues as a part of you regardless of how much you don’t want them is the healthier option. This idea is apparent enough through Eda seeing the Owl Beast as a part of her, but the allegory goes even further than that to make it even clearer.
When Eda finally awakens, she finds that she’s transformed again, but there’s a significant difference. When she was fighting the Owl Beast, its presence made her monstrous. Accepting it has allowed them both to transform into a more suitable figure. Sporting full-grown wings while still walking on two legs as witches normally do as well as speaking audibly, Eda has taken the form of a harpy. Since it’s still a very unusual and ultimately unintended outcome, it’s understandable that Hooty feels dismayed and horrified by his efforts to help. His upset emotions intensify even more to the point where he doesn’t even stick around to hear how Eda feels about it. Because he’s noticeably more upset about his failed attempts than before, his emotional state is something to watch out for as he has one more Owl House resident to help.
When it comes to Luz’s problem, it seems simple compared to the others, but turns out to be a strong service to her character, background, and overall arc. Right now, she has a lot of things going on that can be considered her biggest issue. She’s been away from her mom for so long and is pressed to make a portal to the human realm to get back to her. She has a mouse that can project information from the past she can use to make that portal, but the last two episodes showed getting it to work for her is not so easy; it’s only been silent. There’s also the fact that she’s at a loss of what she wants to do for herself in the future, showcased by the fact that she doesn’t have the conviction needed for a palisman.
With all this said, the issue on Luz’s mind is none of these big things, yet it still says a lot about her by being just as prominent as them all. The issue in question is all about her love for Amity. This season has gone very far to make Luz’s feelings for Amity very clear, which is very welcome considering how clear Amity’s feeling for Luz have been for a while. This episode makes that matter very interesting in showing that this love is one of Luz’s biggest matters and parts of her character. It’s even something all its own and not directly linked to anything else she’s going through. Luz could be persistent on resolving her romantic tensions with Amity to get help with getting the needed information out of the mouse since Amity introduced her to it. Instead, what Luz wants with Amity is simply to ask her out. That said, details behind her hesitancy to do so say a lot about her social life. She talks of experiences with crushes she’s had back in the human realm, and they’ve all ended badly with everyone seeing her as a cheesy loser from her attempts to ask them out. This is a very interesting look at challenges she had to deal with before the events of the series, showing exactly how her coming to the Boiling Isles was so relieving.
Still, even after all she and Amity had been through, Luz is under the impression that Amity could not think the same of her if she doesn’t ask her out in the best way. Not to mention, Luz does have some reasonable causes to believe this. When Amity kissed her a while back, that could have made her realize she returns her love. However, it makes sense for Luz to think she hasn’t actually found her way into her heart. Amity’s immediate embarrassment after the kiss was very telling of this, as was her seeming to avoid Luz afterwards, right down to skipping an important event at school. At best, it can be perceived that Luz believes she has a chance at a romance working out for once with Amity, but is worried over how to go about it. With Hooty’s nonstop streak of wanting to help everyone, Luz suddenly finds herself in an attempt to do so, even if she doesn’t have a plan figured out yet.
At Hooty’s guidance, Luz heads to the previously unexplored basement of the Owl House. Then to her surprise, Amity suddenly appears right there, having been transported there by another one of Hooty’s owl pellets. Basically, he went the extreme route of flat out kidnapping her for the sake of romance. It’s honestly remarkable that Amity is so calm about this considering that she beat Hooty up for getting in her face during their first interaction. Anyway, even if they are together to work through their romantic tension and ask each other out, Luz and Amity are held back by their own insecurities on the matter. Amity, as previously established, still has her biggest fear of Luz rejecting her on her mind, and wishes for her and Luz to forget about the kiss. As this request further makes Luz believe that she won’t make her way into Amity’s heart, she claims that all she wants to do is help her out of the basement. Once again though, Hooty’s desperation to help everyone leads them both down his own strategy of creating romance.
He’s created a very over-the-top romantic setup going all out with its features. There’s a gaudy and brightly-colored tunnel of love; a cheesy love song with clichéd lyrics in the background; a surplus of hearts, cupids, and love notes; and a swan boat modeled after the house demon himself. Being something constructed without anyone’s consent, it’s very appropriate for reactions to all of this being mixed. It can be admired for its context and intent of bringing two people who love each other together, or make one uneasy for being too much when getting the point across. This feel is greatly captured in how Luz and Amity perceive it. Luz is absolutely horrified of being put through this, believing it’s all too cheesy for Amity, and dreading the possibility of being made fun of again. If the brief mention of how her past failed attempts at romance led to heartbreak wasn’t enough to prove it, this shows just how painful those memories are for Luz.
Unbeknownst to Luz though, Amity is visibly charmed by the tunnel of love, suggesting she herself has nothing to fear through actually starting her own romance with Luz. Then, desperate to avoid being made fun of, Luz destroys the remains of the tunnel of love, leaving Amity hurt and making it seem like the moment wasn’t what she thought. In other words, Luz has tried to ask Amity out the best way, but to Amity, it feels like she’s been making her worst fear come true. However, as has been common for their relationship, whenever things come between them, Luz and Amity are quick to clear things up and not let them escalate. At first though, there’s even more of a misunderstanding. Luz explains that what they experienced wasn’t her idea. Then, like a previous moment between them but with roles reversed, Amity tries to keep things together despite clearly struggling to hold back a tear, leaving Luz in shock by her reaction.
It’s at this point when all three segments come together that in turn gives payoff to Hooty getting upset at every apparent failure of his attempts to help. Starting off as mere sadness with the shame and disappointment noticeably growing, Hooty is now led to a full-on meltdown. Adding to the intensity of the moment, it’s far more destructive than usual as he forces himself right out of the Owl House, which threatens to destroy it. Despite all extremeness of this behavior, there’s oddly heart to it for showing how deeply Hooty cares for the others and that his desire to help was very genuine. Getting in the way and messing up like most would expect from someone as antic-driven as him only has it make sense for him to break down like this.
In this destruction, Hooty does slowly start to see the benefits of his help, at least from Eda and King at first. Eda’s new harpy form allows her to fly which in turn brings others to safety quickly, and King gets a hold of his voice powers, using them to save Luz and Amity from falling debris. Still, their reassuring isn’t enough for Hooty to calm down as there’s no bright side to his attempts at helping Luz. In a way though, it turns out that just pushing them into a matter of asking them out was all he needed to do. It unfolds as Luz privately admits to Eda that Hooty was trying to help her ask Amity out, and like a good parental figure, Eda fully supports Luz just going for it. As she gives Luz encouragement and helps Hooty calm down enough for the sake of the moment, Luz gets her good resolution in the best way possible.
Without any sort of grand gesture or methods of capturing a certain feel, Luz just goes up to Amity and talks about her true intentions. In doing so, she’s upfront honest about what went on in the tunnel of love, admitting to Amity that she reacted the way she did to ask her something in the best way. Amity, in her own way, reassures her that she would have liked what it meant, showing clear understanding of what Luz is trying to tell her. Even more meaningful is Luz following this up with a claim that while she still doesn’t know what her future holds, Amity is the one thing she knows that she wants in it. That simple statement does great service for this entire romantic storyline. Rather than existing as its own thing and taking away from the bigger story, it compliments it by tying into one of the bigger points of Luz’s arc.
Then to really bring hope for Luz’s future, both she and Amity cut to the chase and ask each other out. With one endearing close-up of them holding hands, a new chapter in their lives starts for them both, as they officially become a couple. It’s also fulfilling by allowing this to happen right in the middle of the series instead of waiting until the end like most shows do. Now, Luz and Amity as a couple can actually be explored, not just how they’ll approach this new status, but also how they'll explore bigger points of the series together. This is especially rewarding for guaranteeing more moments with such a great character like Amity. On the whole though, it’s simply endearing that this was both a result of something as extreme as an eccentric owl demon wanting to help, and something as simple as talking things out.
Ultimately, this episode’s three segments flow together perfectly and pay off for several great characters in unexpectedly significant ways. King has an understanding of who he is; Eda’s accepting of her curse and even finding ways to benefit from it; and Luz’s social life has improved a lot by getting an actual girlfriend which turns out to be both adorable and helpful in progressing her other goals. It’s also very interesting that these major changes are all a result of the over-the-top ways of the ever-eccentric Hooty, the last character most would expect big things from. However, in a symbolic sense, it works through showing how beneficial the Owl House is to all these characters, considering that, again, Hooty IS the Owl House. His ways of helping may be too much, but as he finishes his letter to Lilith in the framing device, he proves worthy of pride and praise as much as every other big player. He also sets himself up to help even more through his antics at the end when he receives a letter for King from the strange figure who saw his video…and then carelessly eats it. Still, with how big he was in helping everyone advance in life, there’s an impression of bigger things happening out of this act.
For the unique ways of developing characters, expertly bringing different topics and tones together cohesively, and paying everything off, one thing's for sure with this episode. Sometimes, true animated greatness can come from the most unlikely places, and in this case, what the audience is given is something to be truly proud of.
A+
Fan Art
Series Ranking
1.
Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Hooty’s
Door
2.
Enchanting Grom Fright
3.
Eda’s Requiem
4.
Agony of a Witch
5. Hunting Palismen
6.
Echoes
of the Past
7.
Escaping
Expulsion
8.
Understanding Willow
9.
Lost in Language
10.
Adventures in the Elements
11.
The Intruder
12.
Covention
13. Keeping Up A-Fear-Ances
14.
Through
the Looking Glass Ruins
15.
Young Blood Old Souls
16.
Separate Tides
17.
Escape of the Palisman
18.
Wing it Like Witches
19.
The First Day
20.
I Was a Teenage Abomination
21.
Witches Before Wizards
22.
Something Ventured, Someone Framed
23.
A Lying Witch and a Warden
24.
Sense and Insensitivity
25.
Hooty’s Moving Hassle
26.
Really Small Problems
27.
Once Upon a Swap
The next Owl House review features all the changes in the main trio's life at play as Amity takes the lead in getting a key ingredient for her girlfriend Luz's new portal while she's sick.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "Lost in Newtopia" and "Sprig Gets Schooled" from Amphibia.
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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