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The Dinner
Recent events have solidly progressed the main goals of the story. The music box is recharged, and Anne, Sasha, and Marcy have found each other again, setting them all up to go home. Before that happens, there’s a cartoon where they adjust to being back together after everything. A dinner party is among the most fitting ways to do this. All the while, there are mixed feelings on the three girls together again.
Anne and Marcy are very pleased that they’ve found Sasha, but since the Plantars had a bad murderous experience with her, they’re hesitant to trust her. As for Sasha herself, there is no speculation needed to see her motives are to earn everyone’s trust so she and her toad army can invade Newtopia. She discusses this matter with Grime who gives stern fatherly advice to keep her aggression in check to even be trusted. Despite this truth, when Sasha does meet up with her friends, she feels very genuine when reconnecting. True, she’s easily annoyed by the Plantars who cope with her presence by joking around, but she does control herself, at least at first. Really, it’s with Anne and Marcy when Sasha shows a convincing friendly demeanor. Around the dinner table, like friends often do, they engage in small talk over things like the meal, each other’s outfits, and past memories. Said memories give insight to the girls’ dynamics during times when they used to do extreme stunts like ditching a play to have a loud dance party on the school roof. However, when Anne getting grounded as a result comes up, there’s noticeable regret from Sasha’s like she’s seeing consequences of such behavior. This is more of a showing of her complexities than her coming to a true realization as shown when everyone goes from dinner to a game.
There are amusing moments where various characters draw something and everyone somehow guesses them correctly. When it comes to Sasha, her turn brings out the more aggressive parts to her. For one thing, her competitive nature leads her to gloat relentlessly at the Plantars when she guesses a drawing correctly. However, during her turn, when she draws something very easy to guess, the Plantars relate it to what happened with her at Toad Tower, angering her. It’s hard to tell if they mean this or if they're messing with her. If it’s the latter, it’s going too far with coping with their past encounter with Sasha. Anne sympathizes with the Plantars and defends them, leading her and Sasha to intensely argue. All Marcy can do is try to get them to stop, insisting that they don’t split up, like she’s desperate for all her friends to stay together.
They all get a chance to work together when they have to face what Grime brought for dessert. It seems like a simple big chocolate cake, but it steams like a volcano, and like with most things in this world, there’s a violent catch. They have to fight a bunch of hornets with paralyzing stingers while the room fills with chocolate lava. Through resourceful thinking, the girls find ways to counteract the effects of the stingers, and beat the hornets as the lava hardens. After that, all seems well with the girls with Sasha civilly admitting that she’s unable to change because she likes who she is, but is able to see how Anne’s grown up.
Then with the cartoon ending with everyone enjoying the remains of the battle as dessert, it’s convincing that maybe Sasha has changed after all. The answers for that will come in time, but on the whole, despite some questionable moments, this cartoon is a nice gathering of characters as the story nears its next big event.
A
Battle of the Bands
In many ways, this cartoon continues the leisurely feel of the previous one. As a long-awaited event of Anne and her friends being able to return home is imminent, levity is prominent in leading up to that event. In fact, it’s even stated that the town could use some good levity right now, especially with old foes of Sasha and Grime coming to visit. While what goes on is mostly in the name of fun, it stands strong with endearing ways of developing characters as well as friendships.
Wartwood decides on a battle of the bands for their choice of levity, which in turn leaves a lot of promise for exciting musical performances. Most of the focus though is unsurprisingly on Anne, Sasha, and Marcy and their act which is appropriate since it’s revealed that they used to have a band back home. Anne has written a song about Amphibia at some point and wants to perform that. Despite all her thought and care put into the song and its performance, Sasha can’t help but take control of everything. She objects to all of Anne’s ideas, and reworks basically all elements of it to the point where it doesn’t even feel like her song anymore. Through the disagreement, things do keep from getting tense with Sasha accepting that she’s getting too controlling. Since that doesn’t jive well with Anne, she decides to leave the band with Marcy to start their own act so everyone can both have the musical freedom they want.
That’s honestly a solid sign of growth on Sasha’s part, becoming aware of her own behavior and how that affects others. She even finds a new partner in the mayor’s assistant, Toadie, who also gives her what she wants as someone who does what she says no matter what. However, when actually having this, she starts to see that maybe it’s not as great or fulfilling as she thought. There is something to gain from Toadie as a partner as he gives her sound advice on how being a good friend means being there for them, even if you’re not always in control. This is the kind of lesson Sasha needs to learn, and it works to have come from someone fully devoted to serving someone.
Toadie’s words come into play at the actual battle of the bands, which open with short scenes of performances from various Wartwood citizens, each one amusing on their own. Then comes Anne and Marcy’s performance going all out with heart, soul, musical passion, and insight on how being in Amphibia has led to significant growth. The song, “No Big Deal,” fully captures the feel of the series with huge ties to being stuck in a strange world, learning to adjust, and ultimately feeling at home there. It’s easy to see how personal it is to characters like Anne, and the moving tune and onstage spectacles sell it as a truly grand performance. That’s not even mentioning the character growth on Sasha’s part when she’s not only moved by the song like everyone else, but also driven to enhance it with a guitar solo. Consider this a symbolic way of Anne and her friends coming together as their time in Amphibia seems to reach its end. The same is true for how well Sasha takes losing the competition to, of all things, Grime playing a three-hour harp piece. The final scene of Anne taking a group photo with just about everyone in Wartwood captures a calm reassuring feeling that all will be well with the main goal imminent. However, it’s best to also consider the concept of ‘the calm before the storm.’
While the audience will be in for surprises both exciting and heavy going forward, a fun, at times musical, romp that also showcases significant character growth is just what’s needed.
A+
Fan Art
Series Ranking
1.
Hopping
Mall
2.
Reunion
3.
Marcy at the Gates
4.
Toad Tax
5.
The First Temple
6.
Battle of the Bands
7.
Barrel’s
Warhammer
8.
Anne vs Wild
9.
The Domino Effect
10.
The Third Temple
11.
Toadcatcher
12.
Prison Break
13.
The Second Temple
14.
A Day at the Aquarium
15.
Anne of the Year
16.
Contagi-Anne
17.
The
Shut-In
18.
Best Fronds
19.
After
the Rain
20.
Family Shrub
21. The Dinner
22.
Hop-Popular
23.
Anne Hunter
24.
Wally and Anne
25.
Children of the Spore
26.
Friend
or Frobo
27.
A Night at the Inn
28.
Bessie
and MicroAngelo
29.
Handy Anne
30.
Scavenger Hunt
31.
Lily Pad Thai
32.
Dating Season
33.
Anne or Beast?
34.
Combat Camp
35.
Little Frogtown
36.
Cursed!
37.
Snow Day
38.
Civil Wart
39.
Maddie and Marcy
40.
Stakeout
41.
Croak and Punishment
42.
Taking Charge
43.
Flood, Sweat, and Tears
44.
Bizarre Bazaar
45.
The Plantars Check In
46.
The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers
47.
Wax Museum
48.
Return
to Wartwood
49.
Sprig Gets Schooled
50.
Swamp and Sensibility
51.
Trip to the Archives
52.
Toad
to Redemption
53.
Anne Theft Auto
54.
Hop Luck
55.
New Wartwood
56.
Ivy on the Run
57.
Night
Drivers
58.
Quarreler’s
Pass
59.
Hop Pop and Lock
60.
Plantar’s Last Stand
61.
Fort in the Road
62.
A Caravan Named Desire
63.
The Big Bugball Game
64.
Fiddle Me This
65.
Truck Stop Polly
66.
Family Fishing Trip
67.
The Ballad of Hoppediah Plantar
68.
Girl Time
69.
Breakout Star
70.
Grubhog Day
71.
Cane Crazy
72.
Lost in Newtopia
73.
Sprig vs Hop Pop
74.
Cracking Mrs. Croaker
Really keep the idea of calm before the storm in mind because the next and last episode of Amphibia Season 2 is the heavy-hitting finale, "True Colors."
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the first part of The Owl House Season 2 finale, "Clouds on the Horizon."
If you would like to check out other Amphibia reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
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