A Boy and His DC-700XE / The Monster and the Queen - (Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 4 Episode 13) - 'Toon Reviews 38

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By now, Marco’s reputation on Mewni has grown a lot, and Tom has matured significantly up to the point of being open to hang out with someone who used to be his sworn enemy.  That’s the biggest reason for this episode to exist where it’s revealed that Marco has his own team of dragon-cyclers specializing in huge dangerous drives through dimensions.  The team consists of all the interdimensional beings other than Star Marco has established a strong connection with like Kelly, Hekapoo, and Talon.  There’s also a Quirky Guy named Quirky Guy who is just along for the rides and doesn’t offer much apart from random offhand comments.  If you’re into biker gangs, this team-up should be the least bit interesting to see. 

On this day, Marco surprises everyone by revealing that he’s allowed Tom to join them for dragon-cycling, apparently including an annual jump of a crevice called Devil’s Mark.  The catch is that Tom is portrayed as way more inept than average when it comes to dragon-cycling.  He’s clearly going along with this because it seems cool and not because he actually wants to.  There are several key factors to the sport he simply fumbles through like keeping the dragon-cycle’s eyes covered when driving it and fearing it instead of trusting it.  It’s staged pretty awkwardly and certainly doesn’t grant him the best reputation among Marco’s gang.  For that, a lot of time is spent on Marco splitting from the team trying to help Tom get started with dragon-cycling. 

At this point, even if Tom is clearly faking interest in riding a dragon-cycle, it’s still hard to believe that he’d have this hard a time grasping how to work such a vehicle/creature hybrid.  If that’s not enough, right in the middle of this awkward sequence is an offhand resolution to one of the relationship aspects of this season.  When Tom’s dragon-cycle is finally airborne, he asks Marco about how he and Kelly are doing, and Marco just casually says that they’re not an item anymore.  This is confirmed by the next immediate scene where Kelly unnaturally casually tells this to the other dragon-cyclers.  This has got to be the most half-hearted way of ending a couple ever.  Not only does it make everything devoted to bringing Marco and Kelly together pointless, it also feels like an afterthought in an otherwise inconsequential escapade.  It also catches the audience off-guard since all their appearances together showed Marco and Kelly to genuinely enjoy being a couple. 

After that tacked on resolution, Tom’s dragon-cycle conflict is settled when it’s time to jump Devil’s Mark where riders literally get a fist mark of a devil punched into them.  Tom states the obvious about only doing this to be cool enough for Marco as if his constant awkwardness didn’t give it away.  I still say it’s a good sign of friendship between the two of them, and Marco does give some interesting words to inspire Tom’s final actions.  Tom decides to let his dragon-cycle go free with the wild rider-less ones, and jumps Devil’s Mark with his fire flight powers instead, and everyone’s impressed with that.  Really, pulling off the stunt his own way is something worth being impressed over, so I can call this conclusion good.  It may be in an episode that mostly eats up air time and treats resolutions to big plot points like nothing, but it’s handled well enough as a work on its own.

B

The Monster and the Queen

Certain parts of this show may have catches that prevent them from being as great as they could be, but there’s at least one thing about it I can give the utmost praise to.  It’s all about the characterization and background of Eclipsa.  Even with her bad reputation and at times controversial decisions she gets called out for, she’s such a well-written and entertaining character.  She never lets the animosity towards her and her decisions get her down, but also shows some consideration towards getting the kingdom to like her as a queen.  One other big thing about her is her elopement to the king of all monsters Globgor, and this episode gives endearing insight to how they are as a couple. 

It unfolds the moment Star realizes that the piece of the destroyed Book of Spells she’s kept in her closet is missing.  This is a suggestion that Eclipsa’s gotten hold of it to put it back together and free Globgor from his crystal prison.  From there, there’s an effective mystery of how she ultimately ends up meeting him for a date.  It could be that she freed him although there are no fragments of crystal.  It could also just be a flashback since there are apparently no Mewmans active in the kingdom as they go about their way. 

Either way, there’s an interesting characterization to the first time Globgor is shown to be active which can catch the audience off guard in a good way.  Rather than mean and threatening, he’s very charming and a supportive partner to Eclipsa.  Just from their conversations you can easily see the purity of their love, especially during a love ballad of their desires for when they don’t have to date in secrecy.  Globgor’s creative ability to shapeshift during any given circumstance helps the appeal as well. 

As for development to his apparent monstrous qualities, they mostly appear in his passes for humor as he jokes about hatred for and attacks on Mewmans.  He doesn’t mean it as it’s reported that he’s a vegetarian, but they do feel genuinely frightening.  Even so, it does question the validity of a claim that he ate Eclipsa’s Mewman husband. 

Then following a long-winded spiel of Globgor’s fabricated story he and Eclipsa see characters of, it’s finally revealed that this interaction is taking place inside Globgor’s mind.  It turns out Eclipsa just used a spell to go inside his mind just to be with him and tell him that she’s going to let his body out with a spell involving a rooster crow.  The best thing about this is that Globgor maturely decides that he should not be let out until Mewni is ready to see him, and without a doubt, this kingdom is not.  Further showing the strength of her relationship with him, Eclipsa doesn’t argue and concedes that this is for the best, no matter how much she wants to see him again.  She also has no trouble admitting this to Star who confronts her about her actions while also admitting that she used that spell to go into Star’s mind to get the book piece.  So to ensure an end to these disturbing spells, the episode ends with Star setting out to give Eclipsa a coronation so Mewni will have no choice but to take her seriously as queen. 

With the genuine tone of her decision to keep Globgor imprisoned, things seem set up for Eclipsa to truly embrace being a Queen of Mewni.  However, you can’t help but wonder, or even hope, that this isn’t the last we’ll see of the couple.  It’s all because of a well-written endearing love story between a monster and a queen that shows mature consideration to both sides of a conflict.  If only all this show’s conflicts were like this.

A+

The Ranking

1.      The Monster and the Queen

2.      Escape from the Pie Folk

3.      Meteora’s Lesson

4.      Swim Suit

5.      Cornball!

6.      Yada Yada Berries

7.      Moon Remembers

8.      Junkin’ Janna

9.      Queen-Napped

10.  Ghost of Butterfly Castle

11.  The Knight Shift

12.  Ransomgram

13.  Butterfly Follies

14.  Kelly’s World

15.  A Boy and His DC-700XE

16.  Surviving the Spiderbites

17.  A Spell With No Name

18.  Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell

19.  Down By the River

20.  Out of Business

21.  Lake House Fever

22.  The Ponyhead Show

23.  The Curse of the Blood Moon

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode on Eclipsa's coronation and the whole experience delivering on delightful classic Disney-style charm.
But before that, stay tuned for a special review for Valentine's Day.

If you would like to check out other Star vs the Forces of Evil reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

Junkin' Janna / A Spell With No Name (Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 4 Episode 12) - 'Toon Reviews 38

If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:

Junkin’ Janna

Right away you know that this episode is going to focus solely on mindless fun, but it’s very good mindless fun regardless.  It follows the perfect character for such a tone, Janna, one of the biggest ‘anything goes’ members of the cast.  However, in her fun, Janna does bring out some development in a few lingering plot threads.  

She brings Tom along with her to help him find out what to do with himself when Star has other matters she needs to deal with alone.  Fitting for her character, she invites Tom along for the unusual yet really fun activity of ‘boot-sledding.’  It involves finding a big boot at the top of a junk pile, and jumping inside it while it’s pushed down a hill.  From a staging perspective, it’s very convincing that such an activity is very exciting, kind of making you wish boots that big existed in real life.  

As for Tom, he visibly still has things to work through as he’s constantly texting or sending selfies to Star via his compact mirror phone.  Soon, bigger matters interfere with the fun when Janna spots a crow who’s apparently been giving her trouble ever since she discovered boot-sledding.  She wants Tom to blast it with his fire power, but in accordance with his legitimate development, he refuses, saying the bird is too innocent to get struck.  However, even when the crow proves to be not so innocent and steals Janna’s boot, he still refuses which is a bit stubborn of Tom even though he’s not trying to be that.  

At the same time, this fun time is inter-cut with scenes of what Star is doing.  She and Eclipsa are called for a meeting with the Magic High Commission who stall for time and leave both of them incredibly frustrated.  I also have to wonder why Eclipsa even keeps the Magic High Commission around after their plot to erase her daughter from the Butterfly family lineage.  Their issues don’t even have weight to them either.  They claim that dark magic spells that have been forbidden for a long time have been active in Eclipsa’s domain.  From what I can tell, the only dark magic that’s been used since Eclipsa took over was the all-seeing eye which has been around since Season 2.  Also, this is another plot point brought up this season that is never explored anywhere else, so it’s really just a time waster built on mostly unwarranted scorn towards Eclipsa.  

Really, the true dark magic comes from where Janna and Tom find the boot the crow stole.  It takes it to the ruined Butterfly castle, and is seemingly using it to build its nest.  The magic is revealed when Tom finally blasts the crow, but doing so reveals that the crow is actually a demon with a true monstrous form.  He and Janna then have to escape for their lives and leave the boot behind, although the thrill of adventure is satisfying enough for them, especially Tom. Opting to leave his phone, his only communication to Star, behind is symbolic of him not being solely defined by his relationship.  As for the crow, it further leads itself to the true magical disturbance as the episode ends with it returning to its master, Mina Loveberry.  She uses the obtained boot to construct her own magic warrior, foreshadowing Season 4’s action set piece.  Then again, when you consider that crows were associated with her in her previous appearance, it’s not surprising that she has something to do with this.  Overall, this episode shows just how big things can get when working off of something simply done for fun.

A

A Spell With No Name

As a matter of hurting this episode’s potential, it’s yet another one about the spells living inside the royal Butterfly family wand.  I was never a fan of these episodes as they offered little point in personifying the spells, and the stories themselves never mined the setup for genuine imagination.  Half the time, the spells weren’t even that likable.  To this episode’s credit, this has the biggest point of existence out of all the spell-centered episodes there are.  

The first big sign of this is the particular spell it chooses to follow.  By contrast, the last two episodes about the spells mainly followed Spider with a Top Hat, someone trying way too hard to be a fighter, never accepting that he’s hardly qualified for it.  He was simply a weak lead with a lot of concerning issues.  The lead for this episode is the Narwhal of Star’s famed Narwhal Blast, who has a lot more credibility as a true powerful spell, and is shown to be a good family man.  When all of Star’s spells gather for a pancake breakfast at the start of the episode, Narwhal makes it his mission just to find more syrup for his son, showing true dedication.  

This is made difficult when the breakfast is intercepted by a group of Eclipsa’s spells.  Their actions leave pretty dangerous impressions as they beat Spider by stripping him of self-esteem and capture a glowworm spell.  Now Narwhal has to try and settle this matter by tracking down the team of spells to save Glowworm.  When doing so, the morality of Eclipsa’s spells starts becoming confusing.  They appeared villainous through how they attacked everyone’s breakfast, but are worried for the spells’ well-being.  They’re tracking down a very dangerous spell that, according to the episode title, has no name.  It’s also a spell that really means business as it passes through one of Eclipsa’s spells, destroying it for good.  This right here gives a lot of background to how magic works on this show as well as legit reasons to why Eclipsa lacks so much trust.  Holding a spell like that which can kill anything in its path with no effort is bound to hurt a reputation.  You’d probably think it’s the same one Moon once used against Toffee though a later episode shows that it has slightly different words to it.  

As for now, it leaves legit stakes for all the spells in the wand, and Eclipsa’s spells are soon without a proper means to get it in a pickle jar out of harm’s way.  It’s here, though, when Narwhal shows value in the mission with one of the whale’s natural abilities, echolocation.  While it makes sense from an implied biological standpoint, this reveal could have been benefited by at least one showing of it in a past episode.  Otherwise, it just feels like an out of nowhere revealed existing to offer a quick fix to the conflict.  The pancake breakfast with plenty of syrup going great after the spell is caught in the jar is at least decent enough to justify the fix.  

There’s also an attempt at raising tension with the last scene of Narwhal looking to the imprisoned spell with no name with worry.  Unlike most plot points in this season, this one does turn up again justifying the worry.  However, no instance in any other episode implies how it can actually escape that jar so the building tension isn’t necessarily perfect. Thankfully, the showing of such a deadly spell as well as actual creative ways of showing the wand’s inner workings and a likable character at the lead benefit this spell episode.  Considering their reputation, at least from my view, this is certainly a relief.

B

The Ranking

1.      Escape from the Pie Folk

2.      Meteora’s Lesson

3.      Swim Suit

4.      Cornball!

5.      Yadda Yadda Berries

6.      Moon Remembers

7.      Junkin’ Janna

8.      Queen-Napped

9.      Ghost of Butterfly Castle

10.  The Knight Shift

11.  Ransomgram

12.  Butterfly Follies

13.  Kelly’s World

14.  Surviving the Spiderbites

15.  A Spell With No Name

16.  Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell

17.  Down By the River

18.  Out of Business

19.  Lake House Fever

20.  The Ponyhead Show

21.  The Curse of the Blood Moon

 

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode featuring Marco inviting Tom to a Dragon Cycle gang, and Eclipsa getting up to actual endearment in a date with her monster husband.

The Knight Shift / Queen-Napped (Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 4 Episode 11) - 'Toon Reviews 38

If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:

The Knight Shift

If anyone’s forgotten that Marco only came back to Mewni and later took a position as a squire just to be with Star like they used to, I wouldn’t blame them.  With so much that’s happened in the series at this point, Marco’s original intentions as well as being a squire hasn’t been discussed much.  As a result, the episode starting off with a ceremony where he along with other Mewmans and a few monsters being promoted to knighthood doesn’t feel too earned.  Don’t get me wrong, Marco has accomplished a lot of huge action services to deserve such a promotion, but a little mention of his squire status beforehand would have been welcome.  Plus, his knighthood ceremony held by Eclipsa is nicely staged and perfectly explains why he’s being promoted. 

In addition, the story brings to mind some of the other big aspects of Marco’s life which go beyond anything to do with Mewni.  After the ceremony, he’s met by a man who looks eerily similar to Mr. Candle the career counselor from Echo Creek even though he claims to be different from him.  Marco discovers that in being a knight, he must take up a full time position to serve the Mewni elite.  This meaning that he’ll have to hold his knighthood for the rest of his life, Marco feels that the best thing for him to do is resign.  It’s here where all the other parts of his life Marco has left behind for so long come to attention.  Not only does he have his education to think of, but one past episode has revealed that his family will be having a baby soon.  It’s only natural that he’d think about being there. 

At the same time, Star hears about this and is visibly distressed that she and Marco will have to part ways at some point.  The way she takes it practically suggests that even with the passing of the Blood Moon Curse, Marco is just too special to her.  Other knights, on the other hand, are more concerned of Marco getting the knight title just to throw it away.  When all the new knights are ‘captured’ for a party by Mewni’s experienced knights, once Marco reveals to them he’s resigning, at Mr. Candle’s command, they straight up attack him.  Actually, the attacks consist of tickling his foot while he’s tied to a chair which doesn’t seem threatening at all. 

Even so, their disappointment in Marco is genuine as they call out just being handled the squire position and doing away with it, making it seem like he really didn’t deserve any of it.  Marco, however does insist that he’s had plenty of knightly accomplishments, particularly all the years he spend in other dimensions.  He even gets a chance to prove this as the knights threaten to destroy a cape that Star made for him.  Following a threatening speech, he breaks from his bonds and beats up the one knight majorly, successfully retrieving the cape.  With his bravado officially proved, Marco then gives the other new knights a chance to face what he did by sending them to that very dimension.  They’re shallow enough to take the offer as well as show disdain over not getting to keep their abs and strength in their home dimension. 

The entire sequence proves to be an interesting way to show that Marco is capable as a knight despite giving it up.  Even so, it’s very nice that he’s at his happiest as he joins Star in watching the sunrise as he gives her a cape of her own.  As a result, this episode may follow up on an underdeveloped topic, but prepares the audience for events to come well.

A

Queen-Napped

With the right execution, the most despicable of story directions can be acceptable on the whole.  That’s where the appeal of this particular episode lies as it sets up a threatening situation leading to a wild chase that later on hardly even matters, and yet it all works. 

The story is that Eclipsa is discovered missing with a ransom message written on the wall of her bedroom.  It gets the attention of Star, Marco, Janna, and Pony Head and they’re left in bewilderment of who could possibly have been powerful enough to kidnap the queen of Mewni.  At least three of the four characters feel that way as Pony Head seems too eager about posting updates of Eclipsa’s disappearance as part of her show.  Given Pony Head is generally selfish, this isn’t enough to raise any questions at the moment though. 

Anyway, with the aid of the all-seeing eye spell, Star gets the impression that Eclipsa is in a fiery dimension taken by a group of demons.  Her first course of action is to inform the kingdom of this, but the Mewmans’ denseness, even with the apparent progress of acceptance, persists as they don’t care.  However, as Pony Head, promotor of the kidnapping, informs them of this, the Mewmans are suddenly invested in what happens to her.  Despite this, saving Eclipsa is all up to Star and her friends now.  With a plethora of riddles in the form of hidden messages, the search leads them to a variety of settings of different nature.  There’s the underworld, a graveyard, and even a realm of mermaids. 

As various in locales as this search is, things get suspicious from here.  Pony Head constantly points out where they should be going.  Normally this would be seen as another instance of her selfishness, but then you see the backgrounds of where Eclipsa is being held constantly changing. Eventually, after Star goes after what seems like the most likely suspect upon entering the mermaid dimension, she utilizes smart deduction.  When a riddle relates itself to a reflection, Star connects it to video cameras, just like the one Pony Head uses for her show. 

This sets into motion the reveal of the despicable part of this entire kidnapping plot.  It never existed, and Eclipsa was never in any real danger.  She was held at Pony Head’s studio with changing backgrounds, and a monster skin covering her eyes was actually a video game.  If that’s not enough, the group of demons were actually Pony Head’s sisters.  For getting her all worked up for nothing, it would be most appropriate for Star to just disown Pony Head as a friend.  However, even full-of-herself characters like Pony Head have their benefits based on what it does for Eclipsa’s reputation.  Unlike the other episode of her show, this one is given a lot of acclaim with all the Mewman audience praising Eclipsa being rescued as if she was a special guest star.  Star even understands the benefits, and while she doesn’t shake off the fact that this was a dirty false alarm, she is grateful that Eclipsa really is continuing to find love.  It still shows denseness since she needed to be a guest on a vanity show to do it though. 

With interesting ways of settling season long matters as well as fun and variety in settings and character interactions, I can call this episode solid.  Pony Head is still a pretty bad character, just saying.

A

 

The Ranking

1.      Escape from the Pie Folk

2.      Meteora’s Lesson

3.      Swim Suit

4.      Cornball!

5.      Yadda Yadda Berries

6.      Moon Remembers

7.      Queen-Napped

8.      Ghost of Butterfly Castle

9.      The Knight Shift

10.  Ransomgram

11.  Butterfly Follies

12.  Kelly’s World

13.  Surviving the Spiderbites

14.  Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell

15.  Down By the River

16.  Out of Business

17.  Lake House Fever

18.  The Ponyhead Show

19.  The Curse of the Blood Moon

 

 

 

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode of Janna showing Tom a good time, and yet another look at the mundane lives of the Butterfly family spells.

If you would like to check out other Star vs the Forces of Evil reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.