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Escaping Expulsion
The first episode of this season was a great reintroduction to the main characters and their dynamic. However, as strong as those characters are, other members of the cast are welcome ways to broaden the appeal and directions the overall show can go. Examples of such characters include the friends Luz has made at the local magic school, Hexside. They include her first true friends always willing and able to support her however they can, Willow and Gus. Then there is one other friend much deeper and brimming with potential all the way.
To give context to this character, it’s necessary to explore
the family she comes from, the Blight family.
Visual clues like the family owning a mansion and their children being
top of their class suggest that the Blights are a very important family to look
out for. However, their prominence is
most apparent in the arc of their youngest daughter, Amity. Her first moments of the series present her as a
stuck-up mean girl who loves to boast about her accomplishments to anyone
beneath her, in other words, someone totally unlikeable. Then almost immediately after her
introductory episode, the show is quick to delve deep into her character,
revealing many layers that make her a greatly defined personality. Rather than inherently mean, Amity turns out
to be an innocent girl pressured into perfection and forced to conceal her softer
emotions, only showing them where she feels safe. Luz coming into her life is when things start
changing for the better for Amity. Since
Luz treats her well with kindness and acceptance no matter what, she gets a
place where she can let down her uptight façade and be her true self. It isn’t long before not only does Amity
improve herself as well as her social life, but even grows to love this human
girl, in a romantic way no less. For
someone meant to be a supporting character, Amity really astounds with how much
there is to her and her story. She feels
so big and important that it seems off-putting that she ended up being the only major character sidelined at
the end of Season 1 just as the bigger plot elements kicked in. Thankfully, being an animated work of fiction, this show
does not follow the real world logic of how long broken legs usually recover,
and now Amity is back and able to continue her arc. In fact, with how this episode plays out,
it’s way more understandable why she was kept out of the action in the previous
season’s end. It all relates to people
who have had the biggest control over her life, her parents.
The only way the Blight parents have been shown prior to this episode was in a flashback where they forced a young Amity to cut ties with her old best friend, Willow. In fact, it now feels like blatant foreshadowing for current events that they mentioned they’d make sure she’d never be admitted into Hexside. The dark foreboding atmosphere of that flashback is also right on the money for what goes down here. Anyway, as this episode begins, the audience is officially introduced to what these parents are really like. In a surprising twist, they specialize in an industrial company that sells abomination based weapons and self-defense devises. Considering a big showcase where they sell them to investors, it’s no wonder the Blights are so rich. As for the parents themselves, Alador, the father, is the technical mastermind behind the inventions. The big thing about him is that he’s never all there a lot of the time, getting easily distracted by little things and barely responding to the demands of his wife. Perhaps you could say he represents someone in the spectrum very well. Still, he’s the lesser of the two evils as he still goes along with the controlling ways of his wife without consent. Speaking of her, Odalia, the mother, clearly is the most powerful in the family in many respects. Amidst her flamboyance and eccentricities when selling her products, there’s a darkness to her that perfectly captures the feel of the aforementioned flashback.
During the showcase, Amity comes in to
demonstrate the family’s products. If
her blank emotionless expressions aren’t enough to show how she feels about
being her parents, consider a necklace Amity wears. It’s only been shown once in present day as
well as a prominent part of her attire when she was younger. Here, the necklace is more than just an
accessory. It’s connected to another one
Odalia has where she uses oracle magic to communicate her thoughts to Amity,
pressuring her to perfection like she’s always done. It’s straight-up emotional abuse that also
robs Amity of any source of free will.
In this case, she’s supposed to pull off a demonstration with a brand
new abomination based robot to earn forgiveness for an apparently lackluster
performance in school. All goes well
until Amity sees the robot about to crush a photo of her and her true friends,
Luz, Willow, and Gus, at Grom. As she
saves the photo, destroying the robot and killing the spirits of the investors
in the process, she shows no hesitation in showing warm and caring
emotions. This group of friends is the
best source of happiness she has now, and she clearly doesn’t want to lose it. In fact, her carrying around that picture is
endearingly telling of how she wants to keep her friends around wherever she
goes. Odalia, on the other hand, only
caring about status and profit, feels this happiness is a major distraction to
Amity, and it must be dealt with. This
in turn sends the episode’s events into a real heavy-hitting direction.
The next day at Hexside, Luz returns after an apparent break
following Eda’s near-petrification.
There’s happiness all around from an excitable reunion with Willow and
Gus, and Amity follows up on her crush on Luz by offering her a thoughtful
pie…in spite of live fairies in the crust.
As Luz puts it, having some form of normalcy is very refreshing after
everything that’s happened, and it’s endearing that it’s all from her closest
friends. Seconds later, all this
happiness is promptly snuffed out when Odalia and Alador suddenly appear and
call the four friends to the principal’s office. However, it’s Luz, Willow, and Gus who are
the main targets of this interrogation.
Amity’s parents list some of the escapades they were part of at school,
and deem them bad influences on the student body, including Amity. As a result, a decision is made to ruin the
three’s growing potential as witches by expelling them from Hexside. I’m confident much of the audience can see
that Luz, Willow, and Gus don’t deserve something so extreme. They may have been the center of the
shenanigans that have occurred throughout the series, but they still mean well,
are good at heart, and always make things right. Even Principal Bump sees this as he clearly
doesn’t want to go through with this, but since Odalia and Alador apparently
outrank him, he has no choice.
For quite some time afterward, the episode does not hold back
on showing how badly expulsions can ruin kids’ lives. Luz, Willow, and Gus are left to wallow in
grief over being kicked out of their right to education so unjustly. Their attempts to change Bump’s mind may be
intentionally comedic, but how much they fail to resolve anything kind of
hurts. There is at least good heart in
the matter with Bump further proving he doesn’t want to be this hard on them,
breaking down every time he keeps them away.
It shows he really does care for those kids and school wouldn’t be the
same without them. It’s certainly more
heartfelt than how Willow and Gus’s dads take it. Despite them being extremely innocent in the
matter, the dads hear their kids were expelled and instantly ground them for
years.
They could have at least let them explain how this happened. Scenes like this are pretty hard to watch,
but they do showcase how much of a miserable experience being expelled can be
for anyone living through them. It’s felt more here from being because of two awful people abusing their authority suddenly showing up to
shamelessly ruin the lives of the innocent for completely ludicrous reasons.
This steers us to how Amity reacts and approaches to all of
this. It’s very clear that all her
unlikable qualities expressed in her first appearances were all a result of the
influence of her parents she’s experienced since childhood. Only recently has she found true friends through Luz and the others, and that’s given her a healthy
outlet to be her true self. You can only
imagine how devastating it is to see this outlet basically be taken away from
her. As soon as Odalia and Alador
infringe on her ties with Luz, Willow, and Gus, Amity is forced to witness
their power over what means the most to her.
Her glares of defiance at her mother as she brands her friends as bad
influences show she doesn’t believe the claims at all and would rebel against them if
she could. In fact, with how her arc has
gone and how much this friend group means to her, it would very appropriate to
anticipate Amity standing up to her parents and call them out. The thing is though, they’ve had control over
her since childhood, and that one flashback is enough to reveal how terrifying
they are to her. They might not
necessarily be what Amity fears the most, but they still have an impact. As a result, her parents’ influence is still there
in present day despite how far she’s come as a character, demonstrated through
Odalia communicating to her through that necklace again. If that’s not enough, this whole thing is to
teach Amity a lesson to not be distracted from business matters. Since Amity’s
ties to her friends kept her from making up for her slipping performance, this
basically means she can’t have priorities other than what her family feels is
important. Heck, Odalia even berates
Amity for being in the office to watch the expulsion instead of class, even
though she’s the one who called down her daughter in the first place. That’s toxic all around and Amity knows it,
but the cold authoritarian rule of her mother hits her so hard, she can’t do anything about it.
Perhaps other than time and focus needed for other things, this
is a reason why Amity was kept out of the Season 1 finale despite her being
built up as a big important character.
Joining Luz and the others in rebelling against the emperor would have
meant directly bringing a bad name to the Blights’ status. She would have openly defied her family’s
wishes without a way to hide it. As this episode shows, she was not in the
right position to do so, though she likely would have wanted to be. In fact, the present episode brings clear
indication that Amity indeed wants to do the right thing in standing up to her
parents’ cruel authority. As Luz is
dragged out of school begging for Amity to advocate for her and her friends,
Amity gives a look of regret over saying nothing and letting all this
happen. Later on, she finds Luz and even
apologizes for being a coward. She knows
that not doing anything was wrong and that Luz, Willow, and Gus don’t deserve
what they got, but she can’t help it because of how frightening her parents
are. This mindset make perfect sense,
considering that she did, after all, admit that she was too weak to be Willow’s
friend all those years ago. One very
heartfelt aspect of this direction though is how Luz handles it. It must be devastating for her to witness
Amity not help her even when she begs for it, and it would be easy to have her grow
bitter at Amity because of this.
However, that’s just not the person Luz is. She shows that she understands why Amity was
unable to stand up to her parents; all because of the dominance they
express, especially her mother. There’s
no judgement, no scorn, and nothing that stops her from wanting to still
be Amity’s friend. Still, Luz holds onto
hope that Amity can find the strength to help her and her friends out of this
situation even as Amity insists that she can’t.
All this is why Luz and her friends are the best people for Amity to
have in her life, why it makes sense for her to love Luz, and why it’s painful
that her parents just tore them apart.
Out of Luz’s attempts to get Amity to help is a tie to the
best chance at resolving everything. At
one point, Odalia tells Luz that they can come to an agreement on getting back
into school. There are warning signs to
this like the general attitude of the Blight parents, Willow and Gus dismissing
going through with it, and Amity insisting that Luz doesn’t even have to do
that. However, as before with taking on
life-threatening danger for Eda in the last episode, Luz doesn’t let any
warnings stop her. Something harmful to
her and her friends status as witches has occurred and she feels guilty, even
though this whole thing is just unfair and unprecedented. It’s also apparent that the only way anything
good can happen is to confront the instigators and get something out of it as
opposed to doing nothing like Amity’s led to do.
As the big hero she always strives to be, Luz goes in what seems like
the most responsible direction. Still,
there’s genuine emotion here as she claims that Willow and Gus don’t deserve to
be going through this, but doesn’t advocate for herself. It’s like she still sees herself as a burden
without any legit value. It’s really no
wonder why she feels like she has to risk everything for the good of
everyone. Ultimately, when visiting
Odalia and Alador, Luz strikes a deal where she, Willow, and Gus can go back to
school if she demonstrates the Blights’ inventions at their showcase. On the surface that doesn’t sound so bad
until you consider the Blights’ general nature.
As every abomination based weapon progresses, the ulterior motives to
the deal become clearer, and soon Luz’s friends find out as well.
The whole expulsion deal has been very miserable for everyone
involved, but that just makes the final climactic resolution extremely
rewarding. It starts when Amity arrives
home, ready to participate in the showcase as usual. Upon finding a note that her parents found a
replacement, Amity immediately senses something’s wrong that someone came to her place. Then when she finds a cute getup Luz put on
one of her family’s many abominations, she can easily tell that Luz is in
trouble. It’s at this point that so much
ire at her parents has built up to the point where Amity can’t stay a quiet
coward any longer. She busts Willow and
Gus out of their punishment and they sneak into the showcase to save Luz from
any potential danger. You see, the
Blight Industries weapons get more dangerous as the show goes on, and since
Amity is a part of the Blight family, her believing the worst makes sense. Sure enough, the most dangerous weapon of the
showcase is saved for last. It’s an
upgraded version of the abomination robot from earlier, and according to
Odalia, the robot won’t rest until its target is eliminated. Odalia was bad all along, but setting this
showcase up so Luz will get herself killed trying to beat this robot is even
lower than what’s been shown. It’s not
even necessary since she already has her money and a few brief demonstrations
get the point across perfectly. Plus,
just expelling Luz and her friends does enough to separate Amity from them, so
you can’t even amount this to teaching her daughter a lesson. Altogether, the Blight
parents are bad, but Odalia is without a doubt pure evil, and you’re just
anxious to see her get some comeuppance.
Thankfully, that’s the very route the story goes for.
It goes without saying that Amity has been the brightest spot in the Blight family with all her character development and clearest sense of heart. Even when held back by the fear of her parents’ authority here, she remains likable and longs to help her friends. Not only does she gain a much welcome backbone upon recognizing what Luz has gotten up to, but when Luz is in mortal danger, Amity jumps in to rescue in great style. Before the abomination robot can finish her, Amity unleashes a great display of magic to hold it back, telling it to “stay away from MY Luz”. This lets down the investors present, costing a lot more money for the Blights, but she doesn’t care. She’s out to save Luz’s life, and nothing will change that.
As for that necklace,
she doesn’t even hesitate to break it so that Odalia can’t control her anymore. By going through with this act, Amity lets it
be clear that she’s not going to let her parents push her around and fights for
what’s right. This point is further
enhanced by a monologue of how much she values her friendship with Luz, Willow,
and Gus, mainly how they inspire her to be who she wants to be, her best self. At that point, any doubt of the genuineness
of Amity’s change for the better from her cold unpleasing beginnings is easily
dispelled with this truth. She’s making
it clear that true friends who are nice and accepting are what she really
wants. Since her parents took them away
with their expulsion, Amity now thinks tactfully by going after what Odalia
wants most. She threatens to destroy the
robot and cost the Blights even more money if Odalia doesn’t lift the
expulsion. As Amity’s efforts have a
legit effect with profits going down rapidly, Odalia has no choice but to
comply with the deal. So Amity and her
true friends are back together and able to go to Hexside once more all because
of Amity standing up to her abusive parents.
It’s a natural progression for her, but building up to it through the
difficulty of facing her parents and the hardships of innocent students suffering
makes it so grand. The best way to make
grueling story directions work is to go all out with a pleasing
resolution. With Amity making her true
wants clear, fixing her friends’ rights to education, and turning out stronger
and truly happy as a result, the resolution is as pleasing as it could be. It goes to show how amazing of a character
she really is.
In addition, Amity’s act of heroism, seemingly unbeknownst to her, grants welcome progression in her romance with Luz. At this point, it’s expected for Amity to blush a lot around Luz, but when defending her like a fearless champion, it’s Luz who blushes at Amity, confirming the feelings mutual. This is big for this particular narrative thread since for the longest time, Amity’s done any sort of flirting that can’t be denied means she loves Luz. As for Luz, considering how she’s oblivious to Amity’s feelings due to a lot on her mind, anything that could be considered returning her love has not been nearly as clear. I personally feel that she’s always had some attraction to Amity that stands out from attraction to others. There’s always been an emphasis on intrigue in her, softness and sincerity in supporting/confiding in her, and wanting to include her in whatever she sets out to do. Then there is her tendency to go all out, almost to life-threatening extents, to help the people in their lives with problems. It’s been stated before that extreme acts of heroism are the only way Luz know how to help others. Coupled with how she’s currently blaming herself for every bad thing that’s happened, one could say this is her way of showing she cares. For her to realize feelings for someone, they would have to go to similar lengths for her. Looking at how she always had hope that Amity could help her despite her fear of her parents, it feels like she always looks at Amity as someone who can go those lengths.
Come the episode’s climax, Amity performs an extremely heroic gesture
saving Luz from possible death, telling off her mother, and threatening her family's welfare. It’s putting everything
on the line like this just for Luz that makes for the ideal lover for her. Therefore, it’s no wonder Luz would blush at
Amity. Next to Eda, she’s the only
person who seems to go so far for her.
This whole thing also makes for healthy relationship development for how
both Luz and Amity benefit from each other.
With the expulsion in place, their ways of handling it were both
flawed. Amity opted to stay quiet
towards her parents’ authority to avoid their wrath, but that would mean the
end of her ties with her true friends, and them facing fates they don't deserve.
Luz went through with the deal, but without a good plan, she nearly got
killed. The final resolution comes with
alterations to both approaches where friendships are restored and no one gets
hurt. They go through with facing
Amity’s parents, but do so with a plan of striking what Odalia loves the most
in order to blackmail her into going back on the expulsion. If this is how Luz and Amity as a couple will
function, the potential is high for a very healthy one worth supporting. Even though this show is not meant to be a
full on romance saga, how the featured characters are handled make this
storyline just as interesting and investing as every other major element.
Regarding what becomes of Odalia and Alador after all of this, it’s interesting that they’re left off as still a threat, but are also put in their place to some extent. Further demonstrating her as a horrible person, Odalia actually plans to make it impossible for Luz, Willow, and Gus to even have a chance to go back to Hexside after the deal. This doesn’t go through though as Alador calls out her hypocrisy, saying that as a Blight, she cannot go back on a deal, so she’s forced to keep her word. Even bigger is that they even come up with a reason to not interfere with Amity and her friend group, all for their own selfish motivations. They thought Amity was held back from greatness, but protecting Luz actually revealed that she's getting stronger. In fact, they find she’s becoming so strong, she could become a coven head. Considering the well-known association Amity has had with the Emperor’s Coven, I’d like to think that this adds to the belief that it was all what her parents wanted for her. Now they have an idea for something even bigger for her than merely joining a coven. Things being the way they are, even though Amity is happy now, they could very well use her strength used to ensure and protect her happiness to their advantage.
While the Blight parents still
leave a sense of menace, at the same time, they become manipulated
themselves. The episode ends with them
visited by the Golden Guard. He buys out
their entire stock of abomination robots, but only so Odalia and Alador can
make more for the Emperor’s Coven so Emperor Belos can keep them from starting an
army. Basically, they have a new tie to
the emperor, but are now pawns in his plans.
Lots of questions are begged for how they’ll go about this setup and how
this will affect their rule over their children. Also, the idea of Belos trying to stop
something like a private army suggests much paranoia within the background of his hold over the
Boiling Isles. If this is to keep other
witches in their place, that would explain the existence of the coven
system. So it’s easy to anticipate all
these restrictions backfiring on him in some way if Amity snapping after being
restricted from being herself all her life is any indication. The story itself is great as it is, but it’s
even better for how many of its elements leave strong anticipation for what
comes next.
As for subplots of this episode, the one present gives solid impressions for how Season 2 is going to handle them. Before, most subplots were random fun escapades that had little to no relation to the main story and could easily be written off. This one is disconnected from the main plot in terms of subject too, but it also brings up a lot of important details on the mythos of the series. In other words, it has good reason to watch it and find worth. It’s continuation to the idea of Eda and Lilith needing to cope with their lack of power from sharing Eda's curse. In accordance with Luz’s plans, they’re learning all the glyph magic she knows. The thing is, all she has to teach are four glyphs; light, ice, plant, and fire, and that’s not enough for witches anxious to get back the magic they lost.
All throughout, there’s a strong clash of personalities from these witch sisters’ approach to learning. Lilith, the more proper one, is very studious and honorable to Luz as her teacher, and it’s pretty adorable to watch her act as a loyal student. She follows the rules and sticks with the basics, and she’s able to advance very well at her own pace. Eda, with little surprise, is much more a class clown who’d rather rush to do the best spells instead of stay basic. Most of the subplot features her jealous of Lilith upstaging her, feeling competitive and desperate to master the ways of glyph magic. One could assume this kind of competitiveness was prevalent when the sisters were younger, leading to that infamous cursing. In any case, Eda’s need to upstage her sister leads to an ultimate experimentation of combining glyphs. Despite this experiment creating a mess of magic that almost consumes everything in the house, forcing Eda to call Lilith for help, something valuable is gained.
Eda actually had a
good idea through combing glyphs, and Lilith was able to approach it the right
way. Glyphs are like words in a sentence,
so combing glyphs a certain way creates a basis for all spells imaginable. So even if only four glyphs exist, they’re
all that’s needed to unlock all sorts of magical possibilities to the Boiling
Isles, apparently. The overall subplot
may not hold a candle to the main plot, but it does have plenty of merit with
what it shows of the characters, and intrigue on what there is to the concept
of glyphs.
The best episodes of the shows tend to be those that leave a
lot to talk about, and there’s certainly a trove of information to take in with
this episode. New characters are
introduced with threatening impressions; old ones get great development that
brings endearing resolutions after tedious conflicts dropped upon them; and
several interesting aspects of the series are taken in very pleasing
directions. Things get tough here,
fitting the dark impressions Dana Terrace always wanted for her show, but with
how all obstacles are overcome, you just can’t help but feel proud.
A+
Fan Art
Series Ranking
1.
Enchanting Grom Fright
2.
Agony of a Witch
3.
Escaping Expulsion
4.
Understanding Willow
5.
Lost in Language
6.
Adventures in the Elements
7.
The Intruder
8.
Covention
9.
Young Blood Old Souls
10. Separate Tides
11. Escape of the Palisman
12. Wing it Like Witches
13. The First Day
14. I Was a Teenage Abomination
15. Witches Before Wizards
16. Something Ventured, Someone Framed
17. A Lying Witch and a Warden
18. Sense and Insensitivity
19. Hooty’s Moving Hassle
20. Really Small Problems
21. Once Upon a Swap
The next Owl House review sets out to answer just about everything many people would probably ever want to know about King to near emotional results.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is an Amphibia review covering "The Ballad of Hopediah Plantar" and "Anne Hunter."
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