Andrew Bloom

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9

[7.8/10] There’s a lot to like about “Climax at Jazzapajizza”. As a fan of the zombie genre, it’s fun to see Harley Quinn play around with the tropes of mass undead near a public event, and people trying to hide their infections. Harley siding with the good guys for once, teaming up with the Bat Family to take out the zombies, leads to some great sequences and some laughs from Harley’s frustration of Batgirl and Nightwing’s reluctance to get their hands dirty.

Bruce bringing his parents back as mindless zombies, and showing them around his house like their dear relatives visiting from Ohio is the funniest thing in the episode. (One of them eating the cat he named after them is a particularly dark laugh.) And the fact that ti’s King Shark who relates to Bruce and helps him see the error of his ways is both an unexpected moment of connection in the show, and a nice win for King Shark in all of this. Him and Batman is not a pairing I would have asked for, but there’s a natural concordance there, and in keeping with the show’s psychological bent, the way King Shark helps Bruce work through his problems and see what he needs to heal is well done.

But the crux of this episode, and the thing that makes it stand out, is Harley trying to talk down Ivy. I don’t know. For all the raunch and all the irreverence, this feels like something out of a prestige drama. Two characters who love each other, and want the best for one another, but who ultimately want different things, and may ultimately have different values, is the kind of complicated version of heartbreaking you don’t see enough of on television. (Hello Better Call Saul fans!)

I love the bitter poetry of Harley spending so much of this season trying to give Ivy confidence, to give her the motivation to follow her dreams, to make it possible for her to have the satisfaction and fulfillment that Ivy helped Harley find, only to see Ivy develop those things but use it in a way that horrifies Harley. It’s such a hard thing to have someone you love come into their own in the way you’ve always hoped, but then use their newfound self-possessed nature to do things you disagree with. And likewise, it’s so hard to have the one person you care most about in the world whose love and support got you to this place, disapprove of what you want when you finally have the gumption to go after it.

Maybe that's a highfalutin way to describe a situation where a megalomaniacal plant lady wants to use her horde of leafy-green zombies to take on humanity in an ersatz New York City, but I don’t think so. The situation is larger than life, but the emotions are real. There is the ring of truth to Harley talking about how proud she is of Ivy, but that this is wrong, and Ivy telling her that she loves Harley more than anything, but that this is her dream and it’s happening. As is so often the case, the reality is heightened, but there is something genuine and authentic in how the characters interact with one another.

Hell, I love how this even ties into Harley’s arc from last season with Queen of Fables, to where she still considers herself a bad guy, but not the kind who allows innocent people to come to harm. Likewise, Ivy has harbored a disdain for humanity’s mistreatment of the natural world for ages, and now finally has a chance to act on it. Their disagreement isn’t rooted in something random; it’s rooted in what have been essential parts of both characters’ psyche and motivation to this point. That's why their confrontation is so captivating and earned.

And I love the tragedy of how it plays out. Harley is willing to sacrifice herself to save humanity, which is a hell of a bit of martyrdom from an erstwhile villain, and show’s real growth in the character. For her part, Ivy loves Harley enough that she’s willing to sacrifice her dream to save her soulmate. That's big stuff from both sides, the kind of meaningful choice that good drama and good storytelling is made of.

But everything comes at a cost. Ivy giving up her dream isn’t going to be without frustration and resentment, or so her loud f-bomb at the end of these events would seem. I’m especially interested to see the fallout. How does sticking to your guns on both sides of the equation affect Harley and Ivy’s relationship? There’s so much rich stuff to dig into here.

In truth, I liked but didn’t love a lot of this episode. Harley and the Bat Family’s attacks on the zombies was solid, but not especially novel. Bruce and King Shark’s material is creditable, but doesn’t get really good until the end. And the zombie stuff is more set dressing than something the show images with fully.

But in some ways, the whole season has been building to our two main characters loving each other deeply, but also being completely at odds in an emotional, high stakes moment. The fact that the show nails that moment, nails that conversation, and nails the hardship of each character’s choice to try to resolve it, almost makes this season and this episode work on its own. Once again, Harley Quinn impresses me with the lengths it's willing to go, and the depths it's willing to explore in what could have easily just been a zany comedy show. Instead, it’s one of the deeper, and more psychological looks at relationships good and bad on television in some time.

[7.8/10] This is more like it! I bristle at complaints of “filler” episodes. The whole point of television shows is to get to know the characters, to invest in their journeys and their relationships, so that when they get into the big season-ending drama, it means something to you. You need individual “wacky adventures” to help make that happen.

But I can't pretend I haven't been figuratively looking at my watch during the return to Los Angeles, waiting to see what the show would do with all the balls it left in the air back in Amphibia. So it’s nice to get an episode like “Olivia & Yunan” that not only advances the ball in terms of what the other significant characters have been up to back in the frog realm, but which answers some big questions.

For one thing, I like that we get a little more color for Olivia here. Thus far, she’s just been a sort of generically stuffy upper crust time. The backstory that she’s part of a long line of newts from Newtopia, that she’s taken a family oath to protect not just the city but the nature and ecosystem that surrounds it, and that she had an early bond with Marcy over sharing the same better-making zeal makes her far more vivid as a character. Her surveying the devastating resource extraction King Andrias is wreaking upon the land, hearing him dub her his deputy in charge of seeing to it, and choosing to rescue Marcy and rebel ends up feeling like a major, personal choice, which is not easy for a character who hasn’t gotten a ton of shading until now.

This is a nice outing for Yunan as well. I found her far less annoying this go-round than in her first appearance. Her similar willingness to turn on Andrias after seeing how he’s gone mad shows a principle beyond her “sword for hire” mentality, and her team-up with Olivia suits them both. They’re a bit of an odd couple, but that's what makes them work.

I’ll admit, it does feel like they rescue Marcy pretty quickly, without there really being any time spent with her in stasis, but given where things end up, I’m not too bothered by that. The show has them face challenges along the way, from a regiment of Frobots, to Marcy being pretty out of it once she’s rescued, to the “worst fear holodeck”.

That last part is my favorite. I’m a little sketchy on the mechanics of how it all works, but it doesn’t really matter. The image of dozens of eyes gazing out at our heroes lends the sequence a creepy vibe to begin with. And I particularly like scenes where characters have to face their greatest fears, and it’s something more personal than a traditional boogeyman. (Hello Owl House fans!)

Yunan fearing pig-bugs after a childhood experience is amusing enough, but doesn’t amount to much. But Olivia and Marcy’s are big deals. Olivia witnessing a terrifying version of her mom, visually deformed and frightening, but psychologically chilling in her accusations that Olivia has failed in her duty to her oath and her environment, makes for a striking adult fear. Similarly, Marcy’s deepest fear being rejection and shame from Anne and Sasha from her betrayal ties into the character dynamics that have run through the show for some time now. The “smash the holo-emitter” ending is pretty easy, but what we get in the meantime is gold.

And hey! We finally get some answers as to what’s going on with Andrias’ plan! The being he’s speaking to is “The Core”, which represents the consciousness of many minds past. The basement is full of beings and experiments captured from other worlds, including the moss man who contributes medical knowledge, and the “shadow fish” that Anne and company ran into during their sleepover, which grant some kind of life-extension or even immortality. That's all a solid account for what King Andrias has been up to, something that leaves the door open for more reveals to come, but plausibly explains what we’ve already seen.

There’s other tidbits here and there, like the fact that Olivia knew a bit of what was happening, but not the whole story. And the whole arachnid vibe from The Core feels like it requires some more explanation. But for the moment at least, this is a satisfying setup for what’s to come, and accounting of what we’ve already seen.

The best wrinkle though is turning Marcy into the Big Bad, or at least having her be possessed by it. The show telegraphs it nicely with the idea that Olivia and Yunan wants Marcy’s strategic mind to help them dethrone Andrias given that she was the only one who could defeat him at flip-wart, which makes her mind attractive as a resting place for The Core as well. The idea that it’s Marcy’s brain that makes her valuable to both sides is some bitter poetry.

It’s also just sad to see this bright, spirited young woman consumed by this eldritch evil. The show is rightfully tasteful about it, but the shadows on the wall when the Core enters Marcy’s mind, the way her body jerks like a marionette as the villain asserts its control, the way her head lolls to the side and the many new eyes light up, all make your skin crawl, but also make you feel for the poor girl being subjected to this. For a show founded on wacky adventures, this is some serious, chilling stuff, and I applaud the creative team for being willing to go there.

Overall, “Olivia & Yunan” is a breath of fresh air in a season that hasn’t been up to Amphibia’s standards thus far, and I hope it represents a turning point as the show balances character-focused episodes and standalone stories with advancing the main arc.

[6.8/10] I love superhero spoofs. And if they’re Spider-Man spoofs? So much the better. So this should have been right up my alley.

But it wasn’t really. It isn't bad. It just didn’t have much to contribute to the subgenre. I think this is one of those “Grown-up has seen too many similar things” problems. On your first few superhero spoofs, simply noting that they cause a lot of collateral damage and aren’t plausible in the real world is good enough for a laugh. On your fiftieth superhero spoof, you’re yearning for something more incisive than that.

Still, “Spider-Sprig” gains a little strength from the specificity of the parody. Sprig taking his cues from a “Tarantu-lad” movie and wanting to earn the town’s admiration despite looking different, and wanting to honor his dead parents makes sense as something that would resonate with the adventurous little frog. There’s a little Batman mixed in there, but Sprig taking on the perosan of a Friendly Neighborhood SPider-Man type fits his chipper, youthful attitude and dovetails with his natural abilities as a frog.

Brad Garrett does good work as Robert Auto, a safety-obsessed busybody who becomes Sprig’s ersatz Doc Oc. (The character is a far cry from Garrett’s turn as Lobo in the D.C. Animated Universe!) The show just can't wring much in the way of gags from it. The physical bits of Sprig and Auto causing damage around town didn’t do much for me. And the Mary Jane knockoff who complains about destruction over solving systemic problems lobs a pretty tired criticism for those who’ve hung around the genre long enough.

StillALl that said, this one is amiable at worst. The humor is a bit staid, and you wish there was a little more life and teeth to the parody. But even when it’s under par, Amphibia is still roundly entertaining, and Sprig’s superhero jaunt is no exception.

[6.8/10] I’ve noticed a trend with these L.A. episodes. I’ll feel ho-hum for ninety percent of the episode, and then it delivers some kind of emotional beat that works on me and redeems the episode a bit.

Case in point, the wacky hijinks of Anne trying to pump up Sprig for his eleventh birthday didn’t do much for me. Anne feeling like a bad friend for not knowing how old Sprig his or when his birthday is has a relatable quality to it. And there’s a few fun gags along the way. (I got a kick out of the quasi-cutaway gags of people reacting to a giant ersatz Pennywise head floating by, and Mr. Boonchuy’s regularly getting the short end of the stick is winning me over as a running gag.) But for the most part, this was a bunch of smiles and chuckles rather than outright laughs and guffaws.

But at the end, Sprig telling Anne that it doesn’t matter whether Anne knows bits of trivia about him; what makes her his best friend is the time they spend together and the joy they get out of it is super wholesome. I’m still a big fan o f their friendship, and vindicating it in terms of substance rather than form like that is great stuff. And Sprig’s other top birthdays being the day he was born and the day his parents gave him his trusty hat is a sweet moment too. Hell, Anne giving him an engraved telescope, a la the one in the show’s original intro, is a heartening little bit. The sap completely got me here.

Otherwise, though, I’m not enjoying the show’s “wacky adventure” episodes set in Los Angeles as much as I enjoyed the ones set in Wartwood. In fairness, it took some time for me to warm up to the show in its first season, so the season 3 adventures deserve some more runway. And the heart of the show, and my attachment to the characters, are much more established now, which gives this batch of episodes a leg up, even as I’m struggling with the show’s new normal.

[7.1/10] Another one of these L.A.-set episodes that is fine, but not incredible.

Let me start with my unfair gripe -- I don’t love how sci-fi and exaggerated things are in the human world. I’ve beat this dead horse before, but I think part of what makes Anne returning home meaningful is the idea that she’s away from the fantastical world she spent five months in, and has to readjust to a more down-to-earth, if fraught life back in Los Angeles. Dealing with an FBI agent who’s rocking a car that can telescope up on its chassis, or deploy a laser watch to get out of trouble, makes L.A. just another flavor of wackiness and detracts from the impact of the differences between Amphibia and Earth.

I sympathize with the writers. I’m sure they were backed into a corner to some extent. Fans of the show expect wacky adventures, and there’s only so many wacky adventures you can deliver while remaining within the laws of physics and even stretched verisimilitude. But it does make me wrinkle my nose a bit anytime something like Mr. X’s gadgets is introduced that wildly exceeds even the generous bounds of reality, and it doesn’t originate from Amphibia.

That gripe notwithstanding, I appreciate the show casting RuPaul as the FBI pursuer and rendering him pretty faithfully into the show. That said, he’s already a pretty wacky character, so it’s hard to feel genuine tension or peril when he and Jenny are going after Anne and the Plantars. Mr. X is mostly a Sylvester-esque hapless chaser, despite the FBI backing, so we mostly get a bunch of minorly amusing chase gags rather than anything that makes this seem like a legitimate deal.

Nonetheless, I appreciate the theme here. Anne is worried that her parents don’t have the mettle to stand up to the feds, let alone the FBI. But seeing Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy ply their talents and connections to protect their daughter, and surprise her with their ability to hold their own, gives the parents a nice win. As a confirmed crusty old grown-up, it’s nice to see Mom and Dad get to step up to the plate and be capable parts of the team now and then. (And their swapping out the Plantars with literal frogs is a solid moment.)

Overall, this one left me a little cold, especially given now nerfed the FBI antagonists seem from the jump, but I’ll take a nice moment for the Boonchuys and for Anne recognizing something in her parents she hasn’t seen before.

[7.7/10] After two episodes that are more about establishing mood and the setup of the new season, it’s nice to get an outing like this one that is all about igniting the kindling the show’s been gathering this season.

So we have Omega making an escape! We have Crosshair teaming up with her! We have Dr. Hemlock discovering that Omega’s blood is the key to a successful M-count transfer! We have the frickin’ Emperor showing up to examine his clone pods or pickled Snokes or whatever and growl “this is of the utmost importance”! This is a big deal episode, and you feel it.

What I appreciate most here is the setup and payoff. It would be easy for Omega and Crosshair escaping from an airtight Imperial secured location to feel cheap. (Hello viewers of the Obi-Wan Kenobi mini-series!) Instead, the show establishes Nala Se’s interest in seeing Omega freed, giving her datapad access that makes escape and rescue more plausible.

The shuttle that crashed in the season premiere provides Omega and Crosshair good cause to try to escape out to the area beyond the compound. The show already established how the kennels feed out beyond the walls of the lab, which sets up a good escape route for our heroes. The fact that the shuttle’s comms are down from the crash means there’s still challenges for the good guys to overcome if they want to get out of dodge.

The presence of dangerous creatures beyond the walls was set up by Hemlock in the first episode, and its nice that rather than attacking them, Omega gets help from Batcher and the other hounds, a sign of care shown to others, rather than mere use and discarding, is something that pays off practically, not just ethically.

The way they’re able to distract the stormtroopers and then steal their shuttle is a touch convenient, but the fact that the Bad Batch has protocols for this sort of situation, and that Tech apparently taught them to Omega, adds just the right hint of plausibility and emotion to the scenario. I’m particularly fond of the fact that, even having accomplished all of these unlikely objectives, it still looks like Omega and Crosshair are going to be shot down, until Emerie Karr realizes the truth about Omega, and Hemlock calls off the attack, given how badly he needs what Omega can provide.

All-in-all, the show plays fair with getting Omega and Crosshair out of the compound, which is not something I expected. THere’s meaningful steps along the way, real challenges that are overcome by things the characters know or in ways that require their guile and trust. And most importantly, there’s earned tension every step along the way, as they’re dodging the Emperor’s guards, wild animals, and suspicious droids. This is an appropriately tense escape, and that tone helps make the whole thing feel less like a fait accompli and more like a worthy challenge that took a lot of cleverness and courage from the good guys to pull off.

There’s other interesting details at the margins here. It’s always nice to hear Ian McDiarmid playing the Emperor, even if the whole cloning routine kind of makes me roll my eyes at this point. I appreciate the progression of Emerie Karr, who is resigned to the idea that this is their fate, whether they like it or not, but sees through Omega’s actions that there’s potentially another way. I like Hemlock as a sycophant for the Emperor, while also clearly jockeying for promotions and extra resources. I like Nala Se giving herself plausible deniability in Omega’s escape, given how she’s with Hemlock the whole time.

And most of all, I like the dynamic between Crosshair, who’s aghast at Omega just winging this escape plan on the one hand, with Omega herself, refusing to leave Crosshair behind. The dynamic between them has been one of the most interesting elements of The Bad Batch from the beginning, and it’s nice to see it continuing to bloom. I’m also intrigued by Crosshair’s shaky hand, which doesn't portend good things. Methinks we’ll eventually get a heroic sacrifice from an ailing Crosshair to protect Omega, completing his turn back to the good, and showing that some things are worth dying for, when you’re not being tossed out like used property.

Overall, this is a superb climax to the Tantiss arc we’ve seen so far, and gives the show a clear board to play with going forward, with enough balls still in the air for the show to catch later in the season.

[7.3/10] The construction of this episode is sound. There’s a clear goal, an escalating threat, a thematic hook, a canon connection, and a difficult personal choice that reveals character. These are all things that I ask for from good Star Wars installments, and “Paths Unknown” delivers on all of them.

And yet, for some reason, this episode left me a little cold. It’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels a little by the numbers. While it’s fun stunt casting to get Daniel Logan back to play “Mox”, the oldest of the young “regs” stuck on the planet where Dr. Hemlock’s last lab was located, Julian Dennison gives a pretty flat vocal performance as Deke and Stak, the two other preteen clone troopers, which weakens the episode given how much rests on those characters.

I do like the theme here, which connects to the broader theme The Bad Batch seems to be spinning in its third season, and which has been with the show from the beginning. The young regs are leery of Hunter and wrecker, because the Clone Troopers who were originally at the lab site abandoned them and left them to be subject to orbital bombardment. They’re used to being treated as expendable, and have been taught by Dr. Hemlock’s actions, and the apparatus he oversees, to look out for themselves, because no one else would.

I like the idea of Hunter and Wrecker showing up and demonstrating that there’s another way to live, another way to be, out there. Hearing stories of their connection to Omega, witnessing how far they’ll go to save a younge remember of their team, looking at the tactile proof of her teddy bear in the ship all shows the rightfully mistrustful young regs that loyalty and trust can be vindicated and rewarded, rather than be a sucker’s game. It’s a little simplistic, but it’s a well done idea. And Mox and Stak considering whether to take the Marauder and bail or use it to help their visitors, ultimately choosing to rescue our heroes, is a nice way to dramatize that idea.

That said, the remnants of Clone Force 99 spelunking through the old lab to get data on where Omega is located and fend off Slither Vines is pretty meh. Again, there’s nothing actively wrong with it. The episode parcels out hints of danger, building to creepy little squiggles attacking our heroes, until we build to a sarlacc-esque monster entangling the whole ship. The progression is creditable, and Hunter and Wrecker needing to get a power supply into the lab so they can get a lead on Omega’s location is a worthy practical goal. (And hey, their having to please a crime boss played by freakin’ Anjelica Huston is good stuff too!)

But maybe I’ve just seen too much Star Wars after decades of fandom, to where this all feels like standard stuff to me. I appreciate that there’s a quasi horror vibe to some of it, but the dark palette often leads to the images blending into one another rather than lending the proceedings a real spook factor.

Still, I’ll take a solid episode over a bad one, and this at least gives us a flavor of the lengths Hunter and Wrecker are willing to go to get a bead on Omega, and affirms their unusual devotion, and models a better example of trust and compassion that can exist among clones for a younger generation. There’s still plenty to appreciate about this one.

[7.4/10] The big action sequences have never been my favorite part of Amphibia. I don’t mind them, necessarily, but they’re never what brought me to the dance. So even though the standoff between Anne and Cloak-Bot (née Frobonator) is the culmination of something that started with the first episode, and some raise stakes to boot, it doesn’t do much for me.

Yes, it’s neat enough to see a version of CLoak-Bot decked out with construction equipment add-ons. Yes, the fact that King Andrias put him on a self-destruct timer adds some urgency. And yes, Anne going all Super Sonic on Cloak-Bot again has some juice. But for the most part, nail gun or no, this is a pretty standard fight.

What I like about this episode though is that, at base, it’s not about the fight between Anne and Frobo; it’s about the relationship between Anne and her mom. Despite the ways in which Anne has matured since she was whisked away to Amphibia, she’s still lying about some things to her parents, and feels bad about that. Praise from Mrs. boonchuy about how far she’s come only makes the guilt worse. Then, Cloak-Bot shows up to blow the lid off the whole deal.

The most powerful scene in the episode comes when the Plantars and the Boonchuys have retreated to a junkyard and Mrs. Boonchuy spews out understandable but harsh recriminations to her daughter. The accusation that Anne hasn’t grown up, and the pointed rhetorical questions about when Anne will straighten up and fly right, stop messing around, stop failing to live up to her mom’s expectations are barbs that sting hard in the moment.

The trick, of course, is that even if Anne ought to have come clean, she’s not a troublemaker; she’s trying to protect the people she cares about. There’s nuance to that answer, and pathos in Anne’s response to her mother that she doesn't know when she’s going tog row up. I appreciate the irony here -- that it’s being responsible for other people’s well-being that prompted Anne to hide the truth, because she has people to protect with those fibs and conspicuous omission. Her line that being responsible for others made her appreciate how much her parents did for her is genuinely sweet, and dovetails with the kind of epiphanies many of us crusty old grown-ups arrived at over time.

I also like that Mrs. Boonchuy gets to play a big part in this. As with sister show The Owl House, it’s nice that the parents aren’t just passengers, but get to be meaningful parts of the story and the fight. There’s some nice foreshadowing with Mrs. Boonchuy having made Anne dolls to help work through her separation anxiety during Anne’s absence and then using those same doll-making skills to distract Cloak-Bot. And the fact that it’s not any of the rest of Anne’s allies, but rather Mrs. Boonchuy wielding a sledgehammer, who ultimately fells the robot, is good stuff. Anne going Super Sonic to kick Cloak-Bot into orbit during its self-destruct sequence, when its explosion could hurt her family, is another sign of her growth and good intentions, since these
Powers only come out when she’s trying to protect people she cares about.

We get a couple more teases. King Andrias mentions “Ohms”, suggesting the “Mother of Ohms” on the ancient pot in L.A. may genuinely be some sort of deity. And Anne’s high octane misadventures attract the attention of the FBI and a mysterious Mr. X a la Amphibia’s precursor show, Gravity Falls.

But overall, despite all the fireworks and explosions, what makes “Anne-sterminator” worth watching is how it vindicates not only Anne’s growth, but a new mutual appreciation between her and her mother. Mrs. Boonchuy not only hugging Anne, but all the Plantars, is a sweet way to end this part of the arc, and I’m excited to see what comes next.

[7.2/10] Another solid but not amazing outing for the show, and that's coming from someone who’s normally a sucker for Polly episodes. The best part of this one is the initial resurrection of Frobo, and him still acting to save Polly, even if it means sacrificing his own life. It’s a little cheap, but Polly’s tear somehow reminding Frobo of all the times they had together, and turning him back into his usual, self-sacrificing self absolutely worked on me. And the idea that he came back to life, for a brief moment, only to still strive to protect Polly and end up “dying” again in the process, is poignant.

Too poignant really. Their reunion is sweet; a second loss of Frobo is sad, and Polly realizing that she tried to do too much too fast without being safe forced her to lose her mechanical little brother a second time is all potent, piercing stuff.

And then Amphibia almost instantly undoes it.

Look, this is one of the times where I have to remind myself that Amphibia is a kids’ show, and a Disney Channel show no less, so however bold the show may have gotten in the past couple of seasons, there’s limits to how far they can go. All that said, killing Frobo off, bringing him back again, killing him off again instantly, and then bringing him back again two minutes later feels cheap to this crusty old grown-up. The best stories are founded on the idea that actions have consequences, and head-faking those consequences only to pivot back to undoing your toughest plot points weakens the power of your storytelling in my book.

Still, on a nuts and bolts level, this one is perfectly entertaining. Polly going down a robotics rabbithole is a nice direction for her amid everything else. I like the A.I. girls (Melissa Villasenor!) and their excitement over her project. Anne, Hop Pop, and Sprig being mesmerized by cat videos while Polly learns a new skill is a fun mini-satire of the internet. And the lesson, about proceeding with difficult things at a measured pace and taking the right safety precautions while trying dangerous things is a sound one. Plus hey, the Teddy Ruxpin parody was worth a chuckle.

Overall, this is a respectable enough episode with some tender moments that nonetheless feels like, with some different choices, it could have been a great one.

[7.1/10] I dunno, folks. This is starting to feel like early early Amphibia, where the lessons were super on-the-nose and everything ended in some big giant fight. I’m more endeare dot the characters now than I was then, so it’s easier to just bob merrily along with where the show wants to take me. But suffice it today, L.A. is not quite as interesting as Wartwood, the shenanigans aren’t quite as funny, and integrating the Plantars into the human realm continues to seem all too easy.

Despite my gripes, I liked a lot about this. As someone who grew up in a culture outside the mainstream, I love the idea of Anne thinking the Thai cultural stuff gets old fast and wanting to bail, only to both appreciate it through the Plantars’ eyes as outsiders, and ultimately recognizing how the community banded together to help her parents when she was missing. There’s a well-observed bit about taking your cultural wellspring for granted, and a simplistic but still potent depiction of communities banding together to support one another.

I also enjoyed the Plantars getting into Thai culture at Market Day. Polly showing off her Thai language skills after binging Mrs. Boonchuy’s Thai romcoms is a solid laugh. Sprig excelling at kick volleyball is fun. And my absolute favorite is Hop Pop falling in love with traditional Thai dance theater given how the combination of movement and drama are right up his alley. The show struggles a bit to fit all their newfound Thai cultural talents into fending off The Frobonator’s drones, but it’s still a pleasant tribute to a rich culture that Anne took for granted.

Likewise, I appreciate the preteen sense of quiet rebellion and wanting to sneak out to do your own thing. Anne watching the clock and counting down how long it takes to get to do what she really wants to do is relatable, right down to grossly misjudging how much time has passed. (The Sopranos, of all things, has an oddly similar scene, which speaks to the universality of the feeling.) And her realizing the importance of Mrs. Boonchuy’s tupperware and devotion to this group of people, who stood by the Boonchuys and supported them during the difficulty of Anne’s absence, is the saving grace here. As with “Adventures in Catsitting”, it adds a realistic and poignant tone to an otherwise wacky episode.

That said, why in the world is everyone so chill with anthropomorphic frogs living among them? First Dr. Jan, which was already kind of a cheat, but a mildly explainable one given her supernatural interests, but now the whole Thai community? It’s churlish to complain about verisimilitude in a wacky kids show, and the episode does place the fig leaf of the Thai community accepting the Plantars because they accept Anne. But come on!

The promise of season 3, and the notion of the Plantars are the fishes out of water for once, is that it flips the dynamic we know. Suddenly, they’re the outsiders who have to be careful about how they present themselves to a world likely to look on them with puzzlement at best and suspicion/prejudice at worst. Having them instantly accepted by everyone who learns their true identity, including a big crowd of veritable strangers, neuters the impact of that concept. There’s no struggle, no real danger in hiding, no risk of being perceived as a weirdo or dangerous. We’ve started to reach “barely an inconvenience” territory. I don’t know why the show is sapping the most fascinating parts of Anne’s return home of any real oomph.

We get some mild progress on the lore front. The jar Dr. Jan found says to seek the “Mother of Ohms”, which I’m sure will mean something eventually, but for now is just another cryptic tease. Though hey, in an episode that seems to take shortcuts toward easy solutions, I can appreciate that the secret message doesn’t really change anything; it just throws our heroes for a loop.

Overall, the nuts and bolts of this one are fine, with a pleasant visit with the community that sustained the Boonchuys, and some amiable bits with the Plantars. But there’s some deeper-seated problems with the season to date that are starting to become more apparent the more they recur.

[7.2/10] On the one hand, I like the theme here. Anne running herself ragged to try to get the Plantars home, to the point that she does more harm than good and needs to take a break, is relatable and a good lesson. We recently had an illness in the family, and my wife had to convince me to take the same sort of lesson to heart. It’s easy to want to help someone, but hyperfixate and overtax yourself in the process, to where you’re not doing any good. So this one is oddly timely for me personally, and I’m sympathetic both to Anne’s good intentions and need to slow down.

But I’m a little more wary of the introduction of Dr. Jan and the implicit message that Anne needs to lighten up and trust her. Yes, Dr. Jan is interested in cryptids and history, but that doesn’t mean they should instantly put their faith in her to help them and take the existence of real life anthropomorphic frogs in stride. Anne’s right to be concerned, and frankly, it feels a little convenient that not only do our heroes just run into someone who happens to be the perfect expert and ally they need to get home, but who turns out to be trustworthy and reflexively accepting of the Plantars. Maybe my view is colored by the run-in the characters from The Owl House had with a similar “enthusiast”, but Dr. Jan’s entry into our protagonists’ circle seems too quick and too easy to me.

All that said, I certainly enjoyed the shenanigans. Watching Anne and the Plantars dress up in hoodies and try to rob a museum is a laugh and a half. The Frobonator tracking them down, only to be felled by historical items like a guillotine (Hop Pop’s comic proclamation of “eat the rich!” while slicing off a giant robot’s hand got a big laugh) and dinosaur bones leads to some creative and kinetic sequences. And Hop Pop distracting the guards by imitating a character from CATS is a hoot.

The lore and worldbuilding material is more of a tease, but still solid. The prospect of an Amphibia artifact in the human realm is intriguing, particularly one that seems to depict ancient Amphibians interacting with Vikings. Plus, with all the gags about hidden blacklight messages, the reveal of a secret blurb in (I think?) the same script Marcy read in the temples is a big eyebrow raise.

Overall, the main lesson here is a strong one, the hijinks are enjoyable, and the lore teases are well done. But as the introduction of what seems to be a new major character in Dr. Jan, “Fight at the Museum” leaves something to be desired.

[8.0/10] So we’ve just given up any pretense that The Bad Batch is a kids show, then? I’m not complaining. As a crusty old grown-up who saw The Phantom Menace in theaters, I am 100% here for the animated wing of Star Wars not letting the expectations of the animated medium limit the show from going big and going bold. But it’s striking how much “Confined” plays like an adult prestige drama more than an adventure for kids.

Granted, there’s still some elements there to make it accessible. The dialogue largely announces the themes -- of whether to trust others and stay loyal to friends, or remain suspicious of those outside your fold and act with selfish disregard for other lives. Omega nurturing and eventually freeing a wounded animal who’s being mistreated by the comically evil-named Dr. Hemlock is a sharp way to give younger viewers an intuitive way to connect with the situation and that moral. This season premiere isn’t devoid of onramps for watchers who didn’t graduate to this point from The Clone Wars.

(On a personal note, I very recently lost my beloved pet after an extended illness, so watching Omega try to get “Batcher” the lucra hound to eat despite his reluctance, to heal the animal’s wounds when it’s injured, and to set it free rather than let it be eliminated hit me extra hard, especially when Batcher whimpered and purred. I can't exactly give The Bad Batch credit for the emotional impact there, but suffice it to say, it drove home the story’s point with extra force for yours truly.)

But what struck me about “Confined” is how quiet, meditative, and artsy it is, in a way that appeals to older viewers but which I could easily see confounding or outright boring younger ones. There’s a lot of time spent here with the likes of Omega, Crosshair, and Nala Se gazing wistfully out barred windows or looking down in abject resignation or staring mournfully into the middle distance. We see scads of shots of dripping faucets, wringing hands, vials of blood collected and deposited. This is an episode more interested in conveying a mood and a feeling than it is in advancing the plot or delivering Star Wars’ expected action and excitement.

And I don’t know, I kind of love it. The animated wing of Star Wars has toyed with this sort of thing for a while, but this may be the most committed expression of it. There is so much that is unspoken and understated about what’s going on here. Nala Se’s fraught protection, Crosshair’s subtle caring despite disillusionment, Omega’s idealistic resilience amid horrible circumstances, all breathe life into the drab, dehumanizing setting of Hemlock’s lab. There are so many little touches here to make you feel the oppressiveness of that space, so many quiet moments to let the experience of them wash over the viewer, so many artistically-composed visuals to evoke that sensibility.

I can't say that I didn’t know The Bad Batch had this in it, because we’ve seen this sort of thing in pieces from Filoni and company’s corner of the franchise. But I’ve never seen it given free reign like this, and it’s really cool.

Of course, there is still plot-relevant stuff happening. We get strong hints that the goal of Hemlock’s program is to be able to create a clone with the same “M-count” (read: midichlorians) as the donor. We see Emerie Karr do her job and believe in the project, but slowly start to develop a certain attachment to Omega, and vice versa. We see Crosshair plead detachment and selfishness, but work to protect her in his own way. And we see Omega’s blood taken by one caretaker and discarded by another, seen as some kind of key to the process. Fans of the Sequel Trilogy can intuit where this is all leading, but as with The Clone Wars series, knowing the end only adds to the sense of tragedy and ominousness as to what’s going on here.

And I like the themes. What differentiates Omega and Hemlock is more than power. Hemlock uses people. When some troopers crashland outside the borders of the compound, he writes them off, leaves them for dead and useless to him. He is mercenary, craven, and only sees people for their use to him. He’s willing to use Nala Se’s attachment to Omega to manipulate her, and Omega’s attachment to Crosshair to do the same with threats and insinuations.

But despite everything, and the passage of time in captivity that's conveyed in drips and vials, Omega hasn’t lost her devotion or her optimism. She aims to rescue Crosshair. She aims to bring Emerie into the fold. She aims to save an innocent lucra hound, her figurative mirror image behind bars. Her willingness to protect others, to try to save them, even at great personal cost, is what makes her different, worthy, in a way Hemlock probably can't even understand.

This is all a little heavy for the younger set. I wouldn’t even blame a teenager for turning this off and decrying it as boring or stodgy. But for me at least, this is striking and, if not beautiful, then certainly poignant in what it conveys and how it conveys it. This may not be as exciting or fun as creature chases on the beach, like we got in last season’s premiere, but it’s that much more potent and piercing for its willingness to give us this mature change of pace.

[3.6/10 on a Selman Era Simpsons scale] This was pretty miserable. “Frinkenstein’s Monster” starts with a pretty good throughline. Homer started out as an ambitious young go-getter (even if that framing contradicts some of the show’s foundational episodes, but whatever), and now finds himself disheartened at how much he’s backslid and failed to achieve his dreams as he reaches middle age. There’s something there, and if the show explored it with conviction and good humor, you could do great things with that concept. (See: the episode centered on Marge’s anxieties about her kids growing up from earlier this season.)

Instead, we get a wacky, over-the-top story about Professor Frink playing a nuclear science Cyrano de Bergerac for Homer at a Finnish power plant while a passed over application for his new job plots to undermine him with Machiavellian glee.

I don’t know where to start. The parroting Frink shtick is so exaggerated that it doesn’t pass the barest of plausibility tests. I don’t ask for much from The Simpsons in terms of verisimilitude. The show has pushed the boundaries of reality since almost the beginning. But the idea that people at the Shelbyville plant would buy Homer’s routine for more than five minutes strains credulity. Frink wanting a human connection is a solid enough idea, but as with Homer’s aspirations and regrets, the character story starts with a solid launch point and then goes completely off the rails.

Homer’s stalker and antagonist, Dr. Spivak is played well enough by Amanda Seyfried, but is another over-exaggerated character who lacks any humanity and feels conveniently jammed into the story. And the head of the Shelbyville plant is a bland moron who has no personality and comes off like a dope. Worst of all, the episode barely has an ending, with Homer admitting his fraud once cornered by Dr. Spivak, but without any team for any real fallout or consequences for his revelation, just a zany “Oops I fell off a cliff” situation where he’s...fine apparently?

As I often ay, some of this might be forgivable if anything , anything in this episode were funny. There’s a running gag involving a talking budgerigar that is just abysmal. There’s some mild cleverness to Smithers having a form for Homer quitting the plant after so many occasions, but it mostly comes off like a lazy meta gag. What the hell is Lisa’s 1970s singer-songwriter-esque lament? It’s mildly cute at first, but it goes on so long and serves practically no purpose in the episode other than to kill time. And the bit about Emmys being easy to win is tepid at best. Why are the jokes almost uniformly terrible in this one? I don’t understand it.

Overall, this is a terrible way to return from the mid-season break, with an unfunny, practically nonsensical episode that doesn’t come close to making good on the potential of its premise.

[9.5/10] What if we took Batman seriously? I don’t mean that in the Christopher Nolan sense of “What if we found a way to plausibly situate the character in the real world?” I don’t mean it in the dude-bro sense of “What if Batman, like, killed people, dawg?” I don’t even mean it in the B:TAS sense of treating him as a wounded soul struggling with the history that made him.

I mean what if we treated him like an actual person, who’d been through something traumatic, and needed genuine therapy to help him make peace with it? I didn’t know Harley Quinn was capable of achieving that with such heartrending conviction, but maybe I should have.

Because this show, and this episode, are certainly irreverent. But it’s long gotten the psychology of these characters right and, more than that, treated them as real beyond the standard-if-entertaining pop psych that pervades television. Harley’s abusive relationship with the Joker is unnervingly realistic despite the larger than life trappings. Ivy’s hesitance to get close to people comes off as an authentic reflection of her personal history, not an easy character arc. So what if you took the same approach to Bruce Wayne, using legitimate therapeutic techniques and approaches to explore the guilt a little boy still feels for his parents’ murder?

What I love about the cheekily-named “Batman Begins Forever” is that it has its cake and eats it too. On the one hand, this is a hilarious round-up of gags about the Batman mythos over the years that never stops tickling the funny bone. The brief homages to Batman ‘66 and Batman Returns are a treat for longtime fans. The extended homage to the look and sound of Batman: The Animated Series in the flashbacks to The Dark Knight’s early days are a particular boon for me. Jokes about the early Batsuit having too-long ears is a laugh in the same vein. Bruce talking about how he can become a gritty, super serious, really cool symbol and Alfred playing coy about the famed “get back up” lines amusingly riff on Nolan’s Batman Begins. You can tell all these jokes come from a place of deep knowledge and love of Batman’s history and mythology.

Beyond that, you can tell the writers also jive with the internet’s favorite Bat-critiques, spinning them off into funnier directions. The bit about Clayface and James Gunn being able to add a CGI mustache to their cinematic Thomas Wayne in post is a nice jab at the Justice League film and it’s infamous Superman lip adjustment. And Harley realizing Bruce is Batman, asking him why he doesn’t just provide affordable housing, only to have li’l Bruce respond “people pay for housing” is the perfect way to acknowledge the popular (if myopic) online critique and spin it into a joke. (It’s a big laugh in the same vein as the later “Rich people insurance doesn't have co-pays” line, making Bruce’s wealth and ensuing out-of-touchness a source of comedy.) These are more modern bits on the Bat, but Harley Quinn cultivates something hilarious with them too.

And then there’s the bits that are just funny for their own sake, distinct from the cavalcade of Bat references. Casting the debauched Dr. Psycho as a stuffy Frasier-type radio psychiatrist is wonderful. He, Clayface, and Ivy going back and forth on the distinctions between Joe Chill, Joe Cool, and Joe Camel was outstanding in its casual pop culture minutiae. And Clayface desperately trying to find out Thomas Wayne’s life motivation only to have it come down to a half-muttered line about a Rosebud-like sled is more great riffing on acting and character arcs with a fun meta bent.

But amid all the laughs is a genuinely piercing exploration of what drives Bruce Wayne, and genuinely helpful guidance from none other than Harley Quinn. One of my favorite parts of this one is that Harley gets to be a real psychologist, using actual techniques to help Bruce, and legitimately trying to ease him through something difficult. She is as caring and empathetic as we’ve ever seen her (albeit with a certain ulterior motive), and it speaks to the way she’s been coming into her own not just as a person, but a good person, this season.

Along the way, “Batman Begins Forever” finds sharp ways to dramatize not only Harley’s help, but Bruce’s emotional problems.

That manifests as young Bruce stuck in the moment of parents’ murder over and over again. I’m a big fan of that choice, because it serves two purposes. The first is a spoof of how constantly various instances of different Bat-media choose to replay that moment for audiences. The second goes a layer deeper, positing it as a reflection of how Bruce cannot get over his trauma, to where it crowds out everything else in his mind. Dr. Psycho’s mental dive have become a mini-tradition on Harley Quinn so far, and it’s nice to see the show not only shaking up the formula on the third go-round, but still using the conceit to dig deeper into one of the D.C. Universe’s signature characters.

I love how they dramatize Harley’s involvement in all of this. At first she tries to get rid of Joe Chill’s gun, to even kill the guy, but he just keeps coming. Trauma cannot simply be beaten like that, though. So using Joe Chill as a sort of supernatural slasher, one who persists through different settings and attempts to stymie him, represents that well.

Instead, the first step Harley takes is to shield young Bruce from seeing the killer’s handiwork. I love that choice too, because it fits with the theme that the past cannot be changed or forgotten, but that we can address how we react to it, how we internalize it, in a way that fits with Harley’s psychoanalysis.

And that's a neat part of the proceedings. It’s rare that we get to see Harley be a good counselor like this. SHe’s genuinely sweet with little Bruce, gaining his confidence, understanding and appreciating what he’s accomplished in his parent’s name, working to make him feel safe and loved apart from the tragedy that's bruised his psyche. Harley Quinn is not exactly a child-friendly show. And yet, there is something unbearably sweet about twisted Harley guiding and protecting a small boy (give or take a couple ass-based comments), that reveals a surprisingly humane and nurturing side to her.

She’s not just a passenger here in service to Bruce’s story either. One of my favorite sequences in the whole episode is one where she steps into Robin’s shoes and is forced to relive an attack from her and the Joker in flashback from another perspective. From a pure fanservice standpoint, it’s fun to see Harley Quinn invoke a Heather Ledger-esque version of Joker and a B:TAS version of Harley. But on a deeper level, Harley’s critiques of her past self and recognition of Joker’s bullshit is a sign of how far she’s come. Using the chance to walk in the Boy Wonder’s shoes to not only give her a new appreciation for how being a hero can be fun, but in how unhappy her life was before she herself was able to move past her own baggage, gives her a nice win. And the way seeing that reflection of her in the past gives her new clarity in the present is well-observed.

The big reveal here, though, is the show’s masterstroke. To the show’s humorous ends in the early portion of this one, Batman’s origin story is shopworn at this point. We all know the story, the wealthy young lad left orphaned by a simple crime, who vowed to fight crime so as to never let another young man suffer such a terrible fate. But Harley Quinn takes things one step further, exploring another level of, as Batman: The Brave and the Bold once put it, “the tortured avenger, crying out for mommy and daddy.”

While a bit of a cliche, the twist that the masked man stalking Bruce and Harley, the one who reduces the Dark Knight to a child in a grown man’s clothing again, is Bruce himself, is telling and potent. What’s damning Bruce Wayne isn’t just trauma; it’s guilt. He doesn’t just mourn his parents; he blames himself for their death. If he’d only gone to his father’s meeting, if he’d only agreed to take the family car, they’d still be alive. His caped crusade isn’t just to prevent another tragedy, it’s to assuage his own gnawing sense of guilt over causing the loss that has defined his life.

That is heartbreaking. At heart, Bruce is still just a little boy who misses his parents and is trying to cleanse his soul of their deaths. No child should have to endure that, fictional or otherwise. Harley doesn’t give up on him. She agrees to keep his secret. (Somewhat conveniently.) Most importantly, though, she tells him to hold on to the prospect of treatment, that his efforts to erase the past are misguided, but that he can heal from it. She uses real techniques that get him part of the way there, but this being a T.V. show with dramatic stakes that need to be raised, cannot fully succeed just yet.

Instead, we need time for Bruce’s plan to unfold, and holy shit, him trying to use Frank’s resurrection abilities to revive his parents is chilling and poignant at the same time. Batman becomes the one thing he’s never been in the mainstream stories for the screen -- a villain. He is sad and sympathetic, but he’s doing wrong. When he does, though, it’s for understandable reasons, even if his actions are misguided. Men will literally turn their mom and dad into zombies rather than go to therapy, heh. But in all seriousness, it’s a great way to make Batman the antagonist without making him the bad guy, giving him the sort of tragic backstory and sympathetic motivation despite his bad choices that characterized so many of the villains on Batman: The Animated Series back in the day.

As with so many smart choices in Harley Quinn, it recontextualizes The Bat in an impressive way, one that gives him even more pathos than the brooding avenger we know and love, while repositioning him for the broader purposes of the show’s protagonists.

This is, more than any other incarnation, a Batman who needs help. He folds his arms, focuses on his senses, and finds a place of happiness. WIth the help of a guide, he allows himself to turn away from the unfortunate tragedy he treats like original sin. And with the help of our resident psychologist, maybe our heroes can defeat the zombies, but maybe they can also help a scared and scarred little boy make peace with the demons that spur him to scale rooftops in black combat gear, and try to raise the bones of the dead, when he should be letting them, and him, rest instead.

[7.3/10] Most of this episode is perfectly fine, if not overwhelming. Setting the Plantars off in Los Angeles, without humans to guide them, is a recipe for hijinks. And adding the responsibility to mind Domino the cat into the deal is a dose of added comic chaos. There’s nothing particularly outstanding about it, but Hop Pop resorting to Anne’s line about needing a coffee when people seem suspicious, the Plantars hounding the vet for information on frog health, Polly turning into a ball of yarn to recapture her quarry, and the general mishegoss with Domino all make for some roundly enjoyable misadventures.

But what puts this one over the top is the final line from Mr. Boonchuy. I do appreciate the emotional throughline here. Having been a houseguest in the Boonchuy home for some time now, Hop Pop is deathly afraid of being considered a “freeloader” who’s abusing the Boonchuy’s kindness.

That's why it’s so heartening when Mr. Boonchuy stops his moped and thanks the Plantars for taking Anne in and keeping her safe when she needed it most. When he tells them, “You will never owe us anything, ever,” it cracked me open a bit. A sweet moment of earnestness in an otherwise big bundle of wackiness. What can I say? It worked on me.

[7.4/10] My favorite part of this one is the emotional throughline. There is something so naively earnest about Sprig’s desperate, misaimed attempt to transcend being a guest in the Boonchuys’ home and become a member of the family. I like his understandable kid logic. Anne is family to him. The Boonchuys are family to her. Therefore, by the transitive property of filial bonds, he should be family to the Boonchuys too, right? Right?

Of course, it doesn’t necessarily work like that. But there’s something so blithely sincere, if misguided, to Sprig’s approach to the whole situation that it’s endearing, even as things go off the rails in parts.

That's probably my biggest complaint about this one. I don’t necessarily mind when things get wacky and out there when Anne is in Amphibia. But it feels like things should be closer to realism, if not necessarily fully realistic, with ehr back in the human realm. The more she and the Plantars go on wild escapades with runaway food trucks that roll through skate parks and crash through televisions before jaunting merrily along without breaks, the less it feels like there’s a distinction between Anne’s normal life back home and her life in the heightened reality of a frog world.

Still, I like Sprig working so hard to try to earn his way into Mrs. Boonchuy’s good graces so that he can be a part of the family. And I like the cultural appropriation angle, with Ned, the enthusiastic patron of the Boonchuy’s restaurant, liking their food so much that he wants to be a part of their business. There’s an interesting parallel to both Sprig and Ned having understandable impulses to want to be a part of something they love, while going about it in the totally wrong and very presumptive way.

As I said, the wacky shtick with Sprig trying to sabotage Ned’s rogue food truck, and eventually ending up in an out of control getaway in it with Anne is a bit weak. But the ending of it all is good. For one thing, I like Anne’s observation that in loving but strict families, sometimes it’s better to be a guest. For another, I love that, while Mrs. Boonchuy still looks askance at Sprig a bit, she vocalizes how she knows what Anne means to him and what he means to her, which counts for a lot in her book. And last but not least, the way Sprig revels in the fact that he gets a scolding from Mrs. Boonchuy, because it means she’s accepted him as a part of the family, is downright adorable.

Overall, I like the concept and the relationship/character work in this episode better than the execution in several places, but it’s still a nice outing focused on how the Plantars integrate with the Boonchuys.

[7.6/10] A superb start to the show. Looking back, what’s striking about this opening hour is how fully formed Daria feels from the jump. You have Daria’s sardonic wit, her off-kilter family dynamic, her sense for causing droll mischief, her budding friendship with Jane, the absurd ecosystem of high school, and even good ol’ “Sick Sad World”!

Maybe it’s the fact that this is technically a spinoff. (And so far as I know, the brief mention of Highland is the only explicit connection Daria ever makes to Beavis and Butthead.) But whatever the reason, most shows take a little while to find their voice, and yet Daria seems like, well, Daria, right from the beginning.

The premise here is strong. There’s something appropriately ironic about the idea that Daria is considered to have low self-esteem, when in fact she just finds most people beyond her new like-minded friend Jane insufferable. The irony comes from the fact that in an episode about her not making new friends, she ends up finding her best frient for life in a class for people with low self-esteem.

And there’s an added irony to the fact that Daria is supposedly the one in need of help from teachers, family, and the system writ large, but in truth, Daria herself is savvy enough to know how to turn all that effort against them. The way she fools Mr. O’Neill (another character who feels very much like himself from the word go) using his own wellness doublespeak, tortures her parents with trips to a Chuck-E-Cheese knockoff and a UFO convention, and most of all, tortures her sister, Quinn, by exposing their sibling relationship, demonstrates with comical incisiveness how Daria can use the system meant to keep her in line and conforming against those who would have her fit in.

Along the way, there’s a lot of well-observed gags. Helen and Jake Morgendorffer inadvertently making their daughter feel bad for having low self-esteem is more ironic humor. The fawning nonsense of Quinn’s high school popularity is a laugh. Mr. DiMartino’s angry exhaustion with the idiocy of Kevin and Brittany, and the general unfairness of life, is outstanding. And the general satire of what it takes to “fit in”, adjust, and make friends at a new school is top notch.

On the whole, Daria breaks the trend. It’s the rare show that seems to get its characters, its world, and its comic worldview crystalized right from the first episode. But for a few “first day at a new school” bits to remind us this is a series premiere, “The Esteemers” could be placed anywhere in Daria’s run and not feel out of place. That's an achievement in and of itself, and a reminder what a great show this is, and was from the first minute.

[7.6/10] That's what I’m talking about! With all the excitement in Los Angeles, I’m glad we have a chance to see how things are going back in Amphibia, how these monumental events are affecting the residents of good ol’ Wartwood, and how the most complicated character on the show, Sasha, is doing.

That latter part is my favorite. Sasha is feeling down on herself after everything that happened. She took Anne’s recriminations to heart, she regrets the consequences of her plans and schemes, and seems to have fully internalized the problems with ehr behavior. Her epiphany is a big moment of growth, and I love how seeing Anne’s faith in and love for her despite everything that had gone on between them before Newtopia is what spurs her to be a better person. Sasha’s redemption arc has been one of the best things in Amphibia, and this is no exception.

At the same time, it's nice to see the effects of Anne’s generosity and good works still leaving an impact on the residents of Wartwood. The way they accept Sasha and Grime, despite everything, because they have the imprimatur of Wartwood’s protector, speaks to the good things Anne has done for the town. That too helps move Sasha’s heart, a living example of how compassion for others and putting their needs first can create more good in the world.

It’s also sweet how she’s overwhelmed by the kindness of the townsfolk. One of Sasha’s struggles here is that she feels she doesn’t deserve anything good. She goes to sleep in the barn, thinking it’s all she ought to have. So when Mrs. Croaker and Wally and others stop by just to be nice, it only adds to her guilt over being in the town under false pretenses, but also motivates her to be worthy of the admiration.

So I appreciate the fact that ultimately, despite Grime’s objections that Wartwood is doomed anyway and they should skip town, that Sasha both comes clean and resolves to protect them from Andrias’ robots. The title lays it on a little thick, but these choices mark a real milestone for Sasha, choosing honesty over deception, being direct and sincere over schemes and ploys, and putting someone else’s needs and the greater good over her own self-interest. We’ve seen Anne do a lot of maturing in Wartwood, and there’s something poetic about Sasha heading there to do the same.

The ensuing battle with the mecha-frog is well done. It’s not much, but I appreciate the fact that Sasha and Grime don’t just magically beat the baddies with their brutality and brawn. Instead, using the giant bot’s own homing missiles against it displays a certain cleverness. Grime gets a nice moment, choosing to stick around given his friendship with Sasha, even though he thinks it’s a bad idea. And the fact that Wartwood ‘s denizens aren’t scrubs, but rather capable fighters is a nice surprise for the visitors and a tribute to the townsfolk who’ve had less to do given Anne and company’s travels.

Overall, this is a good outing that evokes a meaningful change in Sasha for the right reasons, and shows her putting that change of heart into action in a way that honors her journey, Anne’s journey, and the humble little backwater that helped make both of them into better people.

[7.3/10] It’s funny, I’m of two minds about the current phase of Amphibia. On the one hand, I kind of miss the string of “wacky adventures” that characterized the first season. Not all of them were pure gold, but there’s an underlying charm to that sort of low stakes fun that endeared me to the show. Those gentler, zanier outings have been fewer and farther between, which is understandable given the show’s expanded scope, but also a bit of a shame.

On the other hand, given all the narrative irons that Amphibia has in the fire, I feel like I’ve adopted more and more of a “When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?” mentality, whether I want to or not. Some big stuff has gone down, and even having grown up on it, it’s hard to veer back into the “a bunch of standalone episodes interspersed with an arc episode here and there” format that Buffy the Vampire Slayer made famous. I still like the “lesson of the week” zaniness, but I find myself impatient for the show to get on with the broader story, even if I know we need those individual outings to make the big story points feel meaningful.

(Side note: I’m having the same experience with my Star Trek: Deep Space Nine rewatch. Standalone Trek is what brought me to the dance, and include some of the show’s best outings, but the later the series gets, the more I’m anxious for progress on the Dominion conflict, even as I know deep down that the individual character stories are why we care about the players standing up to enemies from across the galaxy.)

Which is all to say that “Hop ‘Till You Drop” is an episode that I’m probably underrating. The episode is solid, with good points for Anne and all of the Plantars, a good setting, and some fun hijinks. We need “Plantars are fish out of water” stories to make their journey to the human realm meaningful, and it’s nice to see Anne still learning and growing even back in her home environment. I just find myself with ants in my pants for the show to deal with the fallout from last season’s finale in more detail, even though it’s good T.V. storytelling to hold off for some smaller stakes stories.

My favorite part of this one is Anne’s progression. I like the idea that looking after the Plantars in the human realm helps her understand parenthood from the other side a bit. The moral--that she needs to ease her “babies” into the world rather than throw them into the deep end--is a good one. And the “reveal” that while she thought she swam in the deep end in Amphibia, the Plantars were constantly looking out for her, adds a nice wholesome quality to the whole thing, about this found family looking out for one another on both sides of the divide.

The Plantars’ business is a little less availing. Polly needing to control her temper around a bunch of tots at a Build-a-Bear is fine, but a little generic. Hop Pop being taken in by scams seems kind of random. But I do appreciate Sprig being unable to resist his characteristic love for pushing buttons and pulling levers when thrust into an art installation. The mall hijinks don’t really do it for me, but at least that one’s on brand.

Plus hey, it’s nice to have someone outside of the Boonchuy household recognize Anne’s absence and receive an Official Excuse:tm: for where Anne was.

Overall, this is a perfectly good, mostly-standalone episode about Anne and the Plantars readjusting to life in L.A., one that's necessary to appreciate the big stuff, even as I’m anxious for the big stuff.

[7.2/10] A solid episode. The main story, about Harley infiltrating a party to try to kidnap Bruce Wayne, leads to some good Harley hijinks. Her “we’re not friends” exchanges with Batgirl, and pretensions toward still being a villain, lead to the heartwarming (if still appropriately crude) return from Harley to save Barbara and admit that they’re in a friend-like zone. It’s nice for Babs to have someone stick up for her, and nice to see Harley admit she’s developing a soft spot and a conscience. Her exchange with her psychiatrist alter ego is great, as always, and the gags about how creepy and pervy this version of Mad Hatter is are superb as well.

The King Shark story is solid as well. I can appreciate the character story of King Shark not wanting to take the throne, but also feeling squeamish about his little brother (appropriately named “Prince Shark”) wanting to sell the kingdom to someone who’s historically hated them just to cash out. The show leans into a little more realness than comedy, but there’s a true-to-life dynamic between King and Price, with our favorite shark still caring about his “ancestral homeland” even if he’s chosen to leave, and Prince feeling like he’s earned the right to do as he pleases with this inheritance given his years of being the “good son” who stuck around and took care of their dad.

The explosion into a shark vs. shark throwdown becomes a bit much. But it’s interesting to see King Shark step up for something he believes in here, and there’s some solid laughs to be had. King and Prince joking about their father’s failings among themselves while solemnly accepting the well-wishes of those at his funeral are well-observed. Prince’s line about diaper stuff having to be bad considering everyone underwater just poops where they are anyway is a nice bit of continuity from last season. And it may be just me, but I got a kick out of Gary Anthony Williams playing another anthropomorphic shark after his turn as Riff Tamson in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Overall, this one feels a little interstitial given the broader things happening in the show right now, but both Harley’s story and King Shark’s story gave them interesting moments of caring about something they’ve pretended not to care about until now. I’m interested to see where it all goes.

[8.5/10] This is a great spoof of both 1990s sitcoms and The Killing Joke, while also managing to reconstruct both forms in striking ways.

Joker here follows a pretty standard sitcom arc. He wants something vital for his kids. (In this case, a spot in the bilingual education program.) He goes all out to get it for them, only to lose himself in the means rather than the ends. (In this case, being more obsessed with his mayoral campaign and the vanity it feeds than actually connecting with the stepkids he’s trying to help.) Only then, he has a moment of truth and realizes what’s really important -- his family. (Albeit here it involves a parade float, a child kidnapping, and a hostage situation.)

Aside from the abduction of a child and the friendly bank-robberies, that could easily be a storyline on Full House or the other Miller-Boyett productions in the same vein. Danny Tanner running for the school board to help his girls, only to get obsessed with the campaign, and relent when he realizes he’s neglecting them, would totally work. Taking that stock sitcom story shape,and grafting it onto the Joker’s vibe is masterful.

This one is especially funny for Joker as step dad/candidate. The way he spars with Debbie (Amy Sedaris!) over parking spots and program slots is a funny low stakes conflict for the Clown Prince of Crime. His lines about “speaking of racist” and frustration at his goons not knowing how to stop doing that Reservoir Dogs thing is a laugh. And the maniacal menace running for mayor on a platform of populism and socialist policies is very funny at a conceptual level.

Hell, there’s also great homages across the board here, from Joker’s campaign song to featuring lines from The Dark Knight, to his parade setup invoking Batman ‘89, to even an homage to the “We live in a society” meme. There’s scads of amusing easter eggs for longtime fans, mixed with amusingly down-to-earth problems for the Joker as a suburban dad.

This is also a nice episode for Jim Gordon! Frankly, despite loving most of Harley Quinn’s fresh takes on notable D.C. Universe figures, I haven't been the biggest fan of their version of Commissioner Gordon. But I like the idea here that despite running for mayor, he doesn’t really know what he stands for, and is just sort of doing this thing without reason beyond the fact that he wants respect.

His realization that Two-Face is doing a lot of shit Gordon disagrees with in his name, to where he has a change of heart and tries to save his political opponent, is good stuff. There’s great humor in Gordon’s almost pathological inability to understand the fact that Two-Face is, well, two-faced. But his efforts to intervene, set things right, and tell his daughter she was right all along are surprisingly stirring.

And therein lies the rub. The brilliance of the episode is that the entire climax is a clever remix of the famous final sequence in The Killing Joke. The fact that everything’s mish-mashed, with Joker rushing to save his kid, Gordon acting to save them both through a roller coaster gone wrong, and Joker talking Gordon down from acting rashly or harshly because to do anything else would be giving in to something cruel and unhealthy turns the original story on its ear in a delightful way.

At a base level, it’s unexpectedly wholesome to see Joker be willing to give up his campaign at the drop of a hat to save Benecio. It’s unusual but redemptive to see Commissioner Gordon put his neck out to save his onetime enemy and Joker’s stepson. And the fact that what pulls them both out of their vain tailspins is reminders of how much they care for their children is genuinely heartening.

That's the biggest twist in this whole thing. The riffs on classic Alan Moore stories and old sitcoms are fun. But the most impressive part is how “Joker: The Killing Vote” is able to both poke fun at those things but also earnestly adapt them for its own purposes in a way that is, against all odds, pretty moving at the end of the day. Harley Quinn continues to surprise me, in the best ways, and this episode may be the peak of its cleverness and willingness to reimagine the famous faces from Batman’s world, putting them in a hilarious but heartening new light.

[7.4/10] A respectable if not overwhelming start to the new season. I think my only big picture complaint about this episode is that it feels like a solid re-piloting for the series as it embarks upon its final season, capably setting up the titular new normal for Anne and the Plantars. But for something the show has been building to for two whole seasons now, this reunion and relaunch feels...kind of ho-hum?

I don’t know. The tearful reunion between Anne and her parents tugs the heartstrings nicely. Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy take the existence of anthropomorphic frogs in stride, though I suppose that's a necessary concession to the show being able to function. And life under the Boonchuy roof seems pretty normal, all things considered.

None of this is bad. The show sets up new motivations and risks and interpersonal issues that will undoubtedly blow up in our heroes’ faces at some point over the next dozen episodes or so. But I don’t know. Anne has been striving to get back home for months, and has bonded with a new family in that time, and has been through a lot, with her best friends and new friends in that time. I was hoping for something more cathartic and impactful than the “perfectly good but not amazing” reset we got.

Still, I do appreciate the one meaningful parental conflict we do get out of this. Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy are understandably concerned about letting their daughter out again, considering they lost her for half a year the last time they let her out by herself. Their justifiable concerns serve two purposes: (1.) allowing the show to represent the covid lockdown era in a sideways fashion, without disrupting the flow of the narrative and (2.) balance out the parental fears with the way Anne has grown over the past five months.

I like that as a throughline for this one. The writers lay it on rather thick, but there’s a strong point here that as worried about Anne as Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy are, since she could be irresponsible and was lost when they last saw here, she has developed into a much more responsible, mature, “town protector” type in their absence. Anne’s parents seeing who she’s become, not just who she was before, gives these events a strong emotional undercurrent.

The nuts and bolts of the episode are sturdy as well. A trip to the grocery store with the Boonchuys and the Plantars provides a nice excuse for hijinks and an opportunity for the frogs to marvel at the wonders of the human world. King Andrias deploying some kind of Frobonator with invisibility powers to take out Anne creates an immediate danger. And the conceit of having to fend it off without letting the other people, especially Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy, know what’s going on, creates some dramatic tension. There’s a sitcom-y quality to Anne and the Plantars frantically trying to fight this robotic monster while pretending that everything’s fine so as not to spook the normies or make her parents think she can't handle the responsibility.

The return of Anne’s blue powers when the Plantars are in danger is another interesting element. Again, I like the idea that they’re provoked when someone she cares about is in peril, so that she can't just “turn it on” when convenient, and that using them takes a lot out of her. If you introduce gamebreaking powers like that, giving them limitations so they’re not an easy answer for every predicament is key.

All of this is sound as a pound. We get the sense of the Plantars living with the Boonchuys, of Anne’s parents recognizing her growth, of a robotic enemy lurking in the shadows, of a mission to protect the human realm and Amphibia, and myriad other hurdles ahead. There’s good humor with Polly learning how to use her legs, rampant noodle obsession, and a nice durian setup and payoff. None of it’s bad.

It’s just not the superlative follow-up to a momentous season finale I was expecting. Season 2 took a little bit to wind-up too, so I don’t want to count Amphibia out. This is a good episode, and there’s plenty of places to go from here. Given the show’s track record, I was just expecting a great one instead.

[8.1/10] When we see Marcy thumbing through an old tome in the public library, she stumbles onto a couple of pages featuring Cipher Bill from Gravity Falls and Goliath from Gargoyles. You can see why the show’s creative team would want to pay tribute to their forerunners in an episode like this, one filled to the brim with twists in a style those series thrived on.

Sasha would rather stay here to rule Amphibia than return home to rule her middle school! King Andrias is a malevolent conqueror who wants to use the music box to take over the multiverse! He’s a thousand years old and can use the power of the recharged gems to turn his castle into a flying fortress and restart the Frobo-makers! Most notably, Marcy not only shares Sasha’s desire not to return home, but intentionally brought her and Anne here so as not to be split up.

The show parcels out the reveals well, and more than that, roots them all in character. Sasha’s betrayal isn’t a big surprise. Amphibia has been telegraphing it since she reunited with Anne and Marcy. But there’s still a power in Sasha pretending to be their friends, only to use their entree into King Andrias’ throne room to stage a coup she and Grime have been planning for ages. The small extra twist--that Sasha wants to stay here because it can give her more of the thing she wants most, which is control--is on brand for her, and adds an extra little something to a move the audience knew was coming.

More to the point, it leaves Anne rightfully bitter and angry at her supposed friend. Anne was already leery of Sasha after their confrontation at Toad Tower, and epiphany about Sasha’s bullying. But she tried to turn over a new leaf, to accept that Sasha could be genuinely remorseful and want to recognize Anne as she is now. To have her lie to them, use them like this, is the final straw for an already fraught and tender reconciliation.

When Anne tells Sasha that she’s a horrible person, that she doesn’t want to be her friend anymore, it stings. Brenda Song does an incredible job selling the place of betrayal and hurt these words are coming from. They seem to wound Sasha, and the gravity of them this the audience too. This is a bridge too far, and one that changes the former friends’ relationship forever.

Sasha’s plan does provide plenty of good stuff for our heroes to do. The most pure and fun part of the episode sees Anne, the Plantars, Marcy, Yunan, and Lady Olivia hatching a scheme to retake Newtopia, free King Andrias from Sasha and Grime’s imprisonment, and block off the approaching Toad army. We get another cool sword fight between Anne and Sasha (who’s dual wielding now!). We get a surprisingly competitive standoff between Sprig and Grime, with the young frog getting the better of the exchange despite the battle-hardened toad wielding Barrel’s Warhammer. We get the trio of pugilists--Polly, Frobo, and Yunan--whupping up on the Toad goons. And most entertainingly, we get Hop Pop using his famed thespian abilities to distract the guards and free the king.

At this point, Anne and her allies are a well-oiled machine. Seeing them band together and pool all their talents to win the day and score one for the good guys is the kind of rousing achievement Amphibia has been delivering for a while now.

Only, what if it turns out the people they’re helping aren’t the good guys?

In truth, the King Andrias reveal is more of a case of providing new details rather than spilling the beans. From the first moment we met the King, the show’s hinted at something shady about him. But the unveiling of his dark past and evil scheme still have power in multiple dimensions.

For one, it connects our heroes’ present to Amphibia’s past. The show has occasionally gestured toward the events in the long long ago, but hearing Andrias regale the assembled about his days as a conqueror, his secret connection to the box, and his plans for multiversal domination come with the coolness and fearsomeness of knowing what specifically he’s planning. (Though we still need more info on his weird jellyfish ghosts and the strange entity he was communing with this season!)

For another, it gives us a hint about one of the show’s abiding themes -- the dissolution of a friendship and how it can or can't be repaired. From the glimpse we see of Andrias’ two friends, given their coloring, they each seem to represent one of the gems, and their friendship a union among frogs, toads, and newts that doesn’t seem to exist in the present day. Given that the three gems were recharged by Marcy, Anne, and Sasha respectively, you don’t have to look hard to see the way the show is creating parallels between Andrias’ trio and Anne’s.

But the most important of the three is this -- it means that Anne can't trust her own judgment of others. Whatever her bad intentions, Sasha is on the side of good here, with actions that would have prevented Andrias from doing much worse things. More than that, Anne fought tooth and nail to keep the box out of Sasha’s hands, and willingly gave it to someone who fooled her, who used its power for destruction, who tried to kill Frobo, Polly, and Sprig. That would shake anyone’s certainty in who they can really trust.

In truth, those developments are a mixed bag. Frobo’s smashing at the hands of Andrias imposes some cost to this adventure. I imagine there’s restrictions for DIsney shows about not actively killing off characters. Presumably Frobo can and will be rebuilt, better than ever. But a robot is far enough removed from being a living thing that you can destroy it without offending Disney’s censors. (Sorry, Star Trek: The Next Generation fans.) I don’t really buy it, but it’s a good way to show that Andrias means business by having him take out a member of Anne’s party, even if it seems destined to be temporary.

The best part, though, is that it motivates Polly, who’s been closest to Frobo throughout all of this. While I doubt Frobo’s gone for good, the fact that he put himself in harm’s way to save Polly is still powerful. So is Polly’s impassioned reaction to the apparent death of her friend. The show has its fun with Polly complaining about an itchy derrière for most of the episode. But when someone she loves has been hurt, and Polly herself is in danger, it’s the extra emotional push she needs to sprout the legs Marcy promised her back when they first met. The design is cute, gives Polly a physical sign of her increasing maturity, and gives her an emotionally satisfying crescendo amid the everything else that's happening here.

The one part of it I take issue with is the fake out with Sprig’s death. It’s times like these I remind myself that, however mature Amphibia’s storytelling may be, it’s not aimed at me as a target audience. Again, I imagine Disney has rules about killing off child characters in its TV show, and even if it didn’t, nothing about Amphibia in the past has suggested it has the stones to do something as dramatic as kill off Sprig. So it was hard for me to feel the heart-wrenching emotional moment when Anne thinks he’s dead, because I just didn’t buy it. (Though I’ll admit, the visual echo of Anne and Sprig relaxing on a hill a la the season 1 end credits tugged at my heartstrings more than a little.)

Even that serves a purpose, though, because the emotional perturbation unlocks something in Anne. I’m curious, if cautious, about Anne harnessing the power of the blue gem and going all Super Saiyan. Characters suddenly developing magic powers or being the chosen one out of nowhere can be lazy storytelling. All that said, the fact that she can't sustain the power, and it’s only spurred by the extreme emotional disturbance of thinking she’d lost her best friend puts a nice limit on it. Visually, it’s cool as hell to see a glowing, godlike Anne throwing down with King Andrias. And trying to figure out what it means and how she developed this power provides plenty of mystery and intrigue for season 3, so Sprig’s faux-demise has a function in the narrative.

The other side of the Sprig feint is that it gives Marcy a chance to redeem herself a bit after a devastating reveal. And honestly, even though it comes a little out of nowhere too, it nay be my favorite part of the episode. Anne turning her back on Sasha and putting her faith in King Andrias, only to discover she picked the wrong side, is a solid storytelling flip. But you know what? Anne had reason to mistrust Sasha, and Andrias seemed gregarious and amenable. It’s not that big of a shock in either direction.

But there is something more unmooring about kind, enthusiastic Marcy being a betrayer of sorts as well. The idea that she brought the human trio to the frog realm, never thinking the music box would work, but reveling in the idea of going some place where they could remain friends and not be torn apart, is a genuine shock. Marcy seems so compassionate and, not mild mannered exactly, but certainly not controlling like Sasha. So finding out that she’s responsible for this time away from their families, that she doesn’t even want to go back, is unmooring for Anne and the audience in a way the other two big twists aren’t.

And yet, Marcy is sympathetic too. The show roots it in a relatable worry, of parents moving for new jobs and ripping kids away from the lives and friends they know. It’s an unfortunate but understandable part of growing up for scads of children. One of my favorite story elements is when characters make bad choices for understandable reasons, and a child choosing to escape to a fantasy land rather than being ripped away from her dearest friends, especially when she’s a little extra and might struggle to make new ones, fits that bill.

So Marcy does her best to make up for it. She stands up to King Andrias despite being in cahoots with him to this point once she realizes he sold her a bill of goods and is in it for evil reasons. She flies Joe Sparrow to rescue Sprig from plummeting to his doom. And most importantly, she uses the box or the gem energy or something to send Anne and the Plantars back to the human realm. And she pays the price for it.

Again, I’m doubtful the show will stick with Marcy’s demise. This is a show with magic and mysticism (which Marcy’s previously shown an interest in), and the little preview we get for next season shows her in some kind of tank, the telltale sign of a conveniently-timed recovery.

Still, there is true shock at the image of Marcy regretting what she did, trying to make it up to Anne, and ending up with a flaming sword through her heart for the trouble. Maybe that's what makes it so easy to forgive her, so easy to sympathize. She recognizes her mistake and delivers what Anne has been questing for all this time, with a grand sacrifice as the price for making it up to her. Our heroes end up in Los Angeles, but Marcy isn’t coming with them.

The tease we get of next season’s adventures is exciting. After two seasons of Anne has the fish out of water in Amphibia, seeing the Plantars as the frogs out of swamp water in the human realm is a thrilling reversal that gives the show plenty of new places to go. (Hello Owl House fans!) The remixed intro and prospect of the “more to come” ends Amphibia’s second season on an appropriately bittersweet Empire Strikes Back-esque note, while pointing the way for more excitement to come, with time for our heroes to chew on the grand twists unleashed in “True Colors”.

What elevates Amphibia, though, is that those twists aren’t just shocking reveals for the sake of having a reveal. (Something that, if I’m being pointed, is a standard Gargoyles didn’t always meet.) Everything, from Sasha’s betrayal, to King Andrias’ hidden agenda, to Marcy’s secret and beyond, has an emotional impact that changes the relationships and psyches of the characters. Sending Anne and her surrogate family back to our dimension is still a hell of a tease.

But the biggest deal in the finale of Amphibia’s second season is simpler but more devastating -- who Anne’s friends and enemies are is no longer as certain as it was an episode ago. What Sasha, Marcy, and Amphibia mean to her now, is not so simple, reflecting another one of the show’s recurring themes: the self-actualization but also complexity that comes with growing up and seeing beyond your familiar shores. The big reveals don’t just change Anne’s journey; they change Anne, and it’s the kind of approach that makes season 2 a great achievement, even and especially as the series expanded beyond it’s “wacky adventure of the week” approach. The wider world and character arcs of Amphibia have become no less powerful, and its twists no less meaningful, than the other great shows it’s borrowing from.

[7.3/10] This is a peculiar episode, coming at the very beginning of Mike Scully’s tenure as showrunner for The Simpsons. On the one hand, it’s a pretty standard, middle-of-the-road Simpsons episode. There’s a solid riff on peewee football which pokes fun at the sport and foofaraw around it, with a decent family story mixed in. If you didn’t know better, you could mistake it for a “solid but unspectacular” outing from the show’s glory years.

But there’s a few Scully tells here, or at least elements that would become the hallmarks of his era. There’s a lot of physical comedy here. Maybe that's expected from a sports episode, where part of the deal is that you’re capturing the absurdity of athletics. But Nelson using Bart’s body as a battering ram, Lisa falling down the stairs, Bart throwing objects at Homer’s noggin while his father tries to hug him, even Homer doing an extended gymnastics routine feel like the show leaning into absurd pratfall humor rather than sharper comedy.

Likewise, there’s a looooong wind-up before we get into the guts of the episode, featuring Homer as Bart’s coach. And there’s some questionable gags and more outlandish elements that would also be some of the prime features of the show under Scully’s reign. The jerkass Homer treatment of Coach Ned is right up there, even if you can at least somewhat write it off as a spoof of prick parents taking their children's sports games too seriously. And a celebrity cameoing as themselves gives me preemptive skepticism, even if Joe Namath is a surprisingly good voice actor for an athlete, and the moment works as a spoof of contrived appearances from real life athletes in inspirational sports movies.

Still, as out there as all of this stuff is, there’s a decent emotional core to “Bart Star”. The conflict between Homer and Bart is Homer going overboard with praise and support given the poor upbringing and treatment Homer got from his father, and Bart resenting the position it puts him in with the rest of the team. There’s something there, and both meaning well but ending up at odds, only to reconcile when it counts, is the kind of emotional core, however slight, that was missing all too often with Scully in charge of the show. So it’s nice to see it here, and however absurd, Bart taking the rap for Nelson with the cops, rather than stepping into play QB in the championship game, is the the kind of Simpsons subversion I can appreciate.

Overall, this one is a real odd duck. It’s not quite the Looney Tunes, out there Scully brand of episodes that would come. It’s not quite a standard, if not hilarious, installment from any other season. And it’s not a fully-formed, heartfelt story of father and son. It’s all of these things, which makes it a mascot for the show’s awkward transition from its golden years to its most reviled period.

[7.7/10] As we approach the season finale, with presumably epic and status-quo shaking events to come, it’s nice to have one more hurrah in Wartwood, and do something low stakes and zany. A battle of the bands is a great opportunity for the town’s local color to come out and do their thing, with silly but endearing results. A Loggle-led jug band, Mrs. Croaker’s theremin, and our favorite tulip-growing friend are all a hoot as usual.

But of course, there’s something deeper here. An attempt to reform ”Sasha and the Sharps” goes awry when Anne wants to assert her own creativity just a bit, and as usual, bossy Sasha has to control and remake the situation to suit her needs, alienating her supposed friends in the process and bailign when she doesn't get her way.

Again, what I appreciate about the show’s treatment of Sasha is that it doesn’t villainize her exactly. It helps us understand her perspective, while also having her understand why she hurts and inadvertently pushes away her friends. For the former, I like the idea that Sasha is well-intentioned. Deep down, she thinks she’s helping, and struggles to sit by when he thinks the people close to her aren’t doing the best or “right” thing. However haughty that idea is, she’s coming from a genuinely well-meant place of trying to get her friends where she thinks they want to be, even if it means stepping on their will in the process.

But I also appreciate that it’s none other than Toadie who convinces her to have a small change of heart. Who better to represent the idea that it’s nice to be in control, but just giving people what they need and ask for, and supporting someone you care for, can be no less fulfilling. Considering Toadie was a one-note joke of a character when we first met him, it's nice to give him a chance to spur the emotional turning point and be a bit of a real character rather than just a comical prop.

The Battle of the Bands itself is a lto of fun. As a recovering pop punk enthusiast, Sasha’s “Heart Stomper” tune is a bop, and Anne’s “No Big Deal” song is a winning encapsulation of her time in Amphibia. Sasha coming out for the guitar solo to demonstrate that she’s willing to take a backseat and support others’ ideas is a major moment of growth for her. And Grime taking a battle of the bands as seriously as any battle and winning over the judges with his harp playing is the right funny note to go out on.

Overall, this is, as Sokka from Avatar: The Last Airbender once put it, the kind of time-wasting nonsense I’ve been missing from Amphibia. But it’s also the kind of unexpectedly deep character story I love. Onto the finale!

[7.7/10] Amid all the epic quests and secret machinations, it’s nice to get an episode where the big conflict is over the inherent awkwardness of a dinner party attended by people with bad blood for one another. The Plantars and Anne on the one side, with Sasha and Grimes on the other, and Marcy in the middle, makes for a “tense, but we’re trying” atmosphere that nicely blends the off-the-wall absurdity of Amphibia with some well-observed realness in how people try to get along in awkward social situations.

The push-and-pull between the various attendees of a party at the Plantars is superb. I love how Hop Pop and Grimes are both walking on eggshells and stepping on each other's toes in the process, with each offering stereotyped/ignorant comments about frogs/toads, only to find that they have more in common than they ever expected. It’s a small part of the episode, but it’s a nice dramatization of how prejudice can be a hurdle for people who otherwise are more alike than they’d admit.

I also like how, despite everyone being on their best behavior, there’s a lot of tension between the Plantars and the Sasha/Grimes duumvirate over what happened at Toad Tower at the end of last season. Sasha in particular is trying to keep her cool, but is aggravated at the constant reminders and sense of feeling left out. Sprig rubs it in intentionally, since he still resents Sasha for how she acted. And while there’s some fond reminiscing among the three humans, Sasha gets mad at inside jokes and signs that the rest of the crew found friends and fulfillment in Amphibia that she wasn’t a part of.

Thankfully, the problem largely went away after the show’s first season, but this remains a “Was the giant action set piece at the end really necessary?” outing for the series. Still, I appreciate that more than fending off killer hornets or whatever, this is a referendum on change. Sasha is still claiming that she’s no different and hasn’t been softened or chastened by her experiences here. But she has to play nice and pretend she’s turned a corner for her and Grime’s plan to work. It’s a struggle though, which is true to life. One of the things I appreciate a great deal about Sasha is that it’s not like she’s instantly better. She’s still learning about why Anne in particular resents Sasha for pushing her and Marcy around, and having to come to terms with who she is and why she’s wrong.

But what I really appreciate is the idea that Anne doesn’t need Sasha to change, just to recognize that Anne has changed. The observation is insightful -- sometimes it’s not about another person having to shift their whole personality or disposition; just see you for the person you’ve become, and not the person they used to know you as. Recognizing and honoring that growth can go a long way.

It is nice to see Anne, Marcy, and Sasha work together to defeat the hornets, showing that despite their differences, when they're united, they can still accomplish a hell of a lot together. And there’s some good laughs to be had, from the Pictionary-knockoff to Hop Pop’s closing “Where are we going to live?” legitimate question, to Grime’s delivery of the “Frogs don’t do that?” line.

Overall, amid the broader fireworks and arcs of the season, it’s nice to have an episode like this that focuses on the fraught but fascinating relationships among all these characters, left to figure it out before things (presumably) come to a head in the finale.

[8.2/10] I enjoyed this one a lot. For one, there was just a ton of humor to be had from the girls’ misadventures in New Orleans and beyond. Harley’s obsession with beignets tickled my funny bone. Nora Freeze having turned into a party girl was the comedic gift that kept on giving. Swamp Thing (Sam Richardson!) being more of a chill hippie type is a fun, off-kilter characterization in the proud Harley Quinn style. And my god, I just died laughing at the psychological dysfunction about Batman named a pair of cats Thomas and Martha, dressing them up, and acting like they’re his parents.

But there’s a lot of strong character work here too. I like Ivy pretending everything’s cool and trying to go along with everything, while being unable to connect to “The Green” until she accepts her own emotional vulnerability. I’m always on board with practical problems that end up being solved with the characters figuring out something about themselves or needing to open themselves up rather than some random macguffin that needs to be found. I also liked Swamp Thing challenging Ivy a bit, not just physically with his cool swamp storm emotional reaction, but in charging that she’s selfish, having friends listen to her problems but being unwilling to accept the same from others and work to soothe them. Ivy hearing that, being vulnerable with an old friend, and admitting how worried she is about Frank is strong stuff.

Ia slo liked the B-story about Batman and Catwoman wanting different things. I’ll admit, while I like these versions of Batman and Catwoman separately, I don’t necessarily like them together. Bu tI do appreciate the central observation of why they break up here -- they want different things. Selina is, naturally, cat-like, and values her solitude. Bruce lost his parents and so is scared of being alone, and needs constant companionship. Them enjoying one another’s company, but having different dispositions, is an interesting way to have them split. And I greatly enjoyed the interlude from none other than Music Meister as a therapist, even if Sanaa Lathan’s singing, shall we say, compared favorably to the otherwise great Diedrich Bader’s.

Overall, this was a fun romp through New Orleans including some memorable characters from the D.C. Universe making their debut in Harley Quinn, and could have gotten away with doing that alone. Instead, the ep goes one step further and deepens not only Ivy, but the relationship (or lack thereof) between Bruce and Selina. The tease as to Frank’s captor makes for a good twist to boot, and Harley ends up getting her beignets. A happy ending!

[7.8/10] Sasha might have quietly become my favorite character on the show, or at least the one I find the most interesting. I love how complicated she is. On the one hand, she is brave, bold, and above all else determined. On the other, she can, charitably, be bossy, reckless, and ignore the wants and uncomfortableness of her companions. She seems to mean well, and I still bet we’ll find out that she has problems at home, but she also acts out in ways that are concerning. She is a mix of good and bad in a way we don’t often get to see on television writ large, let alone children’s television.

To “The Third Temple”’s credit, it swerved me nicely. There is power in reuniting the three humans in Amphibia for the first time,especially since this is the first time Anne and Sasha have met face to face since the events at Toad Tower. But rather than starting another fight, Sasha is contrite. She takes responsibility for what happened, and Anne seems to be tentatively okay with it, even if things are still awkward.

In truth, I thought it was a little quick as reconciliations go, but the show didn’t pussyfoot around. It delved into the issues, had Sasha talk earnestly (or at least seemingly earnestly) about what transpired and what she’s learned since they parted, and be a help to their crew (albeit one who again tries to take everything on her own shoulders rather than working as a team).

The show doesn’t leave it at that either. In the big final confrontation in the dungeon, Sasha accuses Anne of still not trusting her despite her apology. The complaint is so true to life. Sasha is making progress, but wonders why contrition isn’t enough. It’s hard for bullies to accept wrongdoing, so the idea that doing so doesn’t suddenly fix things is maddening for them. The sense of “I apologized; why isn’t everything better?” is realistic. (Hell, we got a little of it with Hop Pop.) Especially for a preteen still trying to figure herself out, the struggles are well-observed and sympathetic, even if Sasha still has some growing to do given her perspective.

But when Anne tells her that it’s not just about Toad Tower, but about the way that Sasha always pushed her and Marcy around, and Sasha simply offers a resigned, “I know”, there is such pathos in it. The big twist here is that it’s all just an act from Sasha. THis whole thing is supposedly just a ploy to get Sasah and Grimes into King Andrias’ chambers so that they can stage their coup. But Anne’s expression after her exchange with Grimes, and the sincerity in that line delivery, make me think that Sasha means it, whether she intended to or not.

I’m a sucker for stories about bad people pretending to be good for mercenary reasons, only to discover that good is a surprisingly good fit for them. (Hello Royal Tenenbaums fans!) This is (seemingly) a variation on that story, and I’m fascinated to see where Sasha goes from here.

The other elements of the episode are strong as well. It’s silly, but I love the frogs getting all dehydrated and shriveled in the convection-filled fire temple. Hop Pop smothering himself in cantaloupe lip balm is a hilarious image. The theme of the temple being strength, with the twist that strength without determination is useless, fits nicely into the other unique twss we’ve seen from the temples. And in hindsight, I like that each of the humans recharged one gem, with Marcy mastering the temple of wisdom/caring, Anne mastering the temple of empathy/responsibility, and Sasha mastering the temple of strength/determination.

Now we have an intact music box, much faster than I expected. Surely there will be complications, if only from the under-charged blue gem. But I also like that all three of the humans have a different agenda. Anne earnestly wants to go home (though I’m curious about how/whether she’ll say goodbye to the Plantars.) Sasha is allegedly just playing along so that she and Grimes can infiltrate the royal halls of Newtopia. And given her panicked response, the show suggests that Marcy took King Andrias up on his offer and is in some kind of a cahoots with him. Rather than the recovery of the music box being a foregone conclusion toward a journey home, it just sets up more drama and intrigue.

Overall, a satisfying conclusion to the temple quest saga, and one that continues to bolster the show’s most fascinating and complicated figure.

[7.8/10[ Look, I’m a complete sucker for an “Oops All Animal Sidekicks” episode. Doing an outing where the bulk of the story is told through the non-verbal chirps and coos of Bessie and her diminutive equivalent is adorable. It feels very Looney Tunes to me, in a good way. There’s a particular “Buttons and Mindy from Animaniacs” vibe to the proceedings, without nearly as much of the mean-spiritedness.

Having Bessie frantically try to wrangle MicroAngelo, who is adorable but prone to getting into trouble, is a great setup. The animators have particular fun concocting wild scenarios for MicroAngelo to become embroiled in, and Bessie racing, rolling, and going to heroic lengths to save the little tyke is some of the best visual fun in the show. In the same way, seeing MicroAngelo and Bessie emote at one another with sweet or sad snail gestures warmed my cold, frosty heart.

The B-story featuring Anne trying on different types of armor for their guests didn't do much for me. The gags involving her outfits and the designer largely fell flat in my book. But I did appreciate the resolution -- that Anne doesn’t need to roleplay as a fantasy character like Marcy, because she’s finally happy in her own skin after how much she’s grown during her time in Amphibia. It’s a wholesome place to land.

Bessie lands with more of a thud, but it’s a good thud! The show gets a bit trite in the narrative here, with Bessie getting scolded by Hop Pop for MicroAngelo’s mischief, only for Bessie to save the day in the end. But the sequences are fun; Bessie going to extraordinary lengths to stop the fwagon from exploding (with MicroAngelo’s help) is a nice setup, and Bessie finding the strength to break through her chains by thinking of her family is almost unbearably sweet.

Overall, as we’re ensconced in the major happenings of the season, it’s nice to get a break for levity and cuteness like this that reminds you that as many layers and epic possibilities as there are here, the show can still just be fun and adorable sometimes.

[8.0/10] Now this is the kind of Sasha episode I’m on board with! She hasn't suddenly magically become good at being a friend. She’s still balancing what she wants with other people’s needs, because she’s good at this. But there’s a human fallibility to that, one where you can see the good side of Sasha that wants to hold onto her connections with people, but also the ambitious and bold side, that thinks she can make things happen and is willing to compromise other people’s trust and comfort levels to do it. This is her relationship with Anne on a macro, epic scale, and there’s something cool about that.

There’s also something cool about getting another glimpse at Amphibia politics. I’ve been listening to Miike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast for a while now, so seeing Sasha, Grimes, and company try to rally the Toads to not just be the Newts’ enforcers, but to rule in their own right, adds an interesting layer to the power struggles that have mostly been in the background of this show. The struggle to unite the disparate factions of Toads (and North, South, East, West, is a simple enough division), adds a practical dimension to why this hasn’t happened before.

But also, Sasha is a human, so her opinion is, if not disregarded outright, then certainly treated with skepticism. (The toads mistakenly calling her a “hummus” is a dumb joke, but it got a big laugh out of me, so make of that what you will.) A quest to go find an ancient implement, offered by the desiccated leader of one of the factions gives the quest an epic feel, and it brings certain challenges to the fold.

The chief one is not just to retrieve a big hammer off the back of a giant narwhal. It’s to see whether Sasha will genuinely care about the comfort levels of Percy and Braddock on this dangerous mission, or whether she’ll ignore their concerns in the name of getting the job done. We know, in the end, which she’ll pick, but what’s fascinating is that Sasha isn’t a pure jerk here. She cares about Percy and Braddock’s wellbeing, she just thinks she’s too close to victory and that she can do it with a little leeway. She’s hurt when they leave her for prioritizing herself over the team. And she’s still hurt by losing her friends.

That's the most striking part of this whole thing. Sasha resolves to go on this mission, and is able to pry the hammer out of the narwhal’s back not out of simple determination or ingenuity, but because she’s both wounded and motivated by the fact that Anne and Marcy are getting along just fine without her. She feels the need to prove herself, even if it’s misdirected projecting. There’s a lot of layers to that, and I’m down for it.

Not for nothing, the animation in this one is cool with some particularly cool gestures involving the fighting and racing with the Narwhal. And Sasha earning the Toads’ loyalty, and Grimes telling her she did right keeping her eye on the prize, portends interesting things for the future.

Overall, I appreciate how this episode continues to develop Sasha, while not giving her a presto change-o transformation like the last Sasha episode did. Sasha is still flawed, but those flaws are what make her an interesting character and as the last episode showed us, make her a clear counterpoint to the ultimate team player, Anne.