Andrew Bloom

VIP

9

[8.1/10] I was about a quarter of the way through this one, and I was a little underwhelmed. This is Harley Quinn, so it’s not like the outing was bad or anything. Even at a base level, the show knows how to be entertaining. But Harley staging an elaborate Valentine’s Day date that Ivy doesn’t want, Clayface getting catfished, and Bane feeling lonely on a romantic holiday all elicited a “ho hum” from me. There’s nothing wrong with these ideas, but they’re pretty standard without that extra Harley Quinn dose of insanity.

Hoo boy, was I wrong.

What I give “A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special” the most credit for it chutzpah. It takes a...bold show to do a story about a supervillain turning giant-sized after a botched penis enlargement spell and humping the city into destruction, to feature a clay monster falling in forbidden love with his lower half with whom he cannot come in contact lest he end their distinct existences, and an orgasms so good that it unleashes a wave of pheromones onto the town so lascivious that the entire city turns into one giant free love bacchanalia.

Suffice it to say, all of that is bonkers, and I love the subversive, go-for-broke energy of the whole damn thing. There’s raunch for the sake of raunch (which, in truth, Harley Quinn can indulge in sometimes), but then there’s going for something weird and (nigh-literally) ballsy that offends good taste but not the spirit of (again, nigh-literal) big creative swings. The choices here are so outrageous, but also featuring a certain consistency and a strange earnestness amid the general lunacy, that it’s almost impossible not to be won over by them.

My only minor complaint is that the superhero-themed When Harry Met Sally spoofs are a little tepid. I’m not sure any one of them made me actually laugh out loud. But even then, it’s at least a fun concept to mix an iconic element of a warm-hearted romcom with the larger than life figures of the D.C. universe.

The rest of the episode’s elements are winning through and through, even if it takes them a bit to get warmed up. Clayface’s unique spin of self-love is straight comedy, but it works so well. There’s a lot of funny bits here, from Clayface telling his lower half that he also identifies as “fluid”, to the star-crossed lovers element of them not being able to make contact and so professing their love through giant hamster balls. Clayface’s melodramatic overacting is always funny, and it loses none of the comic force when he’s doing it for two. And the anticlimax of their forbidden love ending when crushed under a giant foot is some Python-esque perfection.

Speaking of which, Bane’s whole story is a brilliant exercise in absurd comic escalation. What I love about the Bane story thread is that it’s arguably the most insane, but also, strangely, the most wholesome. The fact that sad sack Bane is lonely on V-day, only to be mistaken by a dominatrix as a member of her profession and stumble into some budding romance, is strangely sweet. It’s weird for such a butt of the joke like Bane to be this sympathetic and endearing, but here we are. Hell even if his sheepishness over Betty expecting him to have, as Frank Reynolds might put it, a “magnum dong” is amusing and endearing in a flustered teenager sort of way.

It ties into some of the special’s fun recurring gags. Comic homages to The Vampire Diaries, The Office, Dexter, and WandaVision all had a specificity that tickled the funny bone of this pop culture addict. I love that the Demon Etrigan is mostly involved in romantic gestures and marital aids this time of year. (And John Stamos is an odd casting choice,but he makes it work.) Using his rhymes to describe sex spells, penis enhancement, and cash vs. charge is pretty amusing. Likewise, you’d think that a show airing on HBO could get away with a little nudity if they wanted to, but frankly the way they try to shield it is much funnier. Everything from the tastefully placed blooms when Harely and Ivy canoodle, to the sausage fest banner as giant Bane makes the scene, to the 18-wheeler he drags along with him, the visual euphemisms are much funnier than any actual nudity could be.

And a giant kaiju Bane getting supercharged by Ivy’s love pheromones and trying to hump buildings, stadiums, and Ted Lasso’’s Brett Goldstein is the kind of absurd threat that is just wild enough to both tickle the funny bone and function well as an actual obstacle for our heroes to overcome.

It speaks to what the show does well in the main Harley/Ivy story. There is, on the one hand, a nice “butterfly effect” story here, with Harley’s efforts to give Poison Ivy the best Valentine’s Day ever spiraling and spiraling until a giant-sized supervillain is schtupping the city into rubble. It’s a fun larger-than-life spin on the old sitcom chestnut of grand gestures spinning out of control, and the main character needing to learn to calm down.

But there is also, as is often the case for Harley Quinn something well-observed in the relationship conflict. Yes, it’s funny to watch Harley stage an Ivy-perfect crime to profess her love, and steal the lasso of truth to find out why it wasn’t Ivy’s best V-Day ever, and buy a supernova spell under the guise of using the restroom to rock her paramour’s world.

Through all of it, though, Ivy has a point that Harley just didn’t listen. The fact that Ivy didn’t want any of this flashiness or over-the-top gestures, and Harley was determined to give it to her anyway, is a real problem. My favorite scene in the episode comes when Harley, not unfairly, says, “What about what I want?” Which is fair. It’s her Valentine’s Day too. Only then, Ivy rightfully responds that she does listen, which is why she said okay when Harley wanted to go out. The idea about relationships as compromise, about trying to respect each other’s wishes, and bending a little so you can both be happy, is a good one that dovetails with where the couple landed at the end of season 3. As in the best Harley Quinn stories, it takes the germ of something genuine in romantic partnerships, channels into something completely insane and outsized, but doesn’t lose that thread of authenticity and emotional conflict and connection at the heart of things.

Hell, at the end, it’s even a little moving. I love the fact that Ivy’s top Valentine’s day is one without any flash, without any grand gestures, without any enormous nude luchadors thrusting their way across the skyline. Instead, it was something as mundane as Harley offering her chocolate milk, a retelling of Shrek 2, and a little simple human kindness on a tough day. Is that detail a bit of a retcon? Sure. But the gesture and how much Ivy treasures it also speaks to what’s important to her: the substance behind the love and affection, not the fireworks and sweaty schemes to demonstrate it.

Only a show as bold and daring as Harley Quinn could spin a story of coagulated self-love, penis enhancement turned city-wide rampage, and an unexpected epidemic of horniness into an incisive examination of how sometimes couples have different love languages and a touching example of how true love can persist, and be all the more meaningful, without the all the trappings of a Hallmark holiday, even if the only chocolates you have are from Nesquik.

[7.5/10] I gotta say, Harley Quinn swerved me pretty well here. I thought we were on a pretty clear trajectory, and a tragic one. Through Ivy’s help and support, Harley would steadily become a good guy. Through Harley’s help and support, Ivy would steadily become a true supervillain. The tragic irony would be that for each of them, the other would give them the solace and road to self-actualization that would ultimately drive them apart. I would have been sad, but okay with that.

Helping someone else to be their best self can mean that when they’re strong enough to know what they want and have the confidence to go get it, you both realize you don’t want the same things. That's hard, but that's okay. And it would be okay for Harley and Ivy.

Instead, the show pivots them to a healthier and more positive place. Harley acknowledges Ivy’s newfound leveling up, and her goal to forge a new Eden, possibly as the head of the Legion of Doom. And Ivy acknowledges that Harley’s not comfortable with that, and is on a different path. They can still love one another, support another, and be a team at home even if they’re not a team “professionally.”

I don’t know how that's going to work in practice, especially if Ivy is off threatening the world in tandem with Lex Luthor and Harley is off trying to save it with the Bat Family. But as a concept at least, I like it. I like the maturity of each wanting the other to fulfill their dreams, recognizing how both of them have evolved in different directions, without it diminishing their love for one another. That's a truly wholesome, heartening story, and god help me, I hope it works out for those crazy kids.

I especially like how it’s presented as an alternative to Harley’s relationship with the Joker. When the plan for Ivy’s LoD ascension requires killing Major Joker at the premiere of the new Thomas Wayne movie, Joker tries to beat back his attackers with his favorite tool: psychological warfare. He worms his way into Ivy’s psyche, despite some resistance, by commiserating over Ivy’s mundane habits like not breaking down boxes of fretting over the toilet paper supply. But then he starts to put a little poison in Ivy’s ear, so to speak. He talks about how Harley’s heart isn’t in it, how she’s going align with Ivy’s scheme even though she doesn’t believe in it, and that it’s another form of being controlling, of overriding someone else’s will, of ignoring someone else’s agency, even if it’s not nearly as malevolent as Joker’s brand of it.

I like how Joker gets through to Ivy, not in a villainous way, but in a way that convinces her to make sure that her and Harley’s relationship never comes too close to resembling Joker and Harley’s relationship. Their heart-to-heart, and resolution to go their separate Bat Family/Legion of Doom ways professionally while they stay bonded personally as a result has the tinge of realism, and again, makes it easy to root for these two.

The other material in the episode is good too. The subplot of Clayface wanting credit for his (hilariously terrible) performance, only to still be mistaken for Billy Bob Thornton despite coming clean is a solid laugh. The thuddingly blunt prestige nonsense of the Thomas Wayne biopic is a pretty standard parody, but still enjoyable. Bane getting a small presence is welcome, and his pasta maker arc this season was a blast.

I also love Bruce being touched at Selina showing up because she cares about his happiness, even if she doesn’t want them to be together. Him taking his penitentiary lumps for tax evasion is both a nice beat to show his growing maturity, and a good excuse to leave Gotham without the Bat for a while. And I particularly like how he sets up Batgirl as the leader, recognizing what she’s already accomplished, and empowering this new version of the Bat Family.

All-in-all, this season was a little less focused, and a little more all over the place than the last one. But it also hit some real heights, with a reinvigorated focus on Ivy, but also an exploration of Harley’s development, and what the changes for both mean for their relationship. I’m pleased that they landed somewhere heartening, that acknowledges their evolution, without letting it tear them apart, even and in some ways especially because I didn’t expect it.

[7.7/10] I like how this episode dramatizes what’s changed about Omega in the time since she linked up with The Bad Batch, and what hasn’t.

What has is plain -- she’s a much more savvy player than when she started as an isolated ward on Kamino. She’s astute enough to recognize that she and Crosshair need disguises if they’re going to be skulking around the shady, Imp-infested confines of Lau. She’s experienced enough to know how to tempt a local functionary with a bribe in order to get her to bend the rules. And she’s skilled enough to be able to win the money she and Crosshair need to effectuate that bribe by popping into the local cantina and hustling patrons at cards.

Omega is no longer the naive, if capable young naif she was when she joined our heroes. Rather than being led around by the nose by Crosshair, she’s the one making plans and greasing the wheels when necessary. Seeing her seem so capable and assured in a tough environment is heartwarming in a strange way.

But it helps that she’s still the kind-hearted person we met when we started. Her tactics may have changed, but her principles haven't. The way she refuses to abandon Batcher, how she’s inclined to set the other impounded animals free, how she’s reluctant to use Crosshair’s brute force tactics because she doesn’t want to get anybody else hurt reveals the way in which, however more savvy Omega might be now, she hasn’t been corrupted. It’s a nice distillation of the pure qualities she started with and the greater talents and skills she’s internalized from her time with these commandos.

I’m also a fan of the planet Lao in this one. Lord knows Star Wars loves its corrupt backwaters, and the vibe of this one is familiar to anyone who’s seen the “underworld” and faraway places of the franchise in action before. But the addition of Captain Mann, the local Imperial administrator, elevates this one.

Normally Star Wars bad guys are snarling villains, but there’s something chillingly down-to-earth about Captain Mann (aided by a great vocal performance from Harry Lloyd). He scans as someone content to be a big fish in a small pond, taking advantage of his limited domain of authority to feather his own nest at every opportunity, and lean on the locals and visitors alike. I like him as a representation of the sort of everyday evil of the Empire. Not everyone is a megalomaniac striving for ultimate power. Some people are content with their lot to be able to abuse their position and get rich and comfortable on the back of mundane, local corruption and oppression.

His interactions with Omega are great, with the right layer of sliminess and cravenness to their interactions. They do a good job of advancing the larger story, since there’s the inherent tension of Omega and Crosshair trying to earn enough money to get off of Lau without attracting unwanted attention, something Captain Mann’s presence complicates. And him cornering our heroes provides a good excuse for Omega to make good on her “free the animals” impulses, and for Crosshair to give into his “shoot first and ask questions later” approach for a strong action sequence. It’s a little convenient, but Captain Mann getting his karmic comeuppance from one of the animals he imprisoned makes for some tasty just desserts.

The reunion at the end is also touching. In real time, it hasn’t been that long since our heroes have been separated from one another. But given that it’s been a whole year for viewers, and that the show committed to nearly four full episodes with separate adventures for everyone, everyone reuniting feels earned and meaningful. Wrecker and Omega hugging and rekindling their sibling bond is sweet; and Hunter embracing her as well, with his fatherly air, is no less piercing. You get the plain sense of how hard both sides have been fighting to get back to one another, which leads to great catharsis when they do.

The reunion with Crosshair is, naturally, a bit more complicated. But I relish that complication. The appearance of their betrayer, albeit one who helped save Omega, really adds to the mixed emotions of the moment. It’s well-staged and framed too, with the two ships landing on a remote planet, each a mirrored beacon of light across a dark expanse. It helps you symbolize and internalize the distance that Omega and her brothers have traversed to get here, and the emotional distance that still remains between Crosshair and his brothers.

Overall, this was a strong episode of the show that develops a quality new locale for the Star Wars pantheon, uses it to showcase how Omega has grown while hanging onto her best qualities, and earns a touching reunion among the main characters.

[7.7/10] On the one hand, I like this one because it provides some answers and is well constructed in general. Despite how much lore the show’s dropped this season, there’s still a few bills Amphibia has to pay, and I appreciate how this episode answers the question of how a discman from our world ended up in Amphibia, which we saw back in the Gravity Falls crossover episode. The fact that it was a mad scientist who happened to be listening to one when the energy blast that brought the humans to the frog realm registered in her lab isn’t the most satisfying answer, but it does give our heroes a connection to the people who may have the technology to get the Plantars back home.

(Speaking of crossovers, it was neat to see that one of the images of other realms Dr. Frakes managed to collect despite the “magnetic interference” was none other than The Owl House!)

And that's the real cinch here. For the most part, the Plantars have been pretty comfortable in Los Angeles with the Boonchuys. Sure, they want to get home, but we’ve seen more stories about them wanting to stay in the good graces of their hosts and explore the wonders of the human realm than we’ve seen ones about them feeling homesick. So it’s nice to have an episode centered not only on them yearning for a certain connection to home, but inadvertently guilting Anne into taking unnecessary risks and offering false hope in the name of lifting their spirits and raising the prospect of a return journey.

There’s something there! It’s easy to do things against your better judgment when you’re trying to make someone feel better. You feel for the Plantars, who are desperate for any bit of good news about the prospects of returning to Amphibia, and for Anne who wants to play it safe and be realistic, but also can't bear to kick her frog family when they’re down.

So going to a mad scientist in a kids science-a-torium who has wild ideas about interdimensional travel, despite D.r Jan’s warnings, is a nice way to sell the chances that Anne is taking with all of this. Dr. Frakes is a little over-the-top, but I like the fact that she’s not a crackpot; just venal and amoral. She really did stumble onto an interdimensional gateway, but is happy to gut the Plantars and name everything she finds after herself rather than using science for altruistic purposes. (And it’s nice to have voiceover vet Cree Summer on board.)

Enter Dr. Terri. I’m a fan of Kate Micucci, so that helps endear me to the character in the first place. But I also like her as a counterpart to Dr. Frakes: someone who is a put upon assistant, and who believes in the science, but who is willing to put helping people above credit or cash. Her stepping up to free the Plantars, at the risk of her career, is nicely wholesome.

This is a good episode for Anne too. Between her feeling bad for her frog family and trying to make them feel better, to her taking her mom’s advice about not giving in every time and letting them learn to cope, this is another notch on the belt of Anne maturing. I particularly like how the episode sets up her making cookies, and the pint-sized science museum attendees being zombies for snacks, before combining both features to keep Dr. Frakes off their tails.

Overall, this is a good episode that fills in a gap and sets up an ally who can help get the Plantars home, while including some nice character moments and real growth amid the zany yuks.

[7.4/10] I’m a sucker for a good Hollywood spoof, particularly one focused on dreams of stardom. It’s easy to satirize both the faux glitz and glamor of tinseltown, as well as the aspiring stars out there trying to catch their big break. GIven what Amphibia had already established with Hop Pop, it would be almost criminal if they put him so close to Hollywood without him trying to live out his acting dreams.

But I like the trajectory of it. There’s an absurdity to the fact that his simple “Say what?” line of shock makes him an instant superstar, and for elbow cream no less. But the exaggeratedness of it is what makes it fun. And the tension between him loving the attention and recognition, with the fact that he really should be keeping a low profile, adds some good conflict to this one amid the superstar laughs.

I’m still not sold on Mr. X and Jenny as antagonists, but in a loonier episode like this where we’re not expected to take them seriously, both are a better fit. I do appreciate that for the second time in a show, Mr. X hunts down Hop Pop only to find something very ordinary and earthbound in the process.

But what I like most about this one is the emotional throughline between Hop Pop and Humphrey, the surprisingly similarly-built old timer who’s kind to Hop Pop and helps him get his foot in the door. Hop Pop lives out his dream, but frets over whether or not he deserves the fame, which helps balance out his pie-in-the-sky lunacy here. And the fact that rather than seize his big break, Hop Pop turns it over to humble Humphrey, in the spirit of friendship and compassion, is truly heartwarming. So is he deciding to focus less on his wild dream and more on looking after the people he loves.

Overall, this is the kind of Amphibia episode I’ve been missing this season -- one that's mostly standalone, and full of charm and laughs, but with a solid emotional undercurrent that elevates the proceedings.

[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.

[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.

[7.1/10] 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.

[7.6/10] 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.

[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.

[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.

[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!

[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.

[8.1/10] I like the subtle theme so far that the challenges which allow you to recharge the crystals are as much about who you are as what you can accomplish. Marcy has the mental fortitude to solve any puzzle, but it takes realizing that there’s more important things than beating the game to earn the magical benediction necessary to refill the green gem. And Anne has the physical fortitude to climb a frigid mountain, even when she gives up her caterpillar wood coat, but what earns her the same recharge of the blue gem is not just her empathy, but her willingness to take responsibility for her mistakes.

I love that idea. So often the chosen one business is a simple, “Will you act to save someone or be good or be nice” type deal. And look, moral fortitude is worth something! There’s reasons to build stories around it!

But to err is human, and I find it fascinating that, in Amphibia’s estimation of worthiness, what matters isn’t just caring for other people, but owning up to your mistakes, and letting them spur you to keep doing the right thing. That's a much more human and achievable sort of goodness then the sort of moral purity we often see championed in mainstream film and T.V., and I like the idea a lot.

I also like the structure and twists of the episode. It’s nice to see Valeriana, whom we met in the Bizarre Bazaar many episodes back, return to the show and dump some lore on us. The prospect of an ancient order devoted to guarding artifacts like the music box with magical abilities is cool as all hell. (Hello “Order of the White Lotus” fans!) Her possessing genuine knowledge of the music box, and harboring true magical powers in a world light on them opens up all sorts of intriguing possibilities and teases.

But what I appreciate most is that in the guise of taking Anne to the temple, Valeriana is actually testing Anne’s heart. She berates Anne for tossing her caterpillar coat to save the Plantars and Marcy. She upbraids the young woman for racing to save someone from an avalanche. She declares Anne “unworthy” at every turn, testing her limits for criticism and shaming, to see whether it will convince her to bend her principles.

Let’s be real. That kind of sucks. This is a heightened reality kids show, but in real life, being an intentional jerk to someone just to see whether they’ll react to judge whether or not they’re worthy is...sociopathic behavior.

But I’m willing to let it slide in the contest of this quest of the heart. As with The Owl House (Amphibia’s sister show), when Valeriana magically whisks Anne away to a secret platform and challenges her emotional strength over the music box, past mistakes, and altruism, it plays like some real Kingdom Hearts-type stuff. I mean that in a good way. There’s a mix of fantasy mythos and kid-friendly ethics here, and it leaves the show feeling appropriately mystical and epic.

There’s a lot to like about the final confrontation. I particularly appreciate the fact that Anne proving herself worthy of the gem recharge requires her admitting to her original sin from the run of the show -- stealing the music box in the first place. It’s something we’ve never heard her admit out loud before, and you can tell from her and Marcy’s reaction that they still feel sheepish about it. Her admitting it, regretting it, and letting it fuel her to do better is great stuff. And while her choosing to save Valeriana despite the woman’s harshness is a more standard hero move, it still speaks well of our hero. Throw in a cool “Gandalf the White”-style transformation from Valeriana, and you have one of the show’s most memorable sequences.

There’s great comedy here too! The recurring bits about locals being out to lunch is a laugh. Anne lumbering around with the Plantars attached to her is fun. And I got a particular kick out of Anne and Valeriana awkwardly waiting around while the gem recharges. The show hints heavily that something will go wrong thanks to the non-fully recharged blue gem, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Overall, this is an episode that goes big in the lore and character development departments, and the results pay off big time. For an eleven-minute installment, “The Second Temple” plays like an appropriately momentous step in Anne’s big journey.

[7.8/10] This one started off a little meh for my tastes. There’s some well-observed relationship drama to Ivy being annoyed by many of Harley’s antics, but being too non confrontational in the relationship to say anything to her adoring girlfriend. There’s the root of something worthwhile there.

But turning it into a broad, sitcom-y, “It’s not me, it’s Catwoman telling you not to do those things!” matched with Harley smashing up the surveillance cameras and blaming it on the thieves who stole Frank, is a bridge too far for me. The two going around in circles with their petty lies about petty stuff doesn’t work.

But honestly, through them into a Eyes Wide Shut-style secret meeting and orgy, where everything comes spilling out, so to speak, and intersects with everything else, is a masterstroke. I love Jim Gordon going into the party, being his awkward and sweaty self, and inadvertently coming out with the blackmail material he needs to fund his campaign. I love Bane still being on his quest for the fabled pasta maker and missing all the fun. And I love HarlIvy getting a bit freaked out when all of these villains and upper crusters start getting their freak on.

But my favorite part of the whole thing is how the episode eventually swerves us away from the goofy sitcom stuff. Instead, when harley thinks she’s caught Ivy in a lie about Catwoamn’s “text messages”, she accidentally gets a confession that Ivy and Selina used to hook up. Now that’s a believable relationship conflict.

Harley’s shock that Ivy’s manipulative friend is also her ex is relatable, and could easily change Harley’s comfort level with staying in Catwoman's house. But so is Ivy’s story about the hookup meaning more to Ivy than it did to Selina, and Ivy holding out for things to blossom into something more even knowing that Selina wasn’t interested in that, and wincing to remember the pain and stupidity of that now when she’s found such a healthier and more fulfilling relationship that she just wants to leave that nonsense behind. The two of them coming out of this wacky misunderstanding and Court of Owls omnibus hook-up fest a stronger couple is an unexpectedly wholesome place to end this bonkers but clockwork episode.

Overall, this one starts off a little weak, but finds more and more gears the longer it goes on with the intersecting plots and gags, until it pays everything off with a nice bit of humanity and vulnerability from Harley and Ivy.

[6.0/10] Eh, fine. This is what people want when they come to All Creatures Great and Small. It’s a bunch of saccharine, indiscriminate sap. And I suppose that's fine for something set around the holidays. It’s what people expect, even. Maybe it’s just watching it at the beginning of February, but this did next to nothing for me.

There’s a few moments that stand out. Siegfried toasting “to the remarkable Mrs. Hall, and I suppose Jesus too!” is hilarious. Carmody drunkenly talking about how Siegfried called Audrey “a remarkable woman” and the two grown-ups having a very chaste but sweet little interaction afterwards is nice. Madame Pomphrey walking into the Drovers and being out of place but game, while keeping her status as a benefactor quiet is a pleasant little bit. And hey, Mr. Farnon getting over his hang-ups and deciding to have Carmody stay at Skeldale house, in Tristan’s room no less, even if it’s “only for practical reasons” is the closest thing to real character growth and payoff we get here.

Well, except for the baby. But there’s no dramatic tension there. Sure, in theory we’re worried about whether James will make it back in time to meet his son (And it’s a son! Helen’s hunch was wrong!) or if Helen will have the baby without any complications. But All Creatures being All Creatures, you just know that James is going to find his way back to Yorkshire before the episode’s out, and that they’ll have a happy bouncing baby in no time. This show doesn’t have the stones to do anything less, so there’s no suspense or excitement to it.

Plus honestly, god help me with this James stuff. If limp-wristed James Herriot can learn to operate a WWII bomber in a few months, so can most recruits. You know what most recruits can't do in three months? Be a licensed and trained veterinarian to help keep the nation’s food supply intact. I know they want to paint James’ enlistment as noble and brave, but it continues to seem really stupid, and that's before you get into how silly he looks in that uniform doing his little run to the barracks. It’s hard to feel Helen’s fear of James being in airborne clashes in mainland Europe when the very idea of it is kind of ridiculous.

So are his stories. His chance conversation with a motorist who picks him James up when he’s hitchhiking, about guilt over not fighting in the war, is too writerly and coincidental. I give the show credit for not having the missing cat the driver’s looking for be the one that Helen adopted. And Helen giving the cat to the man and his daughter to brighten their Xmas anyway is, I suppose, a solid conclusion to the cat’s three-episode arc. But I can't be arsed to care about it.

Likewise, the superstition/symbolism of James repairing the wing of the flight school mascot using a cocktail weenie toothpick comes off as pretty absurd too. From the second you meet James’ commanding officer, you can tell he’s going to be a hardass with a heart of gold, so him relenting and driving James out to see his new baby comes with little surprise or oomph. His story about barely seeing his own twin girls gives him an interesting perspective, but the idea that James will be somehow betraying the brotherhood by going to see his newborn child for a day on Xmas is laughable, and makes the C.O. seem like a jerk for putting James through this dog and pony show in the first place.

Then there’s Carmody. And hoo boy, let me tell you, after we had a farting dog subplot this season, I didn’t think we’d top things with an “I got bit on the bum by an angry mutt” subplot. Of all the broad nonsense. What’s funny is that I like Carmody! He’s a different kind of bookish stiff, and seeing this potentially neurodivergent, very green young vet get in the mix with the residents of Skeldale house often makes for a good blend. But him falling down drunk, and protesting but secretly loving Xmas despite his atheist upbringing, and other Niles Crane-like behavior aims for the cheap seats every time, and makes me roll my eyes just as much.

And that's about it. James coming home and having a reunion with Helen and meeting his child is sweet enough, but inevitable and written in a generic fashion. The reactions of Helen’s friends and family is probably the best part, with Mrs. Hall and Siegfried’s banter over the little one being the best part. Man, that baby is going to get so many combined Xmas/birthday gifts.

But after what turned into a surprisingly substantive season, All Creatures Great and Small closes out its fourth year on the air with a yuletide trifle, full of trite heartstring-tuggers,but lacking in anything beyond fluff as it closes the curtains on season 4. Here’s hoping Ol’ Saint Nick brings us all something better for season 5.

[7.9/10] First off, kudos to All Creatures for doing an entire episode without James. Not every show has the chutzpah to do an installment without their main character, so the series deserves credit for taking a chance like that. It makes his absence more meaningful, and creates a space for the characters to react to it.

All Creatures also deserves credit for doing an episode this bleak. This is usually a warm, hugbox of a television show. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it means that usually the problems are minor or easily hopped over by the end of the hour. “The Home Front” breaks the trend.

Granted, things don’t get that grim. You can be pretty certain that Helen’s not going to loser her baby, and Seigfried’s not going to be left all alone, and that Mrs. Hall will probably find some excuse to stick around. The fact that all three sit around the table, sipping tasty beverages and playing scrabble by the end of the hour is no great shock.

But despite the happy ending, this is an episode about loss, with a lack of good or easy answers in a way that All Creatures rarely grapples with. The keenest facet of that is everyone still smarting, in their own ways, from the loss of Helen’s mother. We haven't heard much about her until now, just that she was headstrong and self-possessed the way Helen is. But it makes sense that everyone would think about her at a time when Helen herself is becoming a mother.

Everyone carries a sense of missing and yearning right here, none more so than Helen. Her husband is gone, with no guarantee that he’ll return alive. The woman who gave her life, the one with the experience and devotion to help her through this, is long departed. Mrs. Hall, the surrogate maternal figure with an unspoken agreement to fill that role, is soon to be leaving herself and will miss the birth.

No wonder poor Helen is a little lost. She has her father and her sister, who both mean well and want to take her in, but in many ways she feels left behind in a scary time of incredible need. What must it feel like to bring a life into this world, and worry that you won’t have the support system to help you and she (“a hunch”, Helen says) through it?

Of course, this being All Creatures, the point is that Helen does have that support system at Skeldale House, and things end on a warm and fuzzy note. But the show doesn’t skimp on the despair Helen feels through all of this, and the hardship of knowing her mother, the woman who meant so much to her, will never know her child.

That's where Mr. Alderson comes in. He’s an interesting figure here, someone who’s stubborn and overly paternalistic (if you’ll pardon the expression) with Helen when she moves back home, but also someone with reasons behind his curmudgeonliness about it all. “The Home Front” answers valid questions about why Helen doesn’t just head back home while James is gone, that go beyond the practicality of the show keeping the main characters together. Spiritually, it’s about making a home for James to come back to, but on a personal level, it’s also about her and her father worrying to death about one another when they’re around.

Helen sees Mr. Alderson’s limp, and worries about him refusing to seek help and slow down, even when she refuses to do the same. And Mr. Alderson sees Helen working in the field and flashes back to a tragedy he never told her about -- the stillbirth of a younger sibling Helen never knew about. The father and daughter communing over this old regret and new fear, commiserating over how much they miss Helen’s mother, but a dad reassuring his child that Mrs. Alderson lives, that her grandchild will know her, because she lives on in Helen, is heart-rending and beautiful.

This is also a good, understated episode for Siegfried. He’s already watched his brother leave and has been having a hard time with it. An episode before, he watched his partner leave, with the same mortal fears about the both of them. Now, Helen is leaving, making the house still emptier, and making his promise to James harder. And to top it all off, Mrs. Hall is handing in her letter of resignation, meaning the housekeeper he started all of this with will soon be gone as well. With Carmody lodging elsewhere, that means that in less than a year, Siegfried will essentially be left to his lonesome to start all over again.

And yet, he is nothing but polite, compassionate, and supportive, even though he’s clearly dying inside from all of this news. He drives Helen to her family home. He’s awkward and hurt, but bears no ill will toward Mrs. Hall for going. Him telling her, “It’s your life and you must make the most of it” is sweet as hell and quietly heartbreaking. And it’s another great outing for Samuel West, with facial acting in particular that conveys the way in which Siegfried is outwardly being as kind and generous with his found family as he can, while feeling devastated on the inside to lose them. The whole “anger at a dripping sink” thing lays it on a bit thick, but West makes up for it with some stellar acting, as he convincingly portrays a man angry at the world for ripping everyone away from him, while working hard not to take it out on the people he loves. (He does not, however, love the dripping sink.)

That just leaves Mrs. Hall deciding to stay in Yorkshire rather than following Gerald to the Lakes, thereby ending their relationship. I’m of two minds about this whole thing. On the one hand, Gerald seemed like an extraneous appendage from the start, so why the show had to jerk us around with him for two seasons if they were just going to jettison him is beyond me. Especially given how we go from engaged to ejected in just a couple episodes, the relationship can feel like a waste of time.

But it isn’t, really. On the other hand, even if Gerald isn’t The One for Mrs. Hall, he serves a purpose in her life. He shows her that she can love again. That it’s okay to love again after all she’s been through. That after the loss and abuse she’s been through, it’s safe to open up to someone again. Sweet as he was, Gerald never seemed like the perfect fit for Audrey to me, but he was the perfect partner to show her that there is a romantic life for her waiting on the other side of her marital trauma, and that it’s okay for her to seek it out.

What’s heartening is that they’re both mature adults about it. You feel for poor Gerald, who is understandably heartbroken when Audrey tells him he’s not going with him, and he recognizes the ties she has that will all but prevent them from being together forever. The split is hard on both of them, for each to have responsibilities they must prioritize that pull them apart. But there’s no over-the-top drama, no secrets or blow-outs. Instead, they’re sensitive but forthright with one another, letting the end of something beautiful come with grace.

Gerald’s feelings aren’t minimized, and he even gets a nice little coda in fixing Siegfried’s sink, much as he did when he first entered the orbit of Skeldale house. This reads as clearing the decks for Audrey/Siegfried, but Gerald gets to be a real person with real feelings rather than a mere living obstacle to their love, and he gets as graceful and sensitive an exit as you could ask for.

Even if the show isn’t ready to pull the trigger on Mrs. Hall and Mr. Farnon just yet, I do appreciate that the episode cements their bond as a big reason why Mrs. Hall is staying, regardless of whether it’s romantic. A big rationale behind Mrs. Hall’s choice is being there for Helen, feeling that maternal love for someone who’s become a surrogate child and a friend. But much of it is also a recognition of the life she and Siegfried have built together, with surrogate children and pets to tend to, and a business to run, and moments of life and leisure that make them more than coworkers. Whether they intended to or not, they’ve formed a household together, and that's not so easily given up.

More to the point, we get a brief but moving exchange of how it was formed in the first place. They trauma bonded, falling in together when Siegfried has just lost his wife and Audrey had, in effect, lost her husband and son. We’ve never seen it, but they clearly helped each other through those hard times, to find this equilibrium on the other end of it. That too is not so easily forsaken.

Those scars don’t go away. Helen still misses her mom, fears for her husband, and frets about the baby whose heartbeat Sigfried finds for her. Mr. Alderson still mourns for his wife and his lost child. Siegfried still grieves for his wife and sublimates his anxieties about his little brother. Mrs. Hall still worries about her own son, and of hurting a kind man she cares for, and of the unease of her divorce. All is not solved and forgotten by the end of the episode, like so many episodes of All Creatures.

But there is a safe and warm place where they can heal and find comfort in one another. With or without James, a family lives under the roof of Skeldale house, one that's lost plenty, but who found one another amid the wreckage, and through great luck, struggle, and care, have managed to keep one another afloat.

[6.8/10] This one isn’t bad exactly, but it never fully clicked for me. Maybe it’s just because we’ve never met Maddie’s sisters before. (Or maybe we have and they just didn’t make an impression.) It’s tricky, because you want shows to be able to evolve characters as they progress, even if the groundwork hasn't been perfectly laid for it. But at the same time, it’s hard to emotionally invest too much in a pestersome but loving sibling relationship when we’ve never seen Maddie’s sisters be a hindrance before.

I do appreciate this episode as another “side character in the spotlight” outing. True to the title, Maddie and Marcy are an interesting pairing, one that doesn’t seem like a natural match at first, but given Maddie’s unique brand of scientific exploration and Marcy’s natural inquisitiveness and curiosity, you can buy them working well together. I also appreciate the world-building in this one, that part of why Marcy wants to become Maddie’s apprentice is that magic-users are rare in Amphibia, and she wants to learn more. Something tells me that this will connect with the King Adrias story down the line.

I also appreciate the emotional point of this one, that you can be frustrated with younger siblings when you grow up and have different interests, and they still want to play like before. Most of us have become sullen or moody teenagers who put aside childish things and looked down on them. The message about cherishing your relationship with younger siblings and meeting them at their level despite that is a nice one. The only problem is that the show lays it on really thick, but it’s natural to expect a bit of didactic stuff in a kid-friendly show, even one that occasionally gets much more sophisticated like Amphibia.

My only other issue is that the gigantic pollywogs are...unexpectedly creepy. Something about their digitally altered voices, and the animation on them expanding is unnerving on an instinctual level for reasons I can't quite articulate. The trio of sisters growing huge doesn’t do much beyond the usual death and destruction we’ve seen plenty of times before. But Maddie risking her own health and well-being to calm and literally juggle her siblings is a nice character moment, even if it’s a little too telegraphed.

Overall, this one is a little below par, but has its heart in the right place.
[6.8/10] This one isn’t bad exactly, but it never fully clicked for me. Maybe it’s just because we’ve never met Maddie’s sisters before. (Or maybe we have and they just didn’t make an impression.) It’s tricky, because you want shows to be able to evolve characters as they progress, even if the groundwork hasn't been perfectly laid for it. But at the same time, it’s hard to emotionally invest too much in a pestersome but loving sibling relationship when we’ve never seen Maddie’s sisters be a hindrance before.

I do appreciate this episode as another “side character in the spotlight” outing. True to the title, Maddie and Marcy are an interesting pairing, one that doesn’t seem like a natural match at first, but given Maddie’s unique brand of scientific exploration and Marcy’s natural inquisitiveness and curiosity, you can buy them working well together. I also appreciate the world-building in this one, that part of why Marcy wants to become Maddie’s apprentice is that magic-users are rare in Amphibia, and she wants to learn more. Something tells me that this will connect with the King Adrias story down the line.

I also appreciate the emotional point of this one, that you can be frustrated with younger siblings when you grow up and have different interests, and they still want to play like before. Most of us have become sullen or moody teenagers who put aside childish things and looked down on them. The message about cherishing your relationship with younger siblings and meeting them at their level despite that is a nice one. The only problem is that the show lays it on really thick, but it’s natural to expect a bit of didactic stuff in a kid-friendly show, even one that occasionally gets much more sophisticated like Amphibia.

My only other issue is that the gigantic pollywogs are...unexpectedly creepy. Something about their digitally altered voices, and the animation on them expanding is unnerving on an instinctual level for reasons I can't quite articulate. The trio of sisters growing huge doesn’t do much beyond the usual death and destruction we’ve seen plenty of times before. But Maddie risking her own health and well-being to calm and literally juggle her siblings is a nice character moment, even if it’s a little too telegraphed.

Overall, this one is a little below par, but has its heart in the right place.

[7.9/10] The most maddening situations in the world are the ones where something terrible has happened with a great deal at stake, nobody’s really to blame, and you’re powerless to do anything.

James Herriot is almost preternaturally good. Sure, he has his moments of weakness, but he’s always decent, always kind, always noble. So seeing what happens when his wife’s health and safety, and the health and safety of his unborn child are on the line, and how it makes him testier, more unfair, on the verge of cursing the world, is...well...not a treat exactly, but a shade of the character we don’t always get to see.

And what’s so tragic and compelling about it is that it’s pure happenstance. James and Carmody go to help a farming family that's new in the community with a sick cow. Carmody is, as the show takes pains to remind us, full of book-learnin’, but well short on practical experience and bedside manner. So when he offends the neophyte couple for their ignorance and slips in a pile of manure, you assume it’s the start of one All Creatures Great and Smalls broad, wacky comedic storylines, not one of its more piercing plot threads to date.

Because with Helen expecting, James wants her to take it easy. Helen, headstrong as anyways, reckons that she ought to come along for the follow-up visit for the sick cows, since they need the advice of an experienced farmer, not some green-horned academic. And all’s well until that same well-read nerd chances to mention that the bovine malady the farm family is dealing with can cause the same result in humans as it can in cows -- death of the fetus.

Look, the situation is a little contrived: the locals just happening to have a cow with a disease that can jump from bovines to humans, Helen just happening to be along for the vet visit to be at risk, Carmody just happening to have read the new research indicating the link to human illness.

But I’m willing to tolerate a certain convenience factor because the results are so good. James is tested in a way we’ve never seen him before. He’s furious and short with Carmody, for the crime of essentially being a nerd in the wrong place at the wrong time. Helen is doing her best to keep strong and keep busy, as the sure-footed one of the couple, but is quietly breaking inside. And their erstwhile caretakers, Mrs. Hall and Mr. Farnon, have to spring into action to keep them from tearing their own hair out.

Both halves of the equation have merit. On the one hand, you have Mrs. Hall, the only experienced mother on the show, who divines Helen’s disposition before she announces it, and steps in to distract and reassure her when potential tragedy strikes. She’s long been the den mother of Skeldale house, but it’s nice to see her and Helen forming a particular bond as, if you’ll pardon the assertion, the two most sensible people under that roof.

On the other, you have James lamenting to Siegfried that his veterinarian training is no good because he can't reassure his wife. What good is all this knowledge and experience, he wonders, if you can't help those you love most and reassure them that everything will be okay? James is more sympathetic than he’s ever been, at a loss for what to do or how to do it, with a potentially devastating accident hanging in the balance. To be a physician is to heal, to fix, to make things better. To be in a position where you cannot ply your trade when it means the most to you must be downright maddening.

And yet, in a strange way, it brings him closer to Siegfried. We haven't heard much about Siegfried’s dearly departed wife, Evelyn. A few stray, sad comments here and there. But here, he speaks with a fatherly, wistful, knowing air to his protege-turned-partner. He speaks of knowing the end was coming and not being able to do anything about, with Samuel West’s quietly gutting performance selling the fact that Mr. Farnon knows what it’s like to be in James’ position, and so can offer the young man the sympathy he wished he’d had in that moment. It is, perhaps, the most earned moment of sentiment between them to date, in a show whose favorite move is to show Seigfried grousing at someone in the first half of the episode and offering them some warm gesture by the end.

Oh, and we also get a wacky subplot about Carmody curing an itchy turtle.

But you know what? I like it! It’s weird to weave a heart-rending story about the prospect of loss that weighs heavy upon a young couple thanks to detached academics together with a zany story about putting away the books and learning to interact with people as a veterinarian. Still, somehow, Carmody awkwardly practicing with Mrs. Hall, honing his bedside manner with an indecipherable local, and putting Siegfried’s “look to the owner” advice into practice and identifying the flea-ridden culprit, is unexpectedly fun and clever as a “newbie learns the ropes” tale.

And it brings in the communal spirit of the episode. Even when James cannot do anything for Helen, the two of them convince the new farmers’ neighbors to help them disinfect their land to prevent the infection from spreading, who do so willingly. And James even encourages the newbies to listen to their local pals, tying into the “experience matters” theme of the episode.

Only, you need a bit of both. It’s pretty darned convenient that the collective braintrust of Skeldale house is able to find some nigh-magical solution in an old volume that lets them test for whether Helen has the disease ready to take a pound of flesh or not. But the way it vindicates that Carmody’s literate approach can have its applications, prompting a “knowledge is power” admission of wrongness from Siegfried, is a nice touch.

And more than that, it speaks to the smaller community that's formed at Skeldale house. The announcement of Helen’s pregnancy is supposed to be a joyous thing. Instead, it comes at a time of great fear and apprehension, but also great camaraderie. The residents under that roof pore over old tomes into the night; they comfort the petrified parents-to-be; they fall together to protect those they care for, both in using their skills to provide answers and being there emotionally for their friends when they need it. It is, if not the peak of this found family together, then certainly a high point.

And it speaks to a community of two, soon to be three. Of course this is just a scare. Of course it turns out Helen is fine. All Creatures Great and Small is too warm and fuzzy a show to do otherwise. But it’s still heartening when James and Helen admit to one another that they’re trying to put up a tough front for the world, and each other, but inside they’re terrified. Admitting that--that they’re afraid, being vulnerable with one another, leaning on one another--brings them both solace in a scary time, and sees them through to sunnier shores.

Most of the challenges that James has faced so far in the show have been superficial. Sure, sometimes a serious issue is raised, but it’s typically resolved almost as quickly and usually pretty easily. But this is real, the sort of unmooring misfortune and fear that rightly shakes him from his gentle and even-keeled disposition. We don’t have enough of that on All Creatures, and when we get it, the hardships are more piercing, and the triumphs of not just James and Helen, but everyone in Yorkshire who cares for and supports them, mean more too.

Sometimes the impossible difficulty is nobody’s fault. But sometimes getting through it can be everybody’s joy.

[7.3/10] As I’ve said a lot this season, it’s nice to have some side characters in the spotlight. It’s not like we’ve gotten a steady progression from the otherwise venal Mayor Toadstool. But I like the idea that, by gum, between the events at Toad Tower and the other misadventures that have required saving the town, Mayor Toadstool has actually come to like Wartwood, not just as a series of rubes he can bilk in order to line his own pockets, but as a community of good people he’s proud to help and be a part of.

So when a Newt named Jacinda shows up and says they want to make him the new head of Toad Tower, it’s a surprisingly conflicted situation for Mayor Toadstool. As Toadie points out, this has been his dream. But now, unexpectedly, he’s grown attached to Wartwood and doesn’t want to leave.

The whole Producers-esque setup with Anne, where Mayor Toadstool keeps trying to prove he’s a coward or incompetent, only to stumble into seeming impressive at his job in front of Jacinda, is a good bit. The return of the tax collector toads is a little random, but I appreciate seeing Mayor Toadstool defeat them by pretending to be as corrupt and selfish as usual, only to instead be luring them into a trap and sending them packing. It’s a nice turnaround from the Tax Collector Toads’ first appearance, where it turned out that Mayor Toadstool was the culprit.

I wasn’t necessarily asking for a minor redemption arc for him, and I can't pretend it’s been super built to, but I still enjoyed it. The irony that the actually clever and brave thing he did disqualifies him from the Toad Tower position because it showed heart, is a poetic way to keep him out of the job. Installing Bog as the new commander makes sense, adding a familiar and ruthless face to the show’s roster of big time antagonists. And the fact that Mayor Toadstool is ultimately welcomed back with open arms, and even shows some affection to poor little Toadie, completes the picture nicely.

Overall. I can't say I had expected a Mayor Toadstool face turn after all these episodes, but this is a pleasant way to do it.

[8.9/10] A title like The Holdovers has a double meaning. On a basic level, it’s simply the technical term for the three individuals--a teacher, a student, and a kitchen manager--all spending their holiday break on the grounds of the New England boarding school they call home during the year.

But in a broader sense, it refers to people who have been left behind, who remain in some uncertain limbo not just in where they lay their heads, but in their lives as a whole. The nominal goal at the center of the film is for this trio of disregarded remainders to make it to the New Year without wrecking each other or the school. But its broader aim is to give each of them a direction, a connection, and something that jostles each of them from their different flavors of sad stupor and toward a reinvigorated purpose.

The results are, in turn, uproarious, heartbreaking, and ultimately moving. The Holdovers has its antecedents: from the locked-in mischief and camaraderie of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to the young man struggling with trauma a la Catcher in the Rye, to countless broader flicks about grumbly instructors warming up to rambunctious students. But there’s a greater depth, a clearer sense of open-wounded humanity, a distinctiveness in how its main players are formed and bounced off one another, that makes the film feel unlike any other.

It wouldn’t achieve that success without its triumvirate of great character and even greater performance. Paul Hunham could easily have been little more than a walking trope -- a stuffy and curmudgeonly civics teacher who’s hard on his students but betrays a hidden heart of gold. Instead, writer David Hemingson makes him more complex than that. Hunham is grumpy and hidebound before softening to this charge, yes, but he’s also a depressed drunkard, pessimistic about the world’s prospects for the future, with his dreams whittled down by the same forces that grind the other Holdovers, in various ways. Even that could have been a prestige picture cliche, but Paul Giamatti’s performance gives Hunham such spirit, and so many layers behind each grand pronouncement and reluctant, heartfelt compromise. Together, Hemingson and Giamatii make a broad archetype of a character feel achingly human, which is no small achievement.

Likewise, Angus Tully, the bright but trouble-making student unexpectedly left behind by his mother and inclined to rebel against Hunham’s supervision, could also have been a stock cliche. The recalcitrant but troubled youth who fights back against, but ultimately confides in their mandated caretaker is no less traditional a tale. And yet, again, the script doesn’t leave Tully as a one-note stereotype, but instead, gives him a cleverness, a sense of compassion, and a deep well of pain that makes him more than that outline. At the same time, twenty-year-old Dominic Sessa conveys the anger, hurt, and unassuming innocence of Angus to perfection. He cuts the figure of a young Alan Alda with both his snark and his sadness, and delivers a challenging performance for a young actor without stumbling once.

But it’s Da'Vine Joy Randolph--who plays Mary Lamb, the school’s head cook--that steals the show. Unlike Mr. Hunham and Angus, Mary is not the type of character you see much of in either these scholastic coming-of-age stories or prestige pictures. She is a black woman who works among the downstairs set in contrast to the mostly white, upper crust pupils and professors who reside upstairs. She is a woman bathed in grief, having lost both her husband and her son before they turned twenty-five. And most importantly, she is a full-fledged part of the film’s central trifecta, whose needs and concerns get the same attention and focus as her counterparts who are more often spotlighted in these stories.

Her inner life is potent and conspicuous. The things she’s feeling deeply at all times but never saying come through loud and clear amid Randolph’s powerhouse performance. She delivers the film’s signature scene, a furious, crestfallen, devastating lament in a suburban kitchen about the child and partner both gone too soon, with their absences all the more noticeable and piercing in what should be a season of joy. Like all the characters in the film, Mary is more than her trauma, with moments of kindness, levity, and insight just as memorable, but in a movie full of heart-rending monologues and stellar performances, Randolph takes the prize.

Despite the sense of hurt and alienation at the core of the film, The Holdovers is an unexpectedly hilarious movie. Angus’ antics to entertain himself and/or tweak Mr. Hunham have the shaggy whimsy of teenage rebellion. Mr. Hunham dispenses vulgar insults that tickle the funny bone, like “too dumb to pour piss out of a boot” and “penis cancer in hidden form.” The actors provide bouts of great physical comedy, from Angus’ disobedient gym floor flop, to Hunham’s ridiculous football-flubbing flail. And Mary has a dry wit that singes and can get a big laugh with a reaction shot alone. For a movie as unafraid to explore blunted hearts and lingering traumas, it’s full of humor and vigor that makes it come off like a fulsome view of life’s ups and downs, rather than a shameless tear-jerker or sap dispensary.

Nonetheless, there is a thematic undercurrent beneath all that pain and exclusion -- privilege. The recurring motif of The Holdovers is the idea that there are people who manage to wriggle out of the harshest obligations in this world, from schoolwork to plagiarism to war, because of power and position and the dishonesty and dishonor it can cover for. Some people go to Ivy league schools and get safe cushy jobs whether they have the intelligence or character for it, and others die in labor-intensive fields where worker safety is secondary to output quotas. Grades are inflated, service workers are casually demeaned, racism is tolerated, so long as it all comes from a class of people who don’t realize how lucky they have it.

The zenith of this is the Vietnam War, which hangs in the background of this seventies-set film. For all Angus’ legitimate issues, Hunham calms him down when he gets into a snit with a local missing a hand, since the teacher intuits how and why the injury happened. And the grandest injustice in the film is Mary’s son, sent off to fight and die in ‘Nam, when he had the grades, but not the funds, to go to college, denied the student deferment from the draft that would come alongside a university education. This sense of unconscionable disparity between the haves and the have-nots--one group excused from even the most minor of consequences for their actions, and one group forced to suffer the worst of them despite doing everything right--pervades the movie.

But it is also what unites Mary, Angus, and Mr. Hunham. Though thrown together by circumstance, and very different people on the surface, they find solace and understanding in one another, and it’s the most heartening part of the film. That comes through in the elegant cinematography of Eigil Bryld. The visuals of The Holdovers are not flashy, but they are quietly brilliant. Each frame is perfectly composed to convey the character of the grounds, or the ridiculousness of a gag, or the burgeoning intimacy that steadily washes over the main trio.

All three of them are touched by loss and loneliness. Mary still mourns her husband and her son, and is all but spit on by entitled twits who insult her cooking in a job she took to provide for a child who’ll never have the same life or opportunity. Mr. Hunham is, on his account at least, a low-level teacher, scorned by his students and his peers, alone in the wake of a long-since-failed shot at love, isolated and barely able to muster half-a-dream after being kicked out of Harvard for a privileged roommate’s intellectual theft. And Angus is abandoned over the holidays by a mother off to honeymoon with his new stepdad, a reminder of the mentally disturbed father whom he’s forbidden to see, and cursed with a parent in a state of living death -- physically there but mentally gone -- something all the more devastating for a young soul in particular.

So they share drinking problems. They share depression medication. They share flailing grasps for human connection that are reached for then rejected in a state of guilt and self-loathing. And eventually, they share a particular sort of bond that emerges from commiseration and acts of kindness, from recognizing one another’s pain and helping them through it, from seeing how the system works for others and stealing a piece of it for one another.

You can see it in the progression of “what Barton men do.” Angus lies about the cause of his dislocated shoulder to protect Mr. Hunham’s job, a falsehood the teacher accepts with some lecturing about honesty. Only then, Mr. Hunham lies to an old classmate about his career, reasoning that truthful or not, giving his social betters the satisfaction of his comparatively sorry state is not something he owes them.

And in the film’s close, when Angus’ mom and stepdad arrive to excoriate their son and his erstwhile babysitter for daring to let a lonely boy visit his father on Xmas, Mr. Hunham has an out. Angus’ guardians all but invite Mr. Hunham to throw Angus to the wolves, to say that the young man tricked him or “slipped the leash”, which would be half-true. Instead, Mr. Hunham lies in order to take full responsibility; he dissembles to excuse the young man entirely, sacrificing his job and the content-if-stagnant life he’s enjoyed for decades to save Angus’ future.

That is the crux of the film. The key message comes earlier when Hunham reassures Angus that he will not become like his father. Despite his obsession with the classics, he decries the Greek poets’ belief that our path is set and resistance only ensures submission to fate. Your destiny is your own, he implores the young man, and it’s not too late, never too late, to change it.

So Mary will still carry the scars of loved ones taken from her too soon, but she can make space to laugh and reminisce with her sister, and save for her newborn nephew who will carry on the name, and hopefully the spirit of her dearly departed son. So despite the prospect of being kicked out of Barton and forced to attend military school, with the prospect of war and death that comes with it, Angus can remain at Barton and find his way to the sunnier shores all but assured to bright young men in well-regarded centers of learning and the resources to propel them further.

So Mr. Hunham can become the unlikely surrogate father figure Angus is in desperate need of, and change his mind about the prospects of the next generation, at least for one young lad who makes him hopeful, whose success is worth martyring his comfort and security for. And he too can be lodged from his complacency, spurred to go visit the sites of the ancient world he’s studied but never seen, and write that monograph he’s been putting off.

When we’re introduced to the three of them, they are not just hunkering together in those almost unreal, interstitial days that envelop the end of the calendar. They are all in some in-between state, not quite where they started, but not quite able to move forward. When we leave them, Mary if able to make some semblance of peace with her tragedies and rekindle connections to her family; Angus knows someone has faith in him and has the surefootedness and, yes, character, to see his schooling through to the end; and Mr. Hunham, the stymied student-turned-teacher who’s been “held over” longer than anyone, finally finds a reason to break free.

[7.7/10] Hey! We finally get some payoff to the whole “robot following the Plantars” storyline! I wondered when they were going to deliver on that one, and for now at least, I think they picked the best way possible.

I assumed he was just going to come into town to destroy things, which would spur a big fight. I also assumed that this episode was just going to be a palette-cleanser story of Polly getting into mischief. Instead, we get both characters in Polly’s equivalent of The Iron Giant, and I love it.

On a base level, the diminutive but pugnacious Polly forming a friendship with the guileless but destructive Frobo (a portmanteau of “frog” and robot”) is both sweet and amusing. The show does a nice call and response, with Polly unable to nab windowsill pies or make big splashes in public fountains, until she links up with Frobo who manages to accomplish those mischievous tasks, with destructive aftermath. The little-and-big contrast between them, with each having an innocent bent about their miniature mayhem, leads to some nice moments.

The other side of the coin is that their bond is sweet beyond their misadventures. The fact that Frobo mimics Polly, tries to protect her, even says her name as his worst word, cements the connection between them in a way that tugs on your heartstrings.

But what I like most about this episode is that it’s a story of growth for Polly. She’s annoyed at Anne and Sprig claiming maturity and not having any playmates to cause trouble with. She actively antagonizes them by causing trouble when they’re responsible for her, in a move that is irksome and childish but true to real life immaturity.

And yet, when she suddenly has someone simple and not exactly helpful, but who’s nonetheless reliant on her, she suddenly gets the weight of responsibility and the mantle of maturity that comes with it. Seeing life through the eyes of a caretaker, and having it help her grow up, is insightful and well-done writing.

There’s plenty more fun to come with Frobo presumably. (My prediction is that he’ll be instrumental in fighting off whatever evil King Andrias is trying to unleash.) But for the time being, him turning into Polly’s friend/pet, helping Hop Pop out with the harvest, and being an object of fascination for Marcy is a surprisingly wholesome and novel place to go with the Plantars’ robo-pursuer.