#also Ody just casually killed 10 people after one of his friends died

[smilesrobotlover]

Gosh Diomedes is a BEAST of a man. That was so sick

[popculturebuffet]

Amphiba Reviewcaps Catchup Special: Lost In Newtopia/Sprig Gets Schooled/Little Frogtown/Hopping Mall

In a 4 episode marathon to make up for lost time: Hop Pop handcuffs Sprig to him because that’s not troubling and Polly And Anne head off on their own mostly uninteresting adventure. Sprig gets into college and regrets it  much like most college students. Hop Pop goes on a noir adventure while Anne harasses children and it all ends with a wacky mall adventure that ends in an utter tearjerker. Pitter Patter, let’s get at er after the cut. 

Whelp i’m behind. Over the last two weeks i’ve been busy moving into a new room in the house, and moving my stuff into said room and making it feel like home, and when i’ve had time I either had new coverage to start, or a series passing to honor, or in the case of yesterday had to have my wisdom tooth removed because it got so bad I couldn’t think out of nowhere. SO yeah been a pretty exausting few weeks... but with only one episode left before Amphibia likely goes on hiatus for the rest of the year, Halloween special excepted, I don’t really have the time to dawdle on this. So not much of an introduction let’s hop to it. 

Lost in Newtopia

This will be a quick one, but this one was.. eh. Not BAD, as the first, last and middle scenes are all really good. it’s just between theere it’s not much intresting.  The opening on the bus was pure gold as Hop Pop as usual gets fired up about something boring, then casually handcuffs his grandson because that’s normal. Then again this is the same man who also thought brainwashing his grandchildren was a minor slight so this is a step up somehow. Also he does have some logic for it after Sprig blew up a robot factory and , unbenowst to him, stole a powerful credit card for funsies. But .. get a dog leash or something.  The scene was also great as we got to see Anne’s mom for the first time! And the scene with her wanting to get out and try exotic food her tummy’s not ready for was really adorable and relatable as having a young nice, I understand them asking for things they really shoudln’t have and then holding a grudge over it.  But then the episode just sorta.. sputters for most of it’s run time. The bit with the tail shop is rfairly enjoyable, but the mishap with the vendor and the parade just aren’t all that funny and the basic conciet of tryign to do it up like locals hasn’t been done AS often as I’d think but frankly How I Met Your MOther, Back before it didn’t so much shoot itself in the foot as shoot both it’s legs off, did this slightly better with first time in new york, where the inverse happened, i.e. the locals pretending to be tourists.  The ending scene was great, from Hop Pop going from terror at “street weridos” to casual happiness at seeing his grandaughter and adopted grandaughter (And my heart flew to hear him call anne that. I mean it was obvious but i’ts still nice to hear. Like when Scrooge told webby to Call him uncle scrooge but without the horribly scarring assholery the next episode he still hasn’t properly apologized for to her. ) and Polly and Anne’s terrible names for each other.> It was good stuff it’s just overal an okay episode. Good enough to entertain but just ntohing really out of the ordinary for this show, but with funny enough bits to keep invested. Next. 

Sprig Gets Schooled Ehhhhh... this one HAD potetial, an intresting setting, Sprig getting in on his talent, plenty of fun college tropes, Hop Pop struggling with his grandson leaving the nest.. there was good stuff here, but like too many episodes this season it wasn’t used as well as it couldv’e been. 

The episode has the family come upon Newtopia University, where Sprig’s talent with stopping mantises and with a fiddle gets him a scholarship, which is one of Hop Pop’s dreams, but both quickly regret it: Sprig dosen’t fit in while Hop Pop misses his baby boy. It comes to a head with Sprig tryign to sneak in and Anne and Polly trying to sneak in for hyjinks. 

But overall it’s just.. eh. it has a few good gags, but the anne and polly plot has been done so many times by now, and while that alone isn’t enough to make it not all that fun the fact it isn’t funny or unique is when The Simpsons, Undergrads, Futrama , Solar Opposites and Bobs Burgers just off the top of my head have done fratboy hyjinks episodes way better.

 But what dosen’t help is while Hop Pop’s emotional part of the episode, missing his boy and wanting him to come bome, works, Sprig just.. get sbored. There’s nothing about how hard school is or him missing the others it’s just.. he dosen’t like it so he tries to leave. Instead of having an emotinal episode about him possibly fitting in there, or struggling to fit in there or some third thing it’s just.. an average 10 year old not liking college becuase of course he dosen’t. He’s too young to keger or really ond with his clasemates. It’s just an eh watch. Not as unpleasant as quarallers pass but without that episodes good parts to really help it be entertaining. Ugh.  And you might say “well every episode dosen’t have to have an emotinal core jackass” which.. yeah your right. But it has to be funny. Or entertaining or have something and not just be .. eh. You CAN be just a funny episode if you do that right. And amphibia USUALLY does that and has an emotional hook to make it even better. And the proof is in the next two episodes. 

Little Frogtown Now this.. this is more like it. After two less than memorable episodes, we get two classics in a row. Granted since I grew up on calvin and hobbes and thus grew up with the two tracer bullet arcs...

Well three techncially with the haircut thing but yeah, given one of them was in my first comic strip collection ever, the indespensible calvin and hobbes if your curious, I’ve always had a soft spot for noir episodes and to animations credit there have been some classics; The recurirng Numbah 2 detective stories in Kids Next Door, Venture Bros classic “everybody comes to hanks” and of all things, Garfield Babes and Bullets. Yes that happened and yes it IS actually good. 

Oh and if your wondering if Garfield solved something family friendly like a Lasanga Robbery, or his teddy bear going missing or odie being kidnapped for a dog fight nope! He’s hired by a college professors wife to find out who killed her husband since it looked like a simple accident, but unsuprisingly it wasn’t. Oh and did I mention that not only is this based on a story from the book garfield’s 9 lives, which got it’s own special for the rest of the stories it chose to adapt and a few new ones to replace those it didn’t, but in that story it’s about a chuch deacon. That’s right Garfield tackled corruption in the church. Your welcome. But i’ve talked about Garfield Babes and Bullets enough.. I mean for today. I clearly need to cover this and 9 lives as a whole at some point. Let’s get back to this episode. Point is noir parodies are great and gafield has done some weird and wonderful shit.  But my like of it aside this is a genuinely clever episode that has it’s own neat takes on the genre. The basic setup is simple: Hop Pop takes the kids to Sal��s, a restraunt owned by an old friend of his who got so sucessful with his delcious sandwitches and secret sauce he moved up to Newtopia.. but when Hop Pop finds the place he finds it in shambles, with no one there and Sal entirely missing. So while the kids head off for the arcade next door, Hop Pop goes into full noir mode to find his missing friend.  It’s that core that works. Sure lots of shows use the “friend we only just heard of” plot device but here it works because it’s so simply used here: They were friends years and years ago, sal moved away probably decades ago, and he simply hasn’t kept in touch. Both are busy: Sal with his restraunt and what we find out here, and Hop Pop with his family and later having to swoop in when his daughter or son and their spouse died. It’s perfectly acceptable. To me while i’ve bitched plenty about cliches it’s mostly been about HOW you use them. About using them right instead of just coasting on an old plot to fill out your episodes for the season. If you don’t have an intresting story to tell, then use the 11 minutes for something ELSE. And here.. they do and have a fun spin on noir by having hop pop’s narration talk to him. While that’s happened before with narration gags I haven’t seen it in a noir parody before and it’s just pure comedy gold, and Bill Farmer’s acting makes you genuinely invested in finding out what happened to this character you never met. Bill really sells how worried hop pop is without over doing it and how important this guy and his sammiches are to him. 

The final twist while not entirely suprising is intresting: Turns out , after Hop Pop finds people seemingly having stolen the recipie, Sal’s restraunt.. simply went belly up. Which sadly, makes sense: he had good ingredients but he’s in the world’s capital, where ther’es probably tons of mom and pop restraunts and giants of cuisine. It’s hard to start a buisness anywhere let alone the biggest city int he world. So Sal simply pivoted, sold his recipie and became a billionare. It’s a good solution that teaches hop pop a lessson: Change happens, things you really love like comfort food restraunts won’t last forever. I myself miss when this area I live in had a tgi fridays and it’s probably never coming back> Things change.. what matters more is people and moving on. Though he does send hop pop on with a bottle of sauce. It’s a good lesson for kids and a fine ribbon tied on one of the season, and hte series, best.  And of course before we move on we have the b plot which is funny as it is relatable as some little shit steps in line in front of anne and being anne she overreacts.. and gets tazed and gets everyone banned. Not a huge subplot but it’s funny as it is relatable as someone whose both stood in massive lines and had people cut in and felt it was massively unfair. Never got into a fistfight over it but tha’t sbecasuse arcades are rare and cornona probably wiped out the rest. Ha ha.. I hate this year. One more!

Hopping Mall

Last one. Another simple plot: Hop Pop forces the kids to use 2 coppers a piece to buy souviners instead of letting them use the card because it means more.. which is bullcrap. While using your own money for a present DOES mean a lot, my mom gave me money plenty of times to buy gifts and covered me plenty. The real meaning behind a gift for someone is that you picked it out yourself, that whatver thing you picked made you think of them and that you meant it for them. Weather it be a mug, a billy bass, or the great mighty poo on a t shirt, what matters is it comes from the heart. Though Hop Pop also buys himself an easy chair and sends it home and admits h’es a hypocrite so maybe we’re not supposed to take him seriously.  While this is there to make drama mostly for Anne it’s a plot device I like as it’s both the kind of nonsense an adult would make and then not follow, and it leads to a really good plot as our kids find their things; Hop Pop introduces the kids to haggling, which Polly mistakes for using tried and true mafia approved methods of intpmidation, leg breaking, arson and threats of all of the above andc omes back with her own snail and tiny cart. Sprig being sprig finds a gift for Ivy in seconds that’s a nice stick.. that also shooots lasers because I dunno. Also nice of the show to actually MENTION his girlfriend.... several episodes in.. with again NO goodbye to her or anyone else. And yes that’s still a sticking point this far in it wouldn’t of killed them to include that in one of the premire episodes.  Anyways that leaves Anne who finds a nice teapot for her mom, but soon has to do what all people who can’t afford a tea pot too: enter a demolition derby against a mother daughter team using shopping carts. It’s a neat set piece, as is Anne apparently knowing carts because her and her friends hung around the mall a lot, which given we saw her and sasha out and out steal one for hyjinks, it’s a nice continuity nod. Anyways our heroes win the race, but Sprig looses his stick saving polly and their rival has to ravage her tail to save polly again. I also love the return of the “not the baby!” cry from “Marcy at the Gates” which I also swear has been used before on this show but can’t remember specifically where.  It’s revealed their rival, and her daughter both of which are entertaining especially the daughter, wants the pot because it was one of her mom’s designs and it means a lot and that touches a nerve with Anne, so she lets her have it, but does get a lovely butterfly clip from the daughter. After the hop pop gag we get the most infamous, and best scene of the episode that ties the above together.

 Sprig wakes up to find Anne ruminating on the balcony.. and for the first time since she got here really, she breaks down a bit about how much she misses her. And my honest interpretation is she’s been holding how bad she feels for her mom, who she admits to not having the best relationship with but both loving each other dearly: That she likely blames herself for the theft, for listenting to sasha, for getting them all stranded, for destroying her friendship with Sasha and possibly not being able to bring her home with her. But mostly for causing her parents undo pain, having no idea how hurt they are or what they’ll feeel when she comes back, no idea if she’ll even be able to make it home and see them again.. it’s a lot to hold in and with all she’s had to deal with I feel she’s been holding it inside just so she dosen’t snap. She already has enought o deal with especially after “reunited. Thinking for amoment about how her parents are likely in utter misery desperatley looking for her when she’s not even on earth... it’d break her.. and it does. She admits missing her, regretting they fought all the time and sobbing a bit... and the scene only gets sadder when Sprig interjects.  He asks a simple question; What was she like. While we STILL don’t know the specifics we finally find out that his mom died when he and polly were really little, polly was probably a newborn... he never really knew her and wonders.. can you miss someone you never really knew? It’s a sad, sobering moment. We assumed sprig was fine with his parents being gone because like Anne and her parents he just never brought it up. But sometimes a person just burys something or is sad or upset in private, speaking from personal experince here. Sometimes you don’t talk about something beacuse you don’t know HOW and Sprig likely just dosen’t want to make hop pop more upset at reminding him his daughter and or son and daughter in law and or son in law are dead, something he likely deals with every day. It’s a powerfully acted scene and ends as the two cry softly together while the credits play over the newtopia night sky. Just a beautiful powerful scene that ties a mostly comedy episode together into something fantastic and like it’s partner episode, one of the series best. 

And with that catchup is done. Join me saturday for more of this, more loud house, and moe moe moe, how do you like me how do you like me, moe moe moe, why do you like me nobody likes me... if you want more subsuricbe, check the backlogs ont hea ssioated pages, and shoot me an ask for a suggestion or a dm to comission a full review. While Amphibia weekly coverage is wrapping up for a while after saturday i’ll be back for the halloween special and then whenever the show returns in full, Ducktales coverage restarts monday and Loud House Coverage that began with Schooled continues sometime this weekend along with a possible foruth thing. Until then, stay safe and GO TEAM VENTURE!