#either way its a shit fucking episdoe

[constantvariations]

V9C8

I cannot believe I’m awake when the episode drops holy shit. I’m also drunk af bc it’s my weekend off so I might not be as sharp as I’m usually am (not) but guess we’ll see lol. Also the devil works hard but pirates work harder. Bless them yardee hars yo ho

Post Ep: uhh I genuintely dunno what to say here :/ MKEK fucked over literally the only aspect of v9 i liked so i guess imma rot or smth idk

Genuinely funny (by which I mean what the absolute fuck) that the warning does not, in fact, warn the viewer of fucking anything. Reminds me of the conversation in Criminal Minds where the unit receives a bomb threat and have to wait for it to explode because sending out a general bomb alert would halt the entirety of the country in a panic. Wasn’t there a tiktok about this exact thing? One that went liek “TRIGGER WARNIGN! TRIGGER WARNING!“ but never told you wh at the warning was? Feels like this shit

Back at it again with this pov shit? With the hentai panting? Why is it always with the hentai panting???

“Why did you shout at everyone like that?” Sometimes it’s hard to remember that Little is supposed to be like... a child? I guess? in the Wonderland spectrum of things, so them not knowing what a mental breakdown looks like is both in character and entirely unhelpful in the narrative, considering how easily Ruby brushes off the inquiry

This is probably the most tolerant Ruby’s voice acting has been in the last many seasons. It’s not high and nasally enough to scrape my skull!

Not gonna lie, having Ruby finally break down against the shittiest of tree textures is so fucking funny I can’t take this seriously. It looks like she’s wailing into a painted wall

“If you’re going to stay with me, you’re going to end up dead, too.” Ruby, the only dead people that you supposedly gave a shit about are Penny and Pyrrha. You don’t know about Clover or Ironwood, you definitely didn’t give a shit about that Forrest guy from V7, and it’s still up in the air if you know about Penny 2.0. You haven’t even mentioned Qrow, your father, or the rest of ORNJ, so what the fuck are you referencing here? Your mother, whom you only started being compromised about 2 seasons ago? Big fuckety whoop, no one cares

Ohhhh noooo not the shithead mouse character being saddddd and left behinddddd whateverr shall we doooooo

Aight what’s with the butterfly thing. If it’s supposed to symbolize Summer Rose in some way, it was never foreshadowed and only the barest of threads (butterflies being pollinators of flowers) would connect this shit. There’s a difference between subtlety and bullshit

Uhhhh did Ruby stumble into a casino house of Neo? Is this Neo backstory we’re getting into? Honestly, that’s way more intriguing than anything our heroes have going on

OH SO NOW RUBY CAN USE HER FUCKING SCYTHE WITHOUT GETTIN TRIGGERED

Why did they have to drag Roman into Maya? Didn’t they do him dirty enough by having him be eaten by a stupid grimm? Is this even the same voice actor? It’s not as... sultry

WHY YOU GOTTA DO PYRRHA DIRTY LIKE THIS WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HER MOUTH THERE’S NO TEXTURE ON HER CLOTHES WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK

Holy shit the animation of Roman jumpin on the table is sending me into the fuckign statosphere fucking hlep

Can’t even have a normal transformation animation between scythe to snipe it’s gotta be a spinny bullshit thing ugh. Take me back to episode 1 I miss that shit

Who is voicing Roman there’s no way this is the original VA Imma strnagle this bithc

“But we all remember how that ended.” Is this based on actual events or what Neo has interpreted? This entire scene has been nothing but bullshit so far, and not even the fun kind that Roman used to produce

“You still blame me for what happened to Torchwick?” Bitch what the absolute fuck makes you think that? What clues could you possibly have that Neo blames you specifically when there are so many random people at this table? It’s not like you’ve ever claimed to be responsible for any of these peoples’ deaths, so why is this the fucking conclusion you make? Other than having writer’s clairvoyance of course

Okay, despite not knowing at the moment what it means, I do like the detail of Roman not stepping on the teacup before but once shit gets real he demolishes it. Still don’t like how ugly he is though. Leave my dead gay son alone

I don’t know if I’ve said it before but I fucking HATE the eyeshadow on the character in Maya. Why is Neo’s fucking mint green? She’s NEO-FUCKING-POLITIAN WHY IS THERE FUCKING GREEN IN HER GODDAMN COLOR PALLETE WHEN IT’S FUCKIN WHITE BROWN AND PINK

“I’m going to enjoy watching you break.” Does Neo not have any sort of contact via her clones or whatever? Did she not see how helpless Ruby was last episode to her Jabber? Because it was very heavily implied she knew when that one turned into her before shattering. Neo didn’t have to do shit to make Ruby break, her so called friends were doing that better than Neo ever could Also, the smiles on everyone’s faces as they say this is 100% me when I write my characters going through some fucked up shit. Neo should’ve gone into theater and literally none of this would have happened lmao

It’s uhhhhhh kinda telling that Yang is the first to stop and bitch about Ruby’s behavior. “How could she jsut run off like that?” damn it’s like your sister knew you ddidn’t give hafl a flying fuck about her and dipped Yang OHMYGOD YANG BEING PISSED THAT RUBY DIDN’T TALK TO THEM I’M FUCKING WHEEZING Girl you were so busy being buried in the pussy you didn’t notice your own sister having a full ass breakdown. I do not feel sorry for you “She could’ve just talked to us” like you talked to her after you lost your arm? Oh, wait, YOU DIDN’T FUCKING DO THAT YANG. You literally told her to LEAVE YOU ALONE. Ain’t that a bitch, huh

“We say things like ‘we believe and you’ and ‘we can count on you’” holy shit this is smth I would expect from the yt exercise gurus I watch after work shifts not from my close personal friends this is so fuckign funny

“It’s not like we’re asking her to be perfect” well mf did you ever, idk, COMMUNICATE THAT. Because, lmee tell you as someone who WAS expected to be perfect at all times, that shit be damaging as fuck. I can’t even let typos happen in funny instances without a voice in my head screaming to fix them

Oh great we get the generic meandering vocals during a pvp platform fight. Do they write these lines knowing they’ll be translated into a game soon? There’s no way “I was the best and brightest Beacon had to offer” comes off naturally otherwise

Ruby literally clambered onto the only structure in the room for defense? Girl at this point you are asking to die lmao

AND HER AURA SHATTERS AT THAT MEASLY DROP I AM FUCKING SOBBING JUST KILL THE BITCH AND BE DONE WITH IT

“Just like you were too late to save me at the Vytal festival.” Bitch that literally didn’t matter shit since you came back in V7. You’re literally wearing your V7/8 outfit. Shut the absolute fuck up you fucking waste of potential and hair space goddamn

“Can you imagine what it’s like to be failed time and time again by someone who meant the world to you” oh like Oz? The guy you demonized for the last few seasons? The guy who was roasted alive by his wife after she butchered their FOUR FUCKIGN CHILDREN?

Also Ruby does not use her FUCKIGN SEMBLANCE BITHC ARE YOU WANTING TO FUDCKIGN DIE THEN DIE ALREADY GODDAMMIT

Okay I can’t put my finger on it, but the animation of Pyrrha going around her staff to kick Ruby is really fucking weird. Maybe because it seems like her spear is merely resting on the ground instead of impaling it? (My current MC had a similar move so this is important to me lmao)

While I do appreciate the line of “have you stopped to consider if you’re doing more harm than good” coming from Ironwood, it’s not really Ironwood saying it, is it? How the absolute FUCK would Neo know this? Was she witness to what was happening, did she figure it out with context clues, or is this another case of writer clairvoyance?

While I guess it is within canon rights to have Neo know that Oscar is Oz’s new host, I’m very much confused about this particular course of action [turning Ozpin into Oscar] from Neo. When it was her vs Cinder,  Neo just tried to annihilate her, but with Ruby she wants to be Jigsaw??? MKEK learn character consistency I am BEGGING

Listen... I know Ruby is in an emotionally compromised state, and that in any other scenario this would be intensely heart-breaking, but with how contrived this entire scene is, I cannot give half a flying fuck about Ruby’s mental state because it’s too damn funny how easily she falls into Neo’s lap. You walked into this giant ass casino, can’t you just walk out? We ain’t seen you try yet, so either you (and the writers) are too stupid to think of it, or it was shuffled off screen, neither of which are a good look babe. Especially when that damned mouse is in the wings for SOME goddamn reason. Probably the next fucking deus ex mouse

RUBY’S HICCUPS SOUND EXACTLY LIKE MY PRINTER IM FUCKIGN WHEEZING

Okay, so Neo offering the tea makes it seem like that’s a path to the Ascension that everyone’s so gung-ho about, which makes me question why the paper pleasers needed to have a whole ass suicide dam-break to ascend if all they needed was some leaf-tea. I also think I’m putting more thought into this than the fucking writers, which, honestly, is par for the course

WAIT WHOA HOLD UP that was some geometric shit hitting Neo into the fucking next generation. Everything in Wonderland is ~whimsy and frolic~ not Square (tm) so wtf is going on

Goddammit again with this pov shit? Whoever suggested it in the group orgy should be drug out to the street and shot

CURIOUS!!! THE ONLY BITCH THAT MATTERS TO ME even if he is ugly as sin

“(Ruby) I don’t want to be me anymore” well aint that just more gasoline to my theory that Ruby’s gonna try to sacrifice herself to the tree No joke, if RT (and for any dumbass who needs clarification, CRWBY is 100% RT property) tries to imply in any goddamn way that sacrifice is the only way to achieve happiness (especially when it comes to other people’s happiness) I will come to each of their houses and shred their shoes, their paintings, and dismantle their ovens

Altho, no joke, I would much rather prefer Curious as our MC instead simply because they are curious and would potentially be able to ask questions about the world that our actual mains would take for granted, like idk wtf is dust and where does it come from? (Mainly stemming from my hc that dust is the remains of human souls that grimm devour but can’t actually process. Like... how else are you gonna reconcile the dust that made Adam ((the original biblical man)) with the dust of Remnant?)

Oh wow so we’re actually going for the take that the cat was evil the whole time? Is that what we’re doing? No nuance about a creature merely curious about a world outside its own? We’re going full fucking body snatcher?

I absolutely HATE this take on the Curious Cat. MKEK. Give me your addresses so I can beat your asses in the nearest Dennys parking lot. I think you sorely need some lessons in humility. Suck my entire asshole

Is Little really fucking hurt by being slung .2 feet from a tail whip? Fucking really?

And now Neo and Curious are fighting over Ruby’s fate. Someone bring back the forced love triangle of Hunger Games (which was forced by the publishers NOT the writer btw) instead of this shit before I throw myself into a lava pit because honesty it this is far shittier than HG

Wtf are Ruby’s fingers bloodied from? Wielding Crescent Rose for .2 seconds? Girl you have been handling this weapon for fucking years, but spinning it around a couple of times makes her bleed? Bitch play Paganini’s 24 Caprices then say how your fingers feel (For clarification purposes, I only know this because I’m writing characters who know how to play the violin, not because I know violin myself despite how much I fucking want to. V from DMC5 has me in a fucking chokehold lemme tell you-*dies*)

“I have been trying to wear you down for so long” BITCH FUCKING WHERE. WHERE THE ABSOLUTE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN WEARING RUBY DOWN MORE THAN HER TEAMMATES OR GENERAL FUCKING LIFE HAS ALREADY BEEN. BITHC FUCKING WEHRE

“I need to know why my makers left me here.” This makes me think that the Wonderland was structured by the shitheel gods of light and dark. Perhaps the cat was one of their compromises, which is why they’re such a wildcard? But that would make so many questions about the purpose of Wonderland itself and we all know that MKEK can’t be bothered with things like worldbuilding or nuance or anything remotely resembling intelligence (also I read once that black scelera ((the white part of the eye)) is a sign of pure truth/desire so honestly this is incredibly intriguing even though I know it won’t end in anything satisfactory)

NEO STEPS ON LITTLE BEST CHARACTER EVER 10/10

The cup sliding into frame after Ruby’s frantic eyes is literally so fucking funny how do they expect to take me seriously when the framing has the subtlety of a drunk elephant?

Ohmygod the way JWBY ran into the room like PS2 characters I’m fucking wheeazing

Ohmygod this is literally the most flaccid way to force a person into your perspective. Like... Ruby got kicked around a little bit after venturing into an OBVIOUSLY NOT GOOD PLACE and then decides to drink the airport jungle juice right as she’s about to be rescued and not ONE FUCKING CHARACTER WITH RANGED ARSENAL SHOOTS THE MUG OUT OF HER HAND

Honestly there are times where it really hits me how RWBY is a show about plot that isn’t plot instead of characters, and it’s moments like these where I’m like “damn, these people are acting to the script instead of their character huh” Like... it would’ve been something profound if the tea drinking had happened moments prior to their arrival instead of “hey watch me drink this fuckin tea while I reflect in your stupid eyeball instead of you doing literally anything about it despite that the supposed fact that you fucking raised me YANG, so watch me drop into this fuckkin hole I guess”

At the very least I guess the writers realized that Neo’s sole purpose was offing Ruby because... Roman was in her vicinity when he died???

OHMYGOD THE FACT THAT THE PERSON WHO REACTS TEH MOST TO RUBY DRINKGING THE FUCKIGN JUICCE IS CURIOUS IS FINEING SENDING ME

SHES A FUCKING CORN COB BSBE IM FUCNG CRYIGN

Okay, Curious fixating on Neo is one BILLION percent more interesting than anything jrwby has going on. Once again, fuck this main storyline bullshit and give Curious their own damn show

Also, nlg, the facct that Curious is Geometric rather than Organic in terms of design (squares vs spirals for the at home group) is super fucking cool and I desperately need an entire goddamn story abt them pronto. I would absolutely love to see how they interact with Remnant and if they’d be able to have their weird ass powers in the dimension of mortals. That is so much more interesting than literally anything our main crew has proposed in literally years, especially since these dumb mfs aint ever talked about whether or not its okay to kill a whole ass human being for their cause (and faunus are human beings. Fuck off if you think that some shtity tail or ears makes you not a whole ass person)

These mfs cannot let the bee train go for a single second can they? These bitches gotta be hit inot the sam efukcin wall while Weiss gets left all alone. Yknow. Like her family let her be for th emost part. Glad to see that RT’s priority is rainbow capitialism instead of genuine storytelling

Well that is a hentai trope I did not expert to see today. Though the fact that it’s Neo does not surprises me at fuckign all. Mmmm love me some fcking body possession. Great job Rt on making on your female characters be absolutely consumed by a foreign entity that surely isn’t a fucking metaphor for antyhign yknow the fucking facehuggers were’nt a metaphor for shit didnt yha know????

May I say to MKEK, absolutely fuck you for makign the cat an undeniable villain. Can you guys not handle even an iota of moral greyness? Can you not conceive of the idea of a situation that is not merely good vs evil? I ask you to look at the world today, and tell me that evil arises merely because it can rather than as a symptom of a society that refuses to care for all its citizens. Can you not idealize a person who, when pressed to their absolute brink, will take upon violence to ensure that the seeds they sow will bring sustenance to those who come later? For fuck’s sake I’ll take a person who idealizes themselves for morally grey reasons other than what the fuck ever these dipshits are trying to sell to me

Wow aint it so spectaculaar that Curious invaded the one person who wasn’t important to the writers plot adn now our heroes can now kill her without any iota of guilt? Aint that fucking nifty? Aint that fuckign grand? And not even a fucking thought extended to teh idea tha Crurius wanted to see the outside world. THat was their main reason for helping the siblings right? Because Alyx promised them that she would bring him to Remnant? But taht whole plotline is gone because it’s jsut TOO SPICY FOLKS. Can’t have anything interesting in our show about FAIRTYTALES whene we’re in a FAIRTYTALE LAND

Honestly, fuck you MKEK, fuck you RT, fuck you any god that ever alloweed existence to happen. THis is fucking bullshit

It was only through looking up the info on the internet that I learned that Roman Torchwick’s og VA died of colon cancer prior to this volume (2022). Mr Kametz, I hope you rest well and know that your expertise was greatly appreciated. May you know peace in the beyond

[twildflower]

watching build fighters oh my fucking god i love my boys so much

fucnin yapping again guys i think i might have adhd

why the hell do i keep saying guys. i nedd hep i need to be killed

i miss them so much theyre so silly i am sooooooo ajhdgfshfga this is so much nostalgia im aghgfhgsgkjfhakfhajkhdsjh and just episode one too i cant think how hype id get watching finale itll be so fucking awesome I LOVEEEE BUILD FIGHTER my fav gundam show.... mercury is second i guess i only watched mercury and i think its iron blood or whatever its called in eng im not even sure if its gundam lol but anyway i love sei and reiji theyre actually sooo damn <3333 i think they were the first two guys i ship together bc theyre actually so gay even tho reiji has a gf or whatever its like one of the first pieces of media i consumed and didnt just like whichever main ship the plot has... yea iirc. i think theres mainly only jp twinkle n shugo chara before build fighters but then i went back to main ship in pokemon xy and macross delta lmao... shits awesome tho i think im cool and like whatever i like i love sei so much hes so adorable and reiji is so cool and theyre blue and red theyre so made for each other like ahhghdgfsjgfhsgfisgfjgfjdghsuifguiwdg i think i mightve gave myself way too much adraline its fuckin 430 am and i wanted to cut my hair a bit tmr agh damn. i guess i could stay up the night and binge....hehe....... was watching horizons too i love horizons a lot i really dont mind ash not being protag anymore but the fact that they ended with him looking like a fuckin ugly ass idiot that looks even worse than gen 1 ash tho..... i have beef with only that fact bc like fuck you man i hate whoever the fuck made that artstyle after xyz with a passion i think tney deserve to go to hell. the fact that its a downgrade from gen1 is crazy. i dont hate that artsyle but i hate the way ash is drawn in that artysle like most other people look okay but the past travel companions and ash look fucking shit and i think theyre doing it on purpose and i fucking HATE THEM

ermm back to gunpla hehe its 6 am im so tired im gonna sleep em anyway i love them soso much damn id so build a gunpla of their moedel in the episdoe.... yknow my dad used to record the edpisodes when they played on tv and idk was it a bug or there wasnt enough space anymore so he deleted all the episodes excepgt the las one or maybe seocnd last im not sure but anyway we kept rewatching it every now and then and go feral over how awesone it was it was the best endin episode i wached when i was a kid like shugo chara i didnt watch or they didnt play till like season 2/3 i think the wedding dress end and all that shit was crazy but the only other thing i watched was jewelpet and it was like not as crazy as this one i like it alot but build fighters was a lot more visually and emotionallly stunning lollll

i think if i had to choose a best ending for all the stuff i watched itd still be xyz tbh that shit was stunning and so. urgh. my heart. i get. so much agsjhahlf. its just so good. peaked tbh. then itd probably be build fighters tbh like idk man. delta was like. cool. very cool. but like. idk. build fighters either is more nostalgic or whatever it just appeals to me more than macross. it would be third tho. i think it is. then itd be shugo and then twinkle. these are like. the main stuff i have really core memorty w lmao. yeh i uess this is it. gn im so eepy

last edit lol i didnt remember the uhhh handsome guy being just a guy that also liked gunpla a lot at the start lmaooo i just remember him being a bad guy turned good at the end w everyone to help destory the crystal........aghhhh i loveeeeee build fighters sm.....

oh yeah i guess i did watch brs too. black rock would like. hm. be at the bottom tho bc..idk. i dont have too fond memory and i like my stuff better i have my prioritys lmaooo.. hm. yeah now i really dont rmb anything i just remembered brs bc the blacckkk rockkkk shooooterrrrr is just ringing in my head its such a good song owo

[pilotheather]

another insane depression kms spiral. to the low stakes live blog we must....

ep 5 - time heist

ok so picking up here again

i dontthinkt his is a fair assessment per se cuz i was really out of it when i left off and im never good at picking stuff back up but

again i loooveee the premise. i love the set-up. its SUPERRR GOOD. and i do love the characters and literally EVERYTHING here its just brooo.....

it needs more time. this should have been a two parter. way too rushed. i think these extras could have been rlly memorable if they had that time to develop. otherwise theyre just sorta standard aliens with A Trait. anyways

still fun. bit silly.

i feel weird cuz like i feel like a lot of these eps so far ive kinda not connected to them and im wondering if thats just cuz inever aaw thme live and on rewatches im always either out of it, or slightly burnt out by the time i get to them (i hate s7 it exhausts me)

ajnways end of ep again would have loved this. wish it was a 2 parter tho cuz it could have genuinely elevated itself to suchhhh highs

ep 6 - the caretaker

ok so this ep basic premise its obvs more abt the dannster & a general character piece.

but speaking of oh my god. can we get someone else in the writing room. maybe its intentional? i feel like it's... just weirder if it is. but the doctor repeatedly calling him that just always feels insanely fucking racist. help

its even worse than with mickey. sorry i did post that reddit post before right. dw just hates black men i think. its a bit mental.

anyway i like danny. i think im liking him more on the second rewatch. like ok he's a little bootboy. but i think i forgot a lot of his like Actual Personality cuz im not as well versed in this era. and can i say. hes actually a delight to me. hes lame as shit. i love it when a boyfriend is lame as shit. so good. but hes also kinda dope as fuck

like he did a flip. is no one talking about how he did a flip

anyway i like this ep its fun and ive always liked this direction with clara.

ep 7- kill the moon

ngl i laughed when i saw this coming up

i like the role courtney plays, but i dont like a lot of the execution. i think teens/kids are a really hard thing to have in tv/movies for a load of different reasons. and tbh here its not just the actresses fault - shes doing fine with the stuff given, really - but i feel like the dialogue can have a tendency to be um... lacking. and they end up being dumb as fuck but also sometimes a deus ex machina weirdo. its like just write a person bro.

also why i didnt like the kid in Boom! most recently. like can we get a few more quarters in her? she's gonna repeat the same sentiment again for us all. i can see the arguments for why she was like that- but whatever not for this post

anbyways

this fuckng episode man im laughing stupid as fucking shit concept help me and i love the stupid as shit concepts

UI FORGOT ABOUT THE TUMBLR THING

WHY WAS THERE A CANONICAL TUMBLRMENTION. WHAT YEAR WAS THIS SEASON AGAIN. WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT. IDK. SHES REAL THOUGH.

the moons an egg. give your head a fucking wobble, christ alive. help me god. help me please. its so funny. its like it could wokrk. theres bits of this episode i like. i like the concept of getting the entirety of mankind to vote on their phones for moon abortion. sorry its funny. but the moons an egg. help me. its getting heavier. YOU LIAR.

the whole lights thing too. like would this not only work on that side of the world. who is turning on and off the lights in the cities. whos doing this. help me

its so funny cuz the end of this is also very good its like theres a core to this that i really do fucking love i love claras blow up here and the way this is like the crescendo to everything thats been building up but help me you could have just . spent 10 minutes making it make sense. LOVE AND LIGHT

ep 8 - mummy on the orient express

yesss i like this episdoe (he says barely remembering this episdoe)

danny is so real. its crazy to me people call him whiny. he is literally the most reasonable man in existence. hes chill as fuck all things considered.

again my point abt ppl saying him and mickey are the worst. was mickey initially a great boyfriend, nah, he sucked and it was a lame relationship between two struggling not even 20 somethings. sorry. then rose went missing for a year and he AS HE SAYS was like prime suspect #1 and saw some insane shit that rocked his gourd. he was a pretty reasonable guy for someone that got eaten by a rubbish bin is what im trying to say.

hell yeah. we have the expert on the scary mummy omens thank you for giving us the exposition dump on the mummy

perkins is so pookie bear

whatever the fuck is going on with 12 and clara is insanity. its pure insanity.

the scary mummy awakens

you are NOT a mystery shopper >:(

help me god he says. i have ptsd. and the mummy is coming for me.

this is completely aside. clara looks utterly delicious in her fucking outfit. i think im going to

i actually did forget the resolution to this episode and it hits just right i shant lie.

OKAY end of ep. i fucking loved the middle i remember i loved it but i think the set up was a little slow going. my kind of fucking vibe all over.

can we keep perkins

perkins pleaAAASEEEE PERKINSSS COME ON. PERKINS WE LIKE YOUUUUUUUU PERKINSSSSSSS

[popculturebuffet]

Jake’s Reviews: Amphibia: Quaraller’s Pass and Toadcatcher

On this week’s episodes, Sprig and Polly won’t stop sibling arguing forcing Anne and Hop Pop to leave them on the side of the road to figure it out.. or else. Either way the fighting stops so good times. Meanwhile Sasha and Grime are both reeling from the end of last season with Sasha burying her feelings wide and deep and Grime sinking into a pile of trash, junk food and depression.. so he’s basically become me then and both must rise out of it when the Newts send someone to collect him. We’re on the road to Keith David, come on inside after the cut. Also in more serious stuff suicide trigger warning since.. well the finale of season 1 and all. 

And we’re back.. and this time on the actual day! What a concept.. I kid of course I had good reason last time but it’s still nice to get this out when people will actually care. 

Quaraller’s Pass

We open with Anne and Hop Pop driving the Fwagon, and yes i’ve given up and called it that i’m not made of stone, and remarking about the fact their halfway to newtopia and it’ll only be another two weeks.. a nice meta joke that actually gets to land this time due to the show getting to air week to week for a change. In fact things have gone smoother than Hop Pop thought though both would change one thing: Sprig and Polly have been fighting non-stop.. entirely off screen. Ugh. This annoys me for two reasons: 1 we don’t get an actual on screen scene of them fighting to properly set it up and 2. they’ve been just fine up to this point. Now I will grant shit happens while we’re not looking in shows, that’s fine, life happens and we can’t see every second of characters lives. 

Steven Universe for instance, while falling into forgetting to show us important stuff too sometimes, did this really well in season 5: While the Steven and Connie sepearation arc is a mixed bag, to be sure, they did use the fact Steven couldn’t use lion to check on lars fo ra few weeks well, and by the time we saw him again, he’d gone from hiding with the rest of his newfound friends in the catacombs of homeworld to having not only stolen one of homeworld’s best ships, but having a rivalry with the ships previous owner and having fought her several times, as well as he and the off colors both taking several levels in badass. It was a nice way to speed up things with Lars, as with this probably being the last season as far as the crew knew they didn’t have time for a full episode of lars getting off homeworld, and was a really nice twist when it was revealed and good character development for Lars, showing that seperated from his old baggage and with his self loathing having gone down, just what Lars was capable of.  Here though? It’s just a lazy excuse to have a fued episode. Like the above it is plausable and it’s not a stretch that two siblings would argue nonstop on a road trip. Having an older brother and having been on several your going to fight eventually. Close proximity mixed with lingering tension will do that. The problem here is.. it’s just not in service of anything new or intresting. WIth the above example, the offscreen movments put lars in a new an dintresting place.. and then contrasted it when he started freaking out upon finding out Sadie had gotten a new intresting life herself while he was gone. Here it’s just “Oh wow they’ve been fighting and it’s not funny aside from one brilliant gag we’ll get to” and leads to the obvious conclusion. I don’t expect a huge character thing but I expect more comedically and character wise from this show.  So yeah the two are fighting and bring it outside as they apparently tend to do which, credit where it’s due, is the second funniest gag of the episode, as the two do impressions of each other.. by which I mean Polly and Sprig’s voice actors do the voices for the impressionss, so Sprig’s voice is coming out of polly’s body when she does an impression of him and vice versa. It WOULD have been nice to see the voice actors do the impressions themselves, but it still works on sure surrelaness and on both sides acting obnoxious as polly yells in hop pop’s ear and sprig keeps punching anne. Naturally both , like the audience, want this to end already and faking his death won’t work again. 

Thankfully Hop Pop soon finds a solution: Quarallers Pass, an upcoming pass that works to end fueds and force qualring travel companions to work together.. and it dovetails into the wagon trail so Anne and HOp Pop aren’t just leaving the other half of their family to die. So yeah Hop Pop dumps the two out of the wagon, explains it and the dovetaling thing I just mentioned and when the two start obnoxiously fighting again, he and Anne just leave em. We do get another good bit though as Anne leaves her phone with Sprig to call her, only to realize they only have one phone and sprig has no idea what she wants him to do.  We only see anne and hop pop again once before the finale, with Hop Pop unable to take the silence as Anne enjoys the peace.. until Hop Pop makes the mistake of asking her if she has a boyfriend back home and she responds apporiatley.. but literally kicking him out of the fwagon, and wordlessly suggesting he let that one marinate. I mean.. ther’es no unvierse where that went well, including the one where she said “Nope, Girlfriends” before doing it and let the obvious implications of that given how this series started and who she’s hoping to see soon sink in. 

But yeah the episode goes about how you’d expect, the two fight, then find an obstacle, as the pass is set up to force them to work together, which they do, and the two bond again and enjoy being a team. Because i’ts an effed up world but it’s a two player game. They have a thankfully breif song nad end up finding the exit blocked by a painting, and go into a cave, then fight again and yeah.. this episode is very slight and the laughs mentioned above are the only ones for miles. We do however get another small saving grace for the episode as the two each find a monster wnatin got eat them only to discover it’s ONE beast, split down the middle, a blind eel worm thing that can’t see but it can hear them. The two then manage to escape it and hide and the two eel heads bigger, with Sprig and Polly realizing that’s annoying before using their super vintrloquist skills to escape. If this summary is breif that’s because it’s just.. I really can’t think of many jokes because this episode annoys me though the monster design IS cool and a neat concept, it’s just wrapped in an otherwise weak episodes. The two escaape, deciding to call truce and hug. Awww.  Soon after Anne and Hop Pop arrive with Anne not carring if they passed as she’s been in the middle of a lecture on romantic relationshisp with hop pop.. a fate worse than death to be sure, and end sthe episode shoving him off a cliff when he brings up the boyfriend thing again as he dosen’t learn. The end.  Final Thoughts: As you can tell by how I tried to get through it as fast as possible this time around, I REALLY didn’t like this one. Ther’es a few good gags and an intresting monster as the show is still really good even on it’s off days.. but otherwise it’s just really weak. I HOPED like last week a seemingly benging episdoe would be good but it’s just yoru standard “two characters sudeenly have beef” and getting into sibling rivalry would’ve been fine.. if they hadn’t DONE THIS ALREADY with the movie night episode last season, which was far more intresting and had a solid reason for htem fighting: Polly always gets what she wants and SPrig’s tired of caving to be a good big brother. its a MUCH stronger conflict than “siblings fight sometimes’ hwich they do and would on a road trip, but sometimes realisim dosen’t mean a stories GOOD or should be told, it just means we get two cahracters annoyingly bickering when not teaming up for 5 minute,s and one or two good gags stretched over a very thin 11 minutes, not helepd by it being RIGHT before a far more important and presumibly intresting episode. It’s just.. forgetable, slight and not very good. I coudln’t even find many jokes to make out of it out of a combination of lack of any good material and me just not wanting to dwell on this nothing of an episode for long outside of the great bits of Anne and Hop Pop.

 A really weak episode with some great gags and a waste of a great monster idea. It COULD have been used to have them quarrel, but even siblings who fight over the littest thing still fight over something other than the minor annoyances and a little more substance from a show that’s usually better about providing it would’ve been ncie. Just.. a frustratingly bleh episode.

 Toadcatcher:  Onto our Main Event and the reason the previous episode was even more insufferable. We catch up with Sasha mid-training montage, and naturally given what we saw in the finale she’s swift as a coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, the strength of a raging fire and the mystery of the dark side of the moon.. which is to say not a lot. We all know it’s where Cyclops put his house. 

Of course what starts out sorta inspriing ends up.. kinda disturbing as she’s set up training dummies of the plantars and destroys all but one easily and angrily... the last one of course being Hop Pop.. maybe she sees him as a grandpa figure or feels bad about i’m just fucking with you of course it’s Anne. She does get her at sword point. but not before flashing back both to Anne taking her on, and to her own attempted suicide. And already this episode is really engaging just on this one scene: We see WHY Sasha hasn’t reformed overnight and it makes sense: The last time she felt like that, realized the weight of her actions and felt guilt for how she treated Anne and the Others.. she nearly took her own life.. to save them sure, but she still just couldn’t take the sheer weight of it because again 13, and because while Amphibia MIGHT have therapists, she has no acess to one. She probably feels if she lets herself feel like that, THINK about her actions and THINK about what she’s done she might not make it. IT’s a REALLY sobering thought and a really dark place for me to go.. but it’s the place she’s in, lost.

 As a rap musical version of George Washinton put it “I know you have dreams of fighting and dying like a martyer. Dying is EASY young man, living is HARDER. “ It’s one thing to go out in one big gesture, clear away all the things you’ve done, and be done with it.. it’s another to wake up the next morning and realize your still here. She Ra also dealt with this recently with Catra doing largely the same.. sure she didn’t DIE or nearly die, but she was brainwashed, nearly lost herself and then was nearly killed out of spite. It’s the same principal: neither expected to come back, and both have to deal with it. And as I said Sasha is fucking 13. Grown adults can barely deal with tis sort of thing and sometimes they really can’t. How the hell is a child supposed to cope? SO she copes unhealthily, burying her guilt, seeing her attempted saviors as enemies and blaming them. If Hop Pop hadn’t stood up, if they hadn’t taken Anne for her they’d be gone, she and Anne would be happy and Grime would still be in top shape and Sasha.. she woudlnt’ be FEELING guilt or derpession or rage or all this complex feelings. It’s their fault, not hers not grimes not anyone elses. When it’s NOT that easy, it’s not that simple and it’s in now way their fault. And it’s shown by the fact that unlike with the Plantars , who she barely knows and can demonize easy.. she can’t with Anne. Anne’s her best friend, she loves her.. she can’t just.. make her a bad guy because she’s on a diffrent side or demonize her defying Sasha when even if she wont’ admit it Sasha know she was wrong. It’s why I ended up liking this directoin: Change is hard and you have to WANT it for it to stick, and Sasha’s in no mental place to want it right now. She just , much like Anne, wants to get back to some form of normalcy and try and bury it down. 

But with Toad Tower gone things arne’t normal as seen when Sasha calls for Grime to see how she did.. and he’s not there. Grime is instead in a nearbye shack having basically turned into me: a depressed blob of a person binging tv and eating copius amounts of junk food while wondering where time and his life has gone. Okay maybe not the last part but yeah. Also in a nice continuity odd he’s binging on Suspcion Island, the delciously over the top , though given Riverdale which as I mentioned in a previous amphibia recap, yes really, was the show where Archie got mauled by a bear and lived with little to no scars after fleeing to Canda to avoid a cult based around a d and d knockoff and a drug called jingle jangle. I mean when that’s the reality of teen drama these days they only have to crank the knob up by so much.  But yeah Grime’s in a really bad place, can relate obviously, and it’s not what I expected: I expected in grand villian manner for him to have some evil plan and still be corrupting sasha and what not.... but this is actually better. Instead he’s just done, and just lazing about despite Newtopia putting a bounty on his head.. also revealing that he was given the Captain job  by them which is all kinds of worrysome for obvious reasons, but it’s a neat twist, revealing the toad’s were simply used by the Newts as a tool to hold down the frogs. Sasha TRIES breaking him out of it by having percy and braddock stage an attack.. but gives up when it’s clear Grime is just out of fucks to give and not moving from this chair. Nope. Not getting out of this chair. He actually takes it well though, as he’s not only apparently on better terms with the two, but even invites them to watch tv, though Sasha quickly puts the kibosh on that and sends the two into town for suplies.. which really isn’t that bad and they clearly are still happy about it.. I Mean their a brand new couple and the last time they got alone time was when Sasha passed out trianing in the woods and that was ruined when Grime walked in on them during and asked to watch and no one’s talked about it since.  Sasha tries to convince grime to attack the frogs and get his old self back on track.. but he points out that most of their army abandoned him during his downward spiral, and they are in now shape to go on an authritarian rampage and Grime is sure he can handle whoever newtopia sends after him. 

In town we meet our newst antagonist: General Yunaan.  Scourge of the sand wars, defeater of Ragnar the Wretched, and the youngest newt to ever achieve the rank of General in the great Newtopian Army, who does that every time she meets someone new and is annoyed no one around her knows about any of that and just wolverine claws a plate in half to intimdate the dishwasher, but gets nothing.. but WE get reactions from the various townies who reveal that Grime si famous for being a toad who rose from poverty and squalor as a gladiator to glory as a captain. It’s an intresting wrinkle and adds to his backstory: he puts on airs of sophisticaion so much because he came from nothing, and brutally fought his way and explains his lack of people or leadership skills: He was given a simple post intemdating the local helpelss townsfolk for beign good at punching people for the delight of the 1%. They don’t give you managment classes in gladiator arena’s.. at least not since that lion ate his whole class. Lucky for her Braddock and Percy are taking some time for themselves to have a meal and their first date in weeks probably and loudly talk about Grime because they aren’t exactly compitent on a good day. Yunnan tries getting it out of them, feigns giving up when they transparentntly lies, then hides in the ceiling nad finds out Grime’s position when the two naturally blab the minute they think she’s gone because while their sweethearts and I hope they have a long and happy life together, their loyal not compitent. Sometimes you gotta pick one or the other. It’s why Megatron keeps starscream around: He’s not LOYAL, but he can be compitent in the right continuity. 

Back at the camp, which we now know is an abandoned mill, Sasha tries to light a fire under Grime.. when Yunann approaches.. and interputs her title schtick to wonder if that’s really grime, which he confirms and she confirms she’s there to kill em. Sasha isn’t impressed wondering why a general dosen’t have an army behind her.. but she gives a slasher smile, cuts down the trees and what not around her with no effort, and says “they slowed me down’> Bad.. ass.. she really is this universes wolverine.. and as such Sasha decides to super run away because Grimes in no shape to fight and she dosen’t want to get snkited in the kidneys.  The two go on the run, with Sasha once again understandably complaning about Grime’s lack of skills, even if she does keep up with her decently. Grime however, decides to push back this time and tells Sasha to at least admit the real reason she’s buried herself in training. Sasha TRIES to wave it off as just being about loosing the biggest fight of her life.. but Grime sees right through that bullshit.. she’s not mad about loosing the fight, any good warrior especailly grime himself knows one lost battle dosen’t mean the war.. she’s mad she lost Anne. That Anne defied her and that their friendship will never be the same again, if there’s one left to save. The two are stopped by a waterfall, and Sasha’s prepared to stand and fight.. while Grime refuses.. not out of cowardace or due to being out of shape but to protect HER. It really shows his saving her at the end of last season wasn’t just saving his best weapon.. he’s grown to genuinely care about her like the daughter he never had because he took one too many shots tot he sugarlumps in the arena. Here’s an honest reinactment of that. 

I still don’t know why he dove in crotch first. Sasha refuses though revealing she’s not just training to swallow her feelings.. she’s doing so she’s strong enough to protect the one friend she has left: Grime. I’m as shocked as Grime is honestly, as I genuinely thought she was just using him for her own benifit.. but she cares about the guy. It also adds a nice wrinkle to things as it’s one thing for her to leave an an asshole who needed a good pawn.. it’s another for the two to be every bit the family Anne and the Plantars are. She can’t just.. walk away from him and he can’t do the same. It’s not easy and it makes Sasha reforming that much harder as now BOTH must want to change , or Grime must do something really bad to her which is doubtful, to make changing a good prospect for Sasha.  Yunan naturally shows up to fight, rattling off her titles, the repettition helps, and preparing to gut them, but when she knocks Sasha down grime is actually ready to fight now he has something worth fighting for and the two unite. While Grime gets knocked down pretty quick Sasha’s training/emotoinal avoidance pays off and she takes yunan one on one even breaking one of her claws with her neat pink sword. It’s a quick, furious and goregiously animated fight and an utter delight to see. Sasha ends up loosing at the alst minute thanks to Yunan’s tail.. but Grime has recovered by then and sneaks up on her while Sasha stalls her by getting her to mention her titles again so Grime can push her off a cliff. Both recite their own titles, and Grime is back in the saddle again, the two now friends for life and Grime deciding fuck simply taking the Valley back. That’s thinking small.. he’s tired of working for someone else. He’s raising an army and TAKING Newtopia and thus the world.. after finishing his binge watch.. because while this is the old determined grime he’s also now the very dad new grime too. And because i’d do the same if I was an evil wannabe dictator bent on taking back what should’ve been mine. Sasha swears to anne that while she has a new path it’s not over. whelp this can’t end well.  Final Thoughts; 

Easily the best of the season so far. The episode deepens both sasha and grimes characters and while setting them up to once again meance where our heroes will be hanging their hat it does so intrestingly: instead of dominating the frogs because that’s how it’s done, it’s setting up a three way dance between our heroes, the newts who clearly have some caste system issues, and Grime who wants to take it all for himself, as well as putting our three lost humans up against each other eventually before they even reunite. I mean as synopsis show Anne and Marcy will be on good terms and what not.. but it’s also clear that this c an’t last with the way the newts are acting. War is a coming, and it’s going to be intense. But yeah the episode has stunning action and even better character work and Grime is the standout here: Taking what was a one dimensonal villian and not only giving him a humorous side with his downward spiral, but showing he genuinely cares for sasha and changing that dynamic for the better, while also giving him an intresting backstory that will likely get even more fleshed out as the season rolls on. This episode was well worth the wait and is just behind “Reunited” as the series best so far. Outstanding. And since the end of my previous review and final thoughts got swept away as it turned out, and I didn’t notice till this week the episodes, there was no ranking soooo... Toadcatcher Truck Stop Polly Anne Hunter Handy Anne Fort in the Road The Ballad of Hopidiah Plantar A Caravan Named Desire Quaraller’s Pass Next week Kermit the Frog is here fresh off Muppet’s Now!, which was pretty good by the by to do a voice, while we get the long awaited Gravity Falls Homage! Excitment! Until then like, subscribe, check here for my previous amphibia reviews and here for my most recent reviews looking at x-men evolution and until next time, courage.