#hm should I tag toh crit? cause I kinda am in the cut

[aurumdoesthings]

owl house season 3!!!! various doodles, some more obviously referencing screenshots than others

(the belos one is him squinting at a script while luz pats his shoulder with That’s Rough Buddy energy. it makes more sense if you read my rambling below)

thoughts on the episode under the cut that got REALLY LONG

FIRST I absolutely love this show and that was an extremely entertaining special. the sheer love that is put into this show was palpable, and I loved all the kids’ outfits, and the kind of things they got up to in the human realm, CAMILLA oh man Camilla rocked, and it was just beautiful overall in backgrounds and designs and animation (that fight scene? MWAH the way the kids are animated on their staffs has always been sooo satisfying to watch)

however

i gotta admit, while the end of s2 you could tell they were pressed for time I still felt like- especially in hollow mind- they kept a fairly good pace, while in this special it was kind of a mess. like everything was zoomed through, not just the montage, and scenes like luz and hunter investigating the house together were (WHILE SO GOOD) very thrown in, seeming more like they wrote the idea and fawned over it and had to slap it in with little set up and follow through in order to keep the special moving. like, it’s a collection of so many awesome moments, but the connective tissue was lacking much more visibly here than it ever has in the show before

and the elephant in the room: belos

okay. so. i honestly was not wild about how belos was done in this special at all. ignoring that, despite their clear efforts both here and in hollow mind and the finale etc, hunter is still the clearest and most emotional and sympathetic connection to the main villain and not luz. IGNORING THAT. he was such a cardboard cutout of villainy in this special it was almost laughable. The intrigue was all there- the finale showing the gloop that escaped, and here seeing the weird possessed animals more and more throughout as well as flapjack’s weird behavior as we clue in to what’s going on, that’s all good! but the follow through? Belos possesses Hunter (cool, great! Awesome look and very spooky) - he. gets the titans blood to go back to the demon realm, for some reason… he kills flapjack just cause, while spouting lots of generic villain lines and taunts at luz…. and then he gets kicked out of hunter but just- leaves anyway? in his monster form again, so it’s unclear why he was a tiny gloop or possessing things this whole time at all? His motives were just so unclear throughout all of this, he felt like a prop just to facilitate hunter and luz angst rather than an actual character, and I honestly don’t see why they didn’t just make him some parasitic cursed remnant of belos that escaped the demon realm with them if this is how they were going to execute him being alive

like it still doesn’t register for me that belos is still alive and in the demon realm! it never sticks with me! Belos feels so done as a character I can’t even conceive of what they could possibly still need him around for. They already redid that moment in the finale fight, with belos-monster calling hunter caleb VS belos-hunter calling flapjack evelyn, and we’ve got closure with hunter and belos now even More, and luz only has the shallow conflict of guilt for connecting him to the collector, uhhhh and he failed the day of unity, so like. What else is there to even do with him???

this special is already very Halloween themed and it would make sooo much more sense overall if they reframed this special re: belos as about exorcising ghosts, metaphorically and also literally. the final battle is in a cemetery for crying out loud! be it belos’s ghost or a parasitic remnant or whatever, have that be the final obstacle both emotionally and literally for them to return home to save the boiling isles, and they put it to rest by putting aside their fear and guilt and Making A Choice! Hunter as he did in the episode choosing his own life and future! Luz choosing to fight for her demon home and demon family (preferably after a rewrite where she’d been grappling more with her feelings on being home, what she loved and missed vs hated, and whether they can even get back to the isles at all)

IDK! Other gripes were : that line at the end of the hay ride? Something something “lol I think little bro was mad his big bro got a HOT WITCH GIRLFRIEND LMAO” from the enby teen? Hated that. It took me out of the episode immediately and felt like such an obvious- I don’t know, writer insert, fandom insert line? it felt like the writers telling us that’s what we’re supposed to think and I also just think it’s. so boring to reduce the backstory we were JUST given / expanded upon to him being a stupid jealous incel or something. villains are (gasp) more interesting when they’re sympathetic? when you can see parts of them where you can understand how they reacted the way they did? if they wanted him to be a foil to luz and not just the Big Bad Emperor, we should understand how he reacted the way he did to witches even if we hate it. we should see that oh wow, he and his brother were orphans, his brother was essentially his parent / guardian, and then that brother disappears or seems to be kidnapped by these dangerous creatures from another realm, which witchhunters warned them about. However, unlike Luz or his brother, he spurned all the kindness found there and only saw the danger and monsters (and there is legitimate danger in the isles! it’s not a hospitable place!), and he gets so caught up in his own fear and hate that he lashes out at his seemingly bewitched brother, and he has no home left, and he latches onto this idea of killing all the evil that “took” his brother from him, and etc etc the show happens. Like that’s all so cool laying it out like that!!! and it opens up really intriguing possibilities for a special that instead involves laying his ghost to rest in whatever form that takes! (*disclaimer that does not in any way require forgiveness from the kids. relax)

there’s also willow and gus. While I could see and appreciate that the writers made sure they were never just standing in the background not doing anything and always had their own moments and quips, they’re also so clearly just accessories to the group right now. Willow, who I will admit I’m biased to, has really been reduced down to Confident Bombastic Friend and Object of Hunter’s Blushing (don’t. get me started on that), with zero trace of her shy and bullied past remaining. She never has any moments of relapse, which you might expect especially in the human realm which is so new and different for her, not even a moment where she hesitates and needs one of the gang to back her up and give her that nudge to shake off her nerves/doubts. she’s just completely confident and uncaring of others now, and they’re also sticking with the amity-willow sudden power couple from end of s2 where they’re completely okay (but that has more to do with their arc together as a whole, or rather the lack thereof, than this special specifically). There was definitely a lost opportunity to pair up Gus and Vee, as two Boiling Isles kids who adore the human realm, so Gus wasn’t stuck with only being Hunter’s emotional support and little bro (despite how I do love their dynamic). and of course for both of them but SUPER amity, who we actually know the family of very well, there was not nearly enough emphasis on what they’ve lost and how conflicting it must be to be trapped in another realm away from your family who is currently in danger but still be enjoying it so much. they did not feel the weight of not being able to go home maybe ever nearly enough at any point in this special, and I think that deserved at least one scene, maybe right before they discover the map from flapjack to the titans blood, to really feel hopeless and grieve

is almost any of that feasible given the restraints the show is currently under? No, probably not. did I still greatly enjoy the special? Yes, very much so! But there was definitely a lot more glaring flaws than I’m used to with The Owl House, and I’m hoping that doesn’t carry through to the remainder of the show, as cut short as it may be