#i will fight anyone who tries to diss my favorite bucket boy.

[hyperfixated-on-hensper]

HD RANT

So, ya'll know that I'm obviously a die hard Jasper sympathizer and would fight anyone who dissed my favorite bucket boy.

So, it's not exactly a shock that I hate how terrible he was treated thoughout the HD.

They gave him so many issues that they never addressed unless it was a joke.

In canon he had terrible parents. We don’t know much about his dad other than he's presumably a dead beat and not around.

But, he has stated that his mom tells him she hates him and his grandma calls him a failure.

We see a few scenes where Jaspers says things like, "My parent don't like young people," and, "My parents don't like me to have fun things."

Then in the 'Future Piper' episode the future piper is acting erratically and compared to Jaspers mom, and in the 'Charlotte gets ghosted' episode the where Henry's parent through a raging party, the mess is compared to Jasper's house.

We see several other examples, like in S1.E13 'Let's Make a Steal' when Jasper breaks his nose, it's said that neither of his parents wanted to show up which is why Mr.Hart and Piper bitterly stayed with him.

In the 'Double-O Danger' episode it was revealed that Jasper's middle name is TBD meaning 'To Be Determined' because his parents split before giving him a real middle name.

Then again in S.3E4 'Mouth Candy' when Jasper was framed for stealing the candy boot and taken to jail, Henry had to call his mother and make up an excuse.

The conversation when like this:

Henry: "Heyyy, Mrs.Dunlop."

Her: *sounding annoyed* "Yeah, what?"

Henry: "Jaspers gonna be staying the night at my place tonight."

Her: "Oh cares?"

Henry: "Oh, you don't care?"

Her: *scoffs* "Nope. I gotta go." *hangs up*

[Laugh track plays in the background]

They made that whole conversation a joke, but it's actually really sad. It was obvious that his mother couldn't care at all where he was.

Which would explain his desperation for validation from Ray. He's seeking a parental figure because he doesn't have any.

This behavior seems to correlate with all classic signs of neglect and emotional abuse.

Jasper deserved better from his family, and better from nickelodeon.

The writers shouldn't have added theses serious themes if they were going to make it into a joke, they should have either addressed it seriously, or cut it entirely.

[aabaker1]

Just finished Harvey Girls season 2

First spoiler-free Version. Season two of Harvey Street Kids or Harvey Girls Forever call it what you want, was...uneven. The season started and ended in good places, but there was a block of three episodes towards the middle that just fell flat. Good new characters, though only a few of them got developed. And I am really hesitant about the cliffhanger, it could easily go wrong in a lot of ways.

Okay time for the full rundown after the break.

Hoo boy this series had some highs and lows. I’ll break down by episode and then final thoughts.

Raiders of the Lost Park:

Okay does anyone else notice that the episode titles Netflix presents aren’t always the same as the ones on the title card? It’s not that big a deal, but come on, it’s Dreamworks and Netflix. A little consistency would be appreciated.

Nice way to start the series. This was a risky move, introducing brand new characters was one thing, but giving Audrey and Melvin, two established characters, brand new siblings? That was taking a risk. If I had to complain about something the tension and strife Dot caused in the season 1 finale was brushed aside way too quickly, but that’s a nit pick at most.

Dottie Rocket/Weekend at Audrey’s:

Good Dot episode, nice to see her obsessive compulsiveness get the better of her sometimes. But, Dot sill came back down to Earth in the end, even if it took a sugar-induced hallucination to do it.

Digital pets kicking the bucket, sigh, I can relate. But Audrey was just a bit out of character here. Not her recklessness, but her attempts at covering up. Audrey is not the type of person to hide mistakes, get frustrated by them, sure, but not hide them. Okay, she didn’t want to disappoint Lotta, but Audrey just doesn’t have that kind of deception in her.

Boy Story/ Puzzle, Puzzle, Toil and trouble.

And this is what I meant by character development. It’s nice to see that even the Bloogie Boys have limits, and legitimately like more than stereotypical boy hobbies. Also, nice touch remembering Dot and Pinkeye are friends.

Frufru, getting character development? Didn’t we already do this in season one? Okay, I know, people don’t just change overnight. But, for being so eager to be recognized for her brains, Frufru was a bit too quick to cheat. Though nice callback to Audrey Parkour. And I seriously don’t want to know why there’s an old well full of butter, that is just leads to several nasty implications.

Treasure of the Sierra Harvey/ Babies Day in:

And the character development continues, this time for TIny. Also not all old toys are dangerous. The treasure trove of old toys idea has been done before, but this wasn’t a bad example. Though I thought for sure Tiny was going to leave his action figure behind in the storm drain.

And a nice way to show that Lotta’s compassion can get out of hand some times. Also nice way to show that raccoons aren’t always jerks. Just gonna say it now, ninja pajamas, just ninja pajamas. Also, Dot, running bare-foot, outside, in the park? What kind of bizzaro world is this?

The Lice Storm/ Mission Impossibow:

This one kinda fell flat for me. Audrey over reacting is expected enough, but everyone going along with it, including Dot, that was a bit too far. But, the big letdown was the Harvey Avenue Kids. Okay we’ve seen them before in season one, but this was there chance to shine. And most of them came off as background filler, just like before. Penny was the only one who got any kind of development. But, she and bald Audrey did just enough to save this ep for me.

Decent episode and it shows Dot’s possible great weakness. She’s creative, but in a scientific, A, to B, to C kind of way. Imagining fantasy scenarios on the spot is just not in here wheelhouse, props to her stepping outside of her comfort zone.  Bow initiated the plot here, but didn’t get a lot of character development. But, I’m okay with that. The Bow doesn’t really need development. She’s the bow, the weird kid who does her own thing, sometimes you don’t need to add more to make something good. My only complaint is that there just wasn’t enough of her this season, but I guess there can be too much of a good thing. Did I mention Bow’s my favorite character? Could you tell?

Fandom Menace/Moby Dot:

This one was a meh for me. It didn’t do Lotta any favor. I know she’s the trusting type, but she’s not dumb and certainly not the type to willfully delude herself. I think this was a bit of a miss step. Thankfully they didn’t do the cliche of scamming Zoe out of the ticket she sold. Lotta’s online appeal did fit her character and kudos to Crush4you to being stand up guys and respecting their fans like that.

The Cheer Hunter: Dot’s entertainment:

And more character development in an unexpected direction. So far Zoe’s two appearances had her solidly in the antagonist role, but here we she she’s actually a person, not just a stereotype. Also Maria feeling generally dissed by Zoe fast-tracking Lotta felt genuine. It’s nice to see them do plots that don’t involve someone getting their comeuppance. And everybody coming together to cheer Lotta up was a perfect touch. Also, Dot and Stu being completely (whatever) to the whole situation was funny as hell.

And once again we have Dot at her Obsessive Compulsive best. She discovers a new side to herself and like Dot, naturally takes this to the extreme. Also, nice to get a glimpse of how Dot’s brain works.  Also, Fluffy’s still around, what? You do remember that was just a rat covered in garbage can fuzz, right?

I wanna Crush Your Hand:

And this is where the dip in the season started. I’m just going to say it now, I’m not the target demo for boy bands, not by a long shot. But, that wasn’t the problem I had with this episode. No the main problem was Lotta’s obsession taking up the whole spotlight. It felt like Audrey and Dot just got shoved into the background. Plus this episode just dragged. I’ve gotta say it, I think the two stories an ep format works best for this series. The double-length story just doesn’t fit, here.

Beyond Thunder Dot: Ten things I hate about Ew:

And this is where the season hit the valley for me. Seriously, you’re doing the “Let’s shove the environmental message down kids throats” Thing in 2019? I thought that went out of fashion in the 2010s. But, the most galling thing for me was all that character developing they were doing came to a complete halt. Frufru’s character development? Nah, let’s just turn her into a low rent Captain Planet villain. And since when did Dot get that preachy? I’m sorry but this got so painful for me I had to stop the ep and walk away. Ten things I hate about Ew might have been a decent episode, I don’t know. And I never will if I have to sit through this outdated, anvilicious garbage to get to it.

Something’s Glotta Give/Afernoon Contrite:

I think the main thing with this story is it made no sense to me. I thought Gerald and Lotta got together in season one, now Lucretia’s trying to hook them up, what?

This is where the season started to pick back up for me. It’s nice to see that even after the previous character development Melvin can still be Melvin. It’s nice to see that Lotta tries to fix things, even if she did it by accident, but naive Lotta is back and I just don’t know how I feel about that. Still seeing Melvin get a bit more character growth saved this one.

Can’t Hardly Wait/Bring it Prawn:

Ah that’s more like it. This touches my fanfic-writing heart. It’s nice to see Lucretia stretching her active imagination. It’s also nice to see the Audrey Girls and  Tiny encouraging her self confidence. Plus in short order we got return of Audrey the Destroyer, Sci-Fi Dot and Lotta Moon, what’s not to love?

Thank you! Thank you for showing that cartoon siblings can do more than just fight with each other. This almost makes up for the environmental debacle, almost. In one fell swoop we see Maria and Melvin get along and Zoe and Audrey put their differences aside and work together for a common cause. Bonus points seeing Zoe stick up for Audrey. Audrey may be an annoying twerp, but she’s Zoe’s annoying twerp, damn it! Also, anyone else imagine buff Zoe and Audrey when Dot kept saying aabs.

Hover, may I board with danger/free Gilly:

And here’s Stu’s character development. Stu always seemed the odd man out. While Zoe and Maria have Audrey and Melvin to play off of, Stu was just sort of there. Now we see his too cool for school attitude is really a front for him being sensitive and a little insecure, that’s a nice touch. Also Audrey gets to grow as a person. First she was just legit conning Stu for time on the hover board, which was really just a Segway without the handles, but then she genuinely gets into the contact juggling. And one of her plans actually works for once, what? Also, what is up with Bobby this season, last season he was the older kid who doled out sage advice and could be a little jerkish sometimes. Now this season the sage advice stuff is all but gone and we just get the jerk, everyone else gets character development, but Bobby actually backslides a bit, guess they had to cut corners somewhere. 

Finally a payoff to the running gag of Audrey’s goldfish issues. Nice to see that finally wrapped up. But, was it strictly necessary to give the animals voices? Okay, I admit it wasn’t so bad for Bobby the skunk, but every freaking animal? Yeesh, I mean there is such a thing as subtlety.

That thing you Dot!/Where the streets have no games:

You know, at first I thought I was going to hate bring Chevron back, didn’t she and Dot make peace back in season one? But, then I found that I really didn’t hate it. Dot used the wrong word. Chevron is not a frenemy, she’s a competitor and that may actually be a good thing. Dot and Chevron are very similar, they like to take hobbies to the absolute extreme and there’s nothing wrong with that. They two drive each other to succeed. In fact if they didn’t have each other they probably wouldn’t do half as much as they do. And Kudos bring Penny back and giving her a voice, she’s going to be the lead Harvey Avenue kid, I just feel it.

And here we are, okay, I’ll go through ep first before getting to the diamond-studded elephant in the room. Nice commentary on mobile games and how their designed to addict you. And yeah they really are just excuses to gather data. Also, nice touch Lotta and Audrey being the only ones who weren’t suckered in. Sadly Dot’s obsessive compulsive tendencies made her an easy target. But, then we go into that cliffhanger. Yeesh, that cliffhanger.

Finale Thoughts:

I’ll just say it. I know they were going to pull Richie in at some point. But to quote the Bow, not this way. The entire idea behind Richie Rich is that in spite of being the richest kid on Earth, Richie was a normal, average kid, who just wanted to make friends and have fun. He was never portrayed as being snobbish, sheltered or clueless.

Only now it’s clear Richie set up the mobile game and the contest to try to figure out how kids have fun. Not only is being clueless, he’s using money to try to solve his problems, which Richie never did.

And worse it’s predictable. I can tell where this story is going. The Harvey girls together maxed out the fun-o-meter, so Richie’s going to take them off to his estate to be his new friends and the Harvey Girls are going to bring him down to Earth.

But, they shouldn’t have to. Richie has always been portrayed as already being down to Earth. Now they’re going out of their way to portray Richie as a clueless rich kid who doesn’t understand how the real world works, and that is just wrong. That’s not Richie. Although nice touch with the Irona reference.

But, there’s something that worries me even more. Now that you’ve pulled the pin on Richie, where do you go with him from here, does he become a regular? I hate to say it, but I hope not. 

You have to remember, that by default, Richie is the biggest presence in the room. If you over use him he could quickly over shadow Audrey and the others, in fact, he already has once before.

I’m taking about Harvey Comics. For over ten years, Audrey, Lotta, Dot and their friends ruled Harvey comics. Then Richie, Wendy and Casper came along. And within a few short years Audrey and company were all but forgotten. I just hope to go they have enough sense not to try to make this the Richie Rich show. I think they do. I think they understand a way to use Richie right and they already done it in the same episode, with Chevron.

Chevron is a big personality, so they don’t overuse her. So far she’s shown up once a season and that’s just right for her. It’s all she needs. If she were on regularly she’d drown the others out too much. But, this way when she shows up it’s a big deal. I think that’s the perfect approach to take with Richie, less is more. Just don’t turn him into a clueless rich kids, please?