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popculturebuffet · 3 years ago

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Go Team Venture! A Venture Bros Retrospective: Season 2

Welcome back all you happy people! I’m Jake, I review stuff and this is part 2 of my look back at one of my faviorite shows of all time, The Venture Bros!

To be honest... i’m both jazzed and nervous going into this one. The jazzed comes from you fine people. TONS of you, or at least 30 something liked or reblogged the season 1 review, meaning a lot of you not only took the time to read the thing but some of you liked it enough to spread it around. While I was going to do this regardless of how many people actually read it, it truly warms my heart to know not only that the series still has so many fans but that so many of you like my take on things.

The nervous part is now I have an audience both living up to the first part now i’m getting into the even better parts of the show, and my own expectations. Not only that I have my own fans who may be either checking out the show or following along with these. But even with some nerves i’m jazzed to get back to the world of team venture again.

For those of you just joining us and wanting to catch up

LINK TO PART 1 HERE

So before I get into season 2 proper under the cut like last time let’s dive into the production stuff: These will be shorter going forward as obviously the production for a show in progress is less strenous then birthing an entire series, but ther’es still a lot of intresting insights here and there.

With season 2 Jackson and Doc had breifly moved on to other stuff while waiting for the pickup, which took a while, which Jackson understood, saying in the book that the show being half hour, a bit more expensive and story based, all things adult swim wasn’t doing at the time and even the last one is excedingly rare nowadays, while Doc felt that meant they wouldn’t. And given so many other shows had gotten shot down after one season despite being as brilliant like Clone High (which is only coming back NOW because it’s creators are hugely succesful, not that it shouldn’t have way sooner), so his pessmisim was understandable.. but ultimately unwarranted. The execs picked it up, Doc shrugged and said “here we go again”, and off they went.

The execs also had one request I mentioned last time, and suprisingly for an executive mandate it wasn’t something superflous and stupid like “Add more of the harry potter magic school”, “add two idiot male sidekicks because the lead is *gasp* a girl” or “don’t do this episode based on Labyrinth because kids don’t like muppets even though we owns the muppets”.

In fact it was something Jackson and Doc fully agreed with: Hank and Dean needed to be actual characters, an actual part of things with more fleshed out personalities instead of two dipshits off to the side getting up to their knees in their own stupidity. So while this created the new challenge of having to make plots for them and account for them instead of shoving them off to the side if it was convient, it was MORE than worth the trade off. We’ll get more into the boys later.

The only thing the network, aka Adult Swim head Mike Lazlow , didn’t really like was all the nerdy references and historical stuff, stuff they thought would turn away viewers.. but instead was inviting them in droves. Keep in mind, as Doc puts it himself this was before the nerdy cultural revolution that would take place a few years after this season aired: nerd refrences weren’t as common as they are now nor as celebrated. Thankfully they didn’t outright kill them and the rising raitings next season as well as a growing and vocal fanbase showed the guys made the right call.

The only other major change was background. Jackson HATED the more simplified backgrounds for season 1 and thus changed styles slightly, getting to a middle place before next season where he’d be able to reinvent everything to his liking.

So with that the stage is set for season 2 as the twos writing really gelled and they learned to write together more, coming together before each script and thus leading to a far more tonally consistent show. So join me under the cut to see what that show looks like!

Seasonal Stylings

Season 2 is a weird beast. It’s for the most part, far more put together: now the world’s set up, the characters have firmly settled into who they are and the main cast is set for the most part and treated as such: The boys, as outlined above, are now actual main cast members instead of goofy side characters, and the Monarch’s side of things are likewise now fully recognized and appricated as main cast members instead of a convient writing crutch to get out of making a new villain. He, Dr. Girlfriend and 21 will remain main characters for the rest of the series and 24 will remain one.. .for about another season before he goes to the mourge. The series knows whose important for the most part. The only wrinkle compared to later seasons left is that Dr. O is treated as a main character, and while I wish he had kept as that he’ll be shuffled into the recurring cast after this and outright demoted in importance in seasons 5-7. But I do get it: his magic stuff clashes heavily with the science and superhero stuff the rest of the cast get up to, so he wasn’t as easy to thread in and it would’ve been tricky making a THIRD branch of the cast with the Order of the Triad, so it was easier to juts have him pop in like anyone else.

The weird part comes in the fact that despite firing on all cyllenders, as 8 of the episodes are straight up all-time classics and 2 are stil enjoyable if not as good, three of the episodes stick out as the show still going through growing pains. Episodes with horrible bits that shouldn't of been included at all, a character that never really fit what the show became, and a plot that was good on paper but in practice didn’t play to any of the shows strengths. These three episodes show that while the show had grown a lot it still had some things to work out, some characters to shuffle out of the way so they woudln’t pop up again, that sorta thing. It also contains the one episode where neither jackson or doc were involved.. but that’s ALSO really good, but it shows how the show would become soley their propperty: the reason there hasn’t been spinoffs in comics or in outright other shows is simply because the two are nervous to hand it off to anyone else. Given the work is wholly reflective and built by two people.. it’s understandable. If also a problem in one or two areas we’ll get to.

So that’s really what season 2 is: it’s both the show firing on all cyllenders as the gap both gave them TONS Of ideas and still figuring a thing or two out. Next season isn’t without flaws either, we’ll get to them, but they come more from story choices than simply not knowing what their doing.

There’s one last thing to talk about here and that’s the biggest and best addition to the series this season: Season Long Mon-Arcs. While the most season 1 had for one was “doc has fetus dreams that lead to a better twin brother who tired to kill him but their good now”, from this season on each season has a story arc.... and the main one of the season almost always follows the Monarch and in two cases Gary as he gets one in both season 4 and season 5. It’s what’s happening with the monarch’s little family that usually dictates the focus of the season and always spills over onto our heroes lap as naturally when you hyper fixate on killing a guy your whole life, your life changes are going to be his life changes wether he wants them or not. That’s not to say there aren’t other arcs, my faviorites are the ones Hank and Dean go through from season 4 onward as they grow as people, but the monarch ones are the shows core and out of the characters while he changes the least his situation changes the most from season to season and what he’s going through is a good indicator of what season your in. We’ll get more into these arcs in the character sections so...

Roll Call:

Since I gave them a good lead in and it’s their first big arc, Team Monarch gets to take point for this one.

First up is the Big M himself. While the rest of his cast gets fleshed out a lot, the Monarch is mostly left the same, but we get to see him in a far more pathetic place. And yes ther’es a more pathetic place than constnatly stalking a man who is more annoyed with your schtick than declaring vengance or seeing you as his sworn enemy. At the start he’s in prison, trying to break out with a bunch of half baked villians from a white suprmacist bit of white noise (Which as Monarch puts it kinda undercuts the white supremacist schtick when youc an’t see his skin and it comes out more blue), and Mr. Monday, whose the callender man if he never took hannibal lecter classes. And they all turn on his ass thanks to Phantom Li mb, with King Gorilla only helping our hero because he sees how much he truly loves Dr. Girlfriend.

So Monarch’s forced to rebuild, as at the start his only henchman left are 21 and 24, the only people left who geninely care about him and missed him. Though while he still treats them like crap it does change their importance: he leans on them more from here and they slowly grow from just his henchman to his only friends who just happen to also be guys he pays to wear costumes for him. He brings them along on most escapades and trusts them enough to go recurting. Granted that backfires horribly the first time but given the Monarch has a full team again by mid-season, it works. His orignizatoin is still a wreck without Dr. Girlfriend managing it, but it would be non existant without his two best boys on the case.

He spends the rest of the season doing his usual schtick of hunting dr. venture or pining for Dr. Girlfriend; he tries winning her back at first, but fails horribly: the best he can do is demand her back, which fails since he can’t reisist having his men arch dr venture when he falls into their lap, or try and make her jealous with a horribly gone blind date that just pisses her off instead. All he does is prove to her he’s the same, insecure jealous ass who can’t pick her over his arching dr. venture or see her as an equal in their relationship. The most he can do for a while is just pick up a prostitue, have her act like dr girlfriend and send her through a horrible murder gauntlet becaue the writers wanted to remind the audience the monarch is a bad person.... and did so by traumtizing an innocent sex worker who just wanted a paid job instead of you know, anything else that didn’t involve using a woman in peril as a punchilne just because of her job. As a wise mike once said “I support sex workers uninozing their services” so this joke really dosen’t land anymore and relaly never did.

He only gets her back with some help from Dr. Henry Killinger, who uses an elaborate setup to get him his #2 and girlfriend back, and does so the only way thta would work: by giving Dr. G his diary, showing how much the guy truly loves and misses her beneath the sneering layers of super villiany and how lost he’s been. That he truly DOES care.. he’s just a fuckwit at showing it and she knew that going in. Some sneaking around behind phantom limb’s back later, this wears off a bit until Malcom Proposes.... and does the biggest step of giving up dr. venture for her. Given how he seems to often love his brother more than his future wife, that.. that says a lot. It says he loves her more than arching dr. venture. And while he’ll struggle with NOT doing so, including some slip ups, he does do his best to actually honor his promise and form here while thei rmarrige encouters issues.. he’s more honest with her and puts her before work. He dosen’t grow much but he grows enough they can care about each other.

Shiela herself gets a ton of fleshing out: Seperated from the monarch, she’s now queen etherea again and we get some valuable shading to her that makes her one fo the series best characters and one of the strongest female characters in adult animatoin: she starts out defind by the men in her life.. but this season makes clear she’s her own woman. She’s badass, instnatly leading a rescue mission when she thinks Phantom Limb’s been kidnapped using hank and dean, and easily breaking into the cocoon and taking out it’s far more competnet at the time enforcers with only a pre-badass 21 for backup.. which is to say single handed. She’s also fleshed out as to have had her own attempted solo career as lady au pair, and been a serial number 2

We also see with her love life that while she’s good at being second in command.. she dosen’t take shit form her partners: As I said she rejects Malcom till he geninely tries to change and slowly grows bored of phantom limb not because the plot says so or because of some bullshit about being fickcle: she grows tired of him because he’s a pompus, self important jackass who puts no real heart or craft into his villany anymore (instead selling paintings), and who treats her like a sexy lamp instead of the person she is. She’s with him because he seemed to value her.. and sours on him because he truly dosen’t and leaves him because Malcom did the one thing LImb never did... made a geninuine effort to change for her. It was her choice all the way, even if it was a tad rushed, but hey they had 13 episodes and just got to plotting season long arcs. They’d get better.

Finally we have 21 and 24 who also get fleshed out as we see who they are outside of being henchman: 24 naturally, like me, is a pudgy geek who sells what of his stuff he can online and lives with his mom, and 21 is a mixure of ray ramno and jerry seinfield and is as handsome as that sounds. The two do.. okay without him but it’s very clear Gary loves being a henchman and the life and turns a support group to quit the life into a rallying cry to beco me villians and two seconds of talking with 24 get both missing their old boss. The two love this stupid career they picked and 21′s repsonse to getting it back is to break into a hilarous and awesome entrance sequence. to him this is his best life: being a goddamn henchman and someday his own supervillian. He may not be the best but he’s happy and that’s what counts to our boy and for 24.. it’s a fun paycheck what can he say and he gets to hang out with his best buddy every day. The two are very much a double comedy act, the optimstic and nerdy 21 and the more realistic and pesmistic 24, the kind you see often especially in this show, and outside it as seen as recently as smiling friends. But they work because their just so damn funny and likeable and relatable you can’t help but enjoy them.

So now it’s time to go team venture.. starting with Doc.

Yeah Doc sadly hasn’t changed much, only gaining scraps of the tragic depth that will make him tolerable later. For most of the season he’s a bullying dickhead, taking out his crap on his boys, Orpheous, Brock and Billy. The latter is only for one episode but he and White treat him SO shittly in the span of said episode, and in only maybe 2-3 minutes of it at that, that it gets on here. He’s a chore to be around a lot of the time and there’s not one episode in the season where he’s not a complete dick at some point. He can be a FUNNY dick sometimes, and those examples help ballance it out.. but the series sometimes struggles to make him symapthetic or tolerable, with some episodes really having him ramp up being a shit head to levels that make them hard to watch, with “I Know Why the Cage Bird Kills” being the standout as he outright accuses poor Dr. O of trying to seduce him.. and also claims the guys a predatory homsexual because of course he belives that hurtful myth

Rusty Sucks Sup...

Not yet, we’ll add that one at the episode capsule. Thankfully like with the boys thin characterizations, the guys realized they can’t go on forever just having him be shitty without any depth or development, and tackle the problem head on next season in his very first episode.

Onto Brock.. whose also insufferable at times himself but who does grow a LOT this season. In season 1 while he loved the boys.. it was also clear he was mildly unsatisfied in the roll as nanny and cooly detached from anything but them. This season.. he’s settled in. He and Doc are closer now, being more like friends. Brock will still ignore doc but now it’s less brushing him off as a possible friend, and more simply ignoring Doc when he’s letting his ego or inherent selfishness get in the way of the right call. He goes over his head in “20 Years to Midnight” and let’s JJ help, ignoring Doc’s protests because he knows Doc ONLY wants to do this alone out of ego and there isn’t time for that when the world is at stake. The other time is just plain priorites: Doc wants Brock to come back and guard him while the boys are in danger in “Victor. Echo. November.” and tries to fir ehim for.. not doing that so he can save the boys. And as we see Brock getting there in time is the ONLY thing that keeps Phantom Limb from killing them. Granted with the clone thing I do get on some level putting his own life above them.. but at the same time Triana was shaken up enough by the boys death ONCE and Kim dosen’t deserve that, nor do the boys deserve to die while Rusty is stable and can call for more help via his watch and as shown by the stinger DID make it. Brock’s positon as the only real adult on the compound is solidified here. He’s a good parent to the boys, his deep connection with hank fully formed here while still willing to endulge dean from time to time.

We also get insight into why he is the way he is: we meet his mentor and one of the shows funnest characters Col Hunter Gathers, aka Hutner S Thompson if he were also nick fury, who honed Brock into a weapon and gave him his slightly sexist “no women’ code and his far more understandable “no children “ code. We see why he is the way he is and see he has rules and standards.

His best episode and biggest character development comes in ‘Viva Los Muertos!”. In it Doc creates a venturestien out of dead henchman.. and Venturestiens fear of brock because Brock killed him leads to guilt. Brock not only remembers the guy but relaizes he didn’t HAVE to. It’s one thing to kill a guy threatning the family: they attack the ventures, they know the risks. But grabbing a fleeing guy just to kill him.. that really eats at Brock. is he really that much of a monster?

So he goes to Dr. O whose having a party where their all taking a spirtual journey via hallucongens and in doing so Brock almost realizes we’re all one.. before a vision of hunter tells him their not, Brock is a weapon an da gun dosen’t feel bad it just kills. Brock goes into a blood frenzy.. but only kills two guys who were threatning the boys. But it’s what happens AFTER the frenzy that’s the most poignant. Brock makes amends with his victim. He could’ve just followed hunter and ignored his guilt and kept killing just to kill or followed the hallunation dolphin and became aa man of peace.. but instead he becomes who he is. He kills.. but to protect his kids and make a better world. He dosen’t kill someone who isn’t trying to fight him back. Sure he still has some levels to go in maturity, but it’s a marked change from the hair trigger killing machine he was last season: he now sees that killing isn’t waht he is, but a tool to be used when necessary.

That said.. Brock sucks a LOT of this season. We’ll count those up later, but it’s all around one “trait” of his...: Brock sampson in season 2.. is DEEPLY transphobic.

But that dosne’t REMOTELY make it okay and the creators really should’ve known better than to make brock this much of a creep. But yeah he thinks Dr. Girlfriend is trans.. and as such calls her a man, is derogtory to her partners and says really henious shit about her. To the Monarch’s credit he just brushes it off as Brock being jealous or being a dick, as he should, and like any decent human being dosen’t care if she is trans and dosen’t ask because that’s not something you ask a person nor an answer that matters. But Brock’s treatment of the very idea a woman is trans and treating her like some sort of frankenstines monster because of it is just gross and while it’s played clearly as Brock being an ass, Phantom limb shocks him for it.. the framing isn’t great as the show goes out of i’ts way to say that “yeah she’s NOT though”. Which is stupid. It dosen’t matter if she is or isn’t, a trans woman isn’t a punchline.

The show and Brock’s transphobia dosen’t end there though as Brock’s reaction to Hunter having a sex change... is played off as a joke, with “oh get it they became a woman to avoid being killed ain’t that wacky” which for starters

But yeah.. the show’s treatment of trans people isn’t great. While this was 2004 and next season does away with the dr. girlfriend joke entirely, firmly confirming she isn’t trans to put an end to it and having a great bit in season 4 mocking hanks’.. warped understanding of how trans and gay people work. (Which works since hank is inncoent and his only source of info on this would be either a blatnat transphobe or a moron whose also likely transphobic)

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Only vid I could find with it but it’s at the top so it works out. Point is they got better.. but I still wisht hey’d included an actual trans character at some point, as well as you know.. not done any of this crap in the first place but still. Hutner KINDA is but it’s hard to tell their gender identity. He may just be a man who wants boobs, which is fine, good for him. We truly dont’ know because they didn’t care to tell you. I love the show wholeheartdly, but I won’t ignore when it fucks up and ti’s treatment of trans people is i’ts greatest fuckup and while I doubt the movie will fix this.... I have a small hope it just might in the final hour. A small one but sometimes the biggest wonders are the tiniest.

As i’ve been building to the boys get the biggest changes this season and for the better. While their still very much a two pack of dofuses who primarily hang out in the same plots at this point in the show, they now play off each other diffrently.

As Jackson put it he wanted the two to be a touch more relalistic in how they interacted with each other; as such instead of hank being a big brother bully he more playfully ribs his brother while Dean isn’t afraid to call out his brother’s stupidity or lunacy once in a while. More importantly though there’s a real sense of love and camradery from the two. Sharing a brain has been replaced with the two loving and supporting one another and boosting each other up: Hank tries to stop dean from being forced married to Baron Underbehit and Dean is concerned when hank gets a massive crush on Mol and takes down his posters. There’s a warm, lived in feeling to their interactoins now, as two people who know each other best and are there for each other the most. Doc may be their on paper dad and brock may be their real dad but in terms of accepting and supporting one another the two are unmatched.. and it’s the last time things will be this perfect for them as next season Hank slowly drifts from his brother thanks to getting a new friend and from then on the pull apart will go stronger and stronger till, as I said they have entirely seperate plots. It’s honestly sad knowing where their relationship ends for now and seeing them so happy and working together so greatly and knowing Dean will pine for these treasured days of youth only a few years and 5 seasons from now.

We also get one of the shows most important reveals thanks to their deaths: Their clones. They SHOULD be 19 by now but are instead both 16 at the start of the season due to dying constantly, with a handy death montage. In a move that I STILL swear inspiried the krakoa era of x-men doc keeps back up “slugs” of them , grown chronolgically to give it a realistic limittation (he only has so many and once their used up that’s it and making new ones would mean starting over, and witht heir memories backed up on an old computer bank, which itself is a nice hint that like most things in the compound, Doc didn’t make this. It also explains why they don’t remember their deaths or certain things: the backups only go back so far much like when a mutant is restored from deaths nowadays so Doc’s never had to tell them. And while horrific.. it also shows deep down.. Doc does care. Sure he’s a shitty enough parent his boys die constantly, but his life would be easier if they died. No one would’ve known early on he COULD do this, Brock only found out through working with them. Pre-Brock no one else likely would’ve cared. He’d have more money, more resources and more freedom... yet despite how it seems like a no brainer he’d just let them stay dead.. he dosen’t. He brings them back and keeps them in the dark both out of love. He knows they can’t handle the truth, and as we see at this point in their characters learning puts them in a “see your own clone coma” and only doc lying that the clones were a hidden birthday present saves them. He brings them back because no matter how stupid or disapointing he finds them.. their his sons, he loves them and he’s going to bring them back no matter how many times it takes because he won’t loose them due to fate or his own stupidity. For all I give Doc shit this season, and I should he sucks, I can say this reveal puts him in a diffrent light. It dosen’t excuse his abuse, he’s still an ass.. but it shows some part of him does care, the same part that mentors dean this season. Their his boys, no matter how many times he has to rescue them from death’s icy grip.

As for their evolution as individuals, it’s best to start with the Bat. Hank has changed the most, going from a 50s idea of what a jock is to a boistrous froot loop who gladly charges into danger despite having no idea what he’s doing. The seeds were there last season, but they sprout here, and as a result hank gets up to shenanigans or says something quotable almost every episode.

And of course it’s impossible to talk about Hank’s growth as a character or his shenanigans without the apex of both, The Bat. Aka Hank putting on his 60′s made batman costume, putting on a gravely voice and thinking that makes him batman. It’s one of the funniest bits the shows ever done, from the fact Hank dresses as batman EVERY year ruining his dad’s group costume, to hank’s woes about getting his tounge caught in his mask slit but not being able to stop himself.

To his only acomplishment being tripping over himself. And this batman obession becomes one of the most integral parts of hanks character: costume or no he geninely thinks his destiny is to BECOME some version of batman.. and as shown on his college essay later he has multiple options in mind. It codifies Hank as a lunatic who thinks he’s the cool teen hero learning the ropes till he becomes brock in a batman costume some day instead of a lovable dipstick who has the survival instinct of the tick without the invulnerability. To him his world is batman and not a messed up version of the same good guy on bad guy violence and it’s awesome because of that and thus he must be batman.

Another key development is Hank discovers girls. Oh sure he had crushes before, but seeing Moltov not only gives him his first one on a real person but codifies that he likes athetlic , kick ass women. It goes poorly sure, but it shows hank likes girls not just for being pretty but for being talented. He’s utterly thrilled when his blind date Kim comes off as a supervillian due to her outfit. Granted said date shows he also has no game if hilaroius so, from wanting dean to tell them he jumped trash cans to calling himself hankanator, even in love he has suicidal overconfidence, though he gets that from his old man so it’s not too suprising. Hank has fully emerged as the delightful ball of crazy I love and relate to and i’m here fo rit.

Dean meanwhile has grown into the ball of light anxietys and unabashed geekery I also relate to. He’s now firmly the sentivie one, having no stigma the time had abotu wearing a dress for a play, putting on said play to woo his crush, and trying to give her a corsage.. that brock tosses because he sucks. He may have an antiquitated idea of how to woo girls but he has a chivlarous charm, being less incel “m’lady” and more geninely doing things like pulling out chairs or corsages because he’s geninely sweet and also was raised in a timewarp of a house/compound so he’s a few decades behind. He’s the most likekly to panic but also the most entusastic about mysteries, the area hank needs to drag him to earth on, and the most well read. He’s a good kid who the world’s about to take over i’ts knee and break... starting with his hallucination, which tells us he’s NOT happyw ith the boy adventuer lifestyle and keeps himself in deep denial over it, which like hanks drive to be batman, will become his own driving force: to be normal and escape the life his dad set out for him.. ironically just like his dad.

We also have his crush on Triana which is both adorable.. and doomed. This season underlines their very diffrent people: Triana, while a future witch, is normal, staying out, doing light drugs like beer or pot, she’s a normal kid whose dad just happens to dress like dracula and has dr. strange’s job. Dean isn’t: he was born in a timewarp, has overly romantic notions and is painfully awkward, to the point a sex talk horrifies the shit out of him. Then again Doc gave said sex talk and just seeing the visuals of that horirfied me, I can’t imagine what horrors that poor boys ears were witness too. The two were never going to work and Triana hasn’t flat out rejected him because it’s awkward: dean’s her friend. She likely sees nothing romantic there but she does clearly like the guy and sympathize with him. He won’t go incel on her.... that she’s aware of... but being around him would be extra awkward, so she’s saving shooting him down for when it’s absolutely necessary. She goes out with him because it’d help her dad with rent, though I think part of her does see a LITTLE intrest in him, just not enough to actually return his affections.

Speaking of Doctor O he’s a main character this season, appearing in more episodes than not and having not only two spotlight episodes, being one of the main focuses of escape from the house of mummies and I know why the caged bird kills, as well as THE main focus of fallen arches and having a prominent subplot in the finale two parter. We get more shading.. and see that while more succesfful and likeable than doc he still has his own failures: he constnatly mindwipes his daughter to not let her know her closet is the gate way to the necropolis instead of let her process it naturally like a decent human being, and more tellingly.. he has no friends currenlty at the start of the season. Doc hates the guy and barely tolerates him despite O being nothing but kind, and his only friends outside of him he hasn’t seen in some time. This changes with the founding of the order of the triad, bringing back his two closest friends in jefferson twilightt and the alchemist, both friends who are glad to hang out with him and battle a supervillian within reason. While Al won’t mince words with Orpheus, he’ll still be there for the guy while Jefferson.. just likes both and is a good friend. It gives the poor guy a bone after so much abuse from doc: people who may take the piss out of him but will be there when he needs them. And he also gets an arch that’s a combination of dormmamu, pyro and deadman so that’s neat.

We also get a lot of JJ this season, and some focus next season. So while he won’t be important for long let’s talk about him: JJ is doc’s shadow: he’s doc without the trauma.. but with his own obstacles as he’s phsycially disabled, having a short stature thanks to being not fully baked and a prostethic robot arm. Yet despite this.. he takes it in stride. He’s confident in who he is, proud of his disalblity and succesffully builds what little of his dad’s former empire he’s given into his own. He shows that while Rusty has trauma and stuff holding him back.. Rusty himself is holding him back just as much. Doc’s own greed, selfishness and bitterness keep him from being happy. JJ has EVERY reason to be bitter: not getting to know his dad, having a brother who actively hates him, being stuck in a warped body.. but he chooses instead to be the best he can be. It’s why rusty hate shim: JJ is rusty without the baggage of his trauamtic past or the self hatred and is thus the succesor the world wante dhim to be to jonas. And he’d gladly help rusty, share in the glory.. but Rusty is so bitter he refuses it.

THis contrast is best shown in Sally impossible. Doc turned her down because he’s a dickhead and didn’t want to be “tied down”. She was a tad clingy sure, but he could’ve at least gotten her otu of a bad situatoin. JJ however sees sally as what she is: a loving vibrant woman held back by an abusuive controlling husband who just needs to get out. The two connect as well as he and Rusty did, the playing field is even: she was jut as into rusty as she is into JJ.. but JJ actually values her, helps her escape Impossible, and by the end of the season the last we see them their happy with Sally, Ned and Rocket all seeing JJ off on a mission. JJ accpets people and things as they are and as such is happy while Rusty can’t accept his life or his boys and thus is miserable.

Finally we have one of the only times a season of the show had an overarching big bad: Phantom Limb. He’s a change of pace too as for the first time the threat’s to the monarch and not doc. Sure doc ends up in the crosshairs twice.. but the first time was entirely to teach the monarch a lesson and the second time Team Venture just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and were never the target. He’s the first villian in the show whose target is entirely one of the other bad guys.

And he works as the perfect evil...er mirrior of the monarch. He’s an ambitious ladder climber who gave up regular arching while the Monarch can’t even fathom the thought: to him arching is his life and killing dr venture is his dream. Limb is traditionally cool, Monarch is geeky cool, a huge dork sure but a badass who knows his stuff. And we also see them both loose shielia due to their own jackassery: Monarch called her a slut for god’s sakes and couldn’t put his arching on the back burner or act like an adult in trying to win her back, nad only did when he gave up the other great love of his life for her and made a commitment, proposing. Limb saw her as a sexy lamp to own and her input as unecessary. It’s why ultimately.. Shielia and Malcom belong together: he needs someone to keep him from spending his life savings on a cocoon and focus on something other than killing an aging asshole in a remote compound and she needs the excitment and passion he has.

Limb also proves to be just as petty and vengeful and stupid when pressed, deciding to try and overthrow the guild instead of.. just Dr. Girlfriend go, kidnapping her instead of you kknow again, giving the fuck up. And just as Monarch’s inablility to give up his obessions keeps him low on the totem poll and hurts him... LImb going so far ends the season with no dick, no arm, and the world after him. Good luck asshole see you for a cameo and then not for a season!

EPISODE BREAKDOWNS

Adding a new catagorey with Deanrific. While Dean dosen’t merit one every episode he’s in like hank from this point on.. the boy still has his moments and is still my boy so i’m honoring those.

14. Powerless in the Face of Death

Summary: Doc returns from a dead son sabatical to find a contract job from his brother to build a teleporter.. that naturally ends with doc jammed in a wall. Meanwhile Dr. O tries to revivie the boys and instead finds out a horrible truth while The Monarch attempts to escape prison and his former henchman attempt to deal with the scariest thing of all: A normal life. My Thoughts: Powerless is a decent season opener. The everybody’s free montage is great and while the lisecned music cost them quite a bit apparently it was worth every penny and is one of only two times the show got to use it and it made BOTH times instant classics. The main plot with Doc is ehhh for the first half as he ruins two mens lives and effs up a job from his brother while pushing the guy away. It’s nothing really funny or engaging character wise. Just doc being a dick which we’ve seen before. We’d get better interactions with JJ in a few episodes too so even the novelty of thi sbeing the first time dosen’t really spare them.

That said the stuff with Dr. Orpheous is fantastic: his conversatoin with Triana is heartbreaking as she’s utterly terrified something will go wrong and shows that even if she seems to keep them at arms length.. she cares abotu the boys. THey were her friends and the idea of her dad bringing them back as zombies shatters her. Thankfully he’s good at this... but it gives us a nice misdirect.

And thus brings us to the best moment of the episode: the clone reveal. It’s brilliant stuff, to the point that, I must reiterate a major reboot of an entire line of comics has used a similar idea, death being not an issue for characters, to great dramatic effect with all the questions and problems that brings.

Venture Bros will use the effects of it for dramatic stuff later and Orpheous is a bit horrified, but here it’s mostly for comedy. The deaths start out just horrifying but most of them are just so over the top and cartoonishly stupid, from the boys firing arrows at each other, to hank dropping off a roof, to dean having a cigarette causing further disaster to my faviorite “gas leak, the silent killer”. It’s good, gory fun black comedy. The twist also changes up the game: will the boys die again? will they ever find out? are there any clones left? what happens if they run out? and outside of the first, which never happened while there was clones, we do get answers to these and they are fantastic. It’s a great storytelling engine that fits the characters too as after a season with them audiences could buy they’d be that stupid and their lives that dangerous this would happen a lot.

The Monarch plot is okay. The ending part of it is good and the scene with him and his heist crew is great. The prison rape joke also suprisingly works as the rape isn’t the end of the joke, but just the fact that not only he can’t rape the monarch but brought him to his own cell. It’s so over the top it’s impossible to take seriously and that’s why it works. Most rape jokes VERY much do not. Still a fine enough plot to get us to the next phase of things.

Overall this kicks off a trend with the show: The season openers are okay, but as Jackson and Doc admit themselves the season really dosen’t get going till the next episode once all the table setting is done. Episode 1 is usually picking up all the pieces from the last season. As such while they aren’t bad, this episode really isn’t, they often aren’t as fun as the episode right after, as by then the pieces are mostly in place and they can just play with them. The first episode is okay, the second episode is an all time great. They manage to shake it by the last two seasons due to the new setting being really fun to set up in season 6 and season 7 having one of the series crowning achivments in the Morphic Trilogy to start it off. But before that these episodes really aren’t my faviorites but aren’t bad either, usually still being good.. but just on the way to something truly great.

Best Moment: Three words: Clone death montage Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: Four in a row bringing us up to 31. Kicking his brother out, firing hector, firing swifty despite the former being a friend and the latter being brain damaged, and being a dick to orpheous, not getting the guy’s seriously shell shocked after the reveal he just dropped on the poor guy. Questions For Later: The cloning banks are on a film feed.. almost like their way older than the 80s, when the boys were born and when Doc woudl’ve made them. Hmmm. First Appearance: Mr. Monday, Tiny Eagle, White Noise, and King Gorilla

15. Hate Floats

Summary: It’s the boys birthday.. again! So Doc takes Dean for his first “Speedsuit” while Brock gets Hank. But soon things go from birthday fun to true danger as a returned monarch happens by to try and win back his ex and a combination of new minions, escalators and brock sampson quickly results in Doc stuck aboard the cocoon forced to team up with the monarch to surivvie his new minons, Phantom LImb and Brock reluctantly teaming up and Dr. Girlfriend taking charge of the boys. My Thoughts: Proving my point, hate floats is an all time classic. While it still moves some pieces slightly, reawakening the boys after they were absent last ep because they were still baking and bringing 21 and 24 back to the cocoon, both of those things happen quick and the real meat of the episode is a chaotic melee at the mall and a bunch of stellar jokes. Had the season not ended on as high a note as it did, this one would’ve been a shoe in for the super good award. That said this one’s still a contender for my remade best of list coming at the end of this retrospective, as I feel the other was made on memories and what not while this will be made on me having freshly rewatched every single episode over the span of a few months, and thus be be intresting to compare. Anyways this episode itself is just.. packed with great moments: the Monarch’s superman monologue, the opening which just fully solidfies Gary as one of my favorites, Dean’s dreadful outing to get a speed suit as well as Doc’s obession with “speed suits” in general, hank throwing the football, the entire bit with Phantom LImb and Brock.. I could go on just citing how fucking hilarous this episode is. There’s not much depth to it beyond that, but sometimes all you need is to just throw these idiots in a room and let them play off each other. Which really is this show in a nutshell, god bless it. Best Moment: As you can guess a hard choice, but in the end like last time it goes to the most iconic one: 21′s getting ready while singing mars bringer of war. It’s one of the moments that define this show, that’s easy to show to a friend and go “that’s what this show is, a bunch of dorks playing dress up.. who also happen to actually be doing the thing their dressing up as”. I am sad we never see lady again.. it makes sense but she’s such a good girl. I wish they’d taken her with them. You just know the monarch would complain then gladly dress up the dog in an outfit and call her henchman good girl. Someone.. please draw that. Anyone reading this? I”ll give you a free review. Promise.

Sucky Sampson: 9. Surprisingly just brock. While Doc pressuring dean into following in his footsteps will be an issue later at this point he has no real reason to guess Dean isn’t jumping at the bit too. But yeah as I mentioned brock has a transphobic streak and that comes out here. Phantom Limb rightfully shocks his ass for it. This Didn't Age Well: Again having one of your main characters and voice of reason.. be a transphobic dickhead. The gangbangers are mildly questionable but are so cartoony it’s hard to find them actually racist, especially sicne they aren’t all one race. Hanktastic: Hank , in full bloom, gets a few choices and him throwing a nerf football at the guy nearly won.. but him gunning Brock’s car while shouting “i’m a driver!” over and over... that’s just so precious. Dean and Shielia getting annoyed at it after he’s clearly said it about 40 times also rules. Deanarific: New-ish addition here, as I did go back and add it for season 1, but for the first true addition we have the one that inspried this category in the first place, Dean’s reaction to his speedsuit “I look like Santa’s Janitor”. It’s stuff like this why my secondary boy had to get his own section. Hank may DEMAND one but dean still requires one.

16. Asassinanny 911

Summary: Brock needs to leave again, this time to hunt down his old mentors, so while Brock’s playing james bond and having flashbacks, Mol steps in to try and train our heroes so she can have brock to herself, causing hank to develop a crush on her and then try to kill his dad while on boot toxins. As you do. My Thoughts: This is one of three episodes I went into the season dreading. Though given last season had the episodes I dreaded ending up decent with two exceptions, I was a bit more optimistic. And while 2/3 were better than I remembered they still arne’t really great and this one is drug down by some questionable ideas.

Let’s get those out of the way first: first off Brock hits it off with a woman on the island Hunter is hiding on.. who only speaks in some jarbbled click language they made up.

Like I get the show sometimes having a person of color played by Doc or Jackson. While they shodulv’e known better this is a practice that lasted way longer than it should’ve in general in animation and they DID honestly try to have people of color voice people of color when they could afford it. But the show had a decent but still shoestring budget. But this? This is just bad. Even for the TIME having an ingendous person speak some garbled nonsense for parody purposes is bad. They shoudl feel bad. I love these guys but as should be obvious I will call them out when they screwed up bad even for the time.

Speaking of which Hunter’s sex change. The sex change itself.. is a grey area as it’s hard to tell what Hutner identitifes as. He’s PROBABLY nonbinary, but I can’t be sure. But the way ti’s treated isn’t and they shoudl’ve known better. Using it for a cheap chinatown refrence is stupid, and Brock’s rage is uncomfortable as ever. As is him checking for a vagina. Just..

God I missed you bud. Okay so the rest of the ep isn’t bad. The parts with Mol.. actually made me like her. It gave her an actual motive, wanting brock to herself despite being the worst thing for him, and her training the ventures was mostly entertaining. It’s the first steps to hank being a badass. I also like Hank’s crush on her. As Jackson put it they wanted to establish he had his own tastes in women. Dean literally fell for the girl next door, so naturally hank prefers althetic women, first literal athletes and then a murder woman. The kill dad fantasy is also hilariously fucked up and on the whole the crush is adorable... and even the near patricide is understandable. It’s rusty after all. The brock flashbacks are also great and help show us to a point why he’s this way. Overall an episode that would be great.. had they not fucked it up with transphobia and racisim. And I can’t say that often which is why it sticks out so bad. THere’s a lot of unetiotnal transphobia baked into the series, but this stuff just.. bleh. Bleh bleh bleh. Best Moment: Hank trying to explain his new feelings to dean “It’s hard being the older brother” “By like four minutes!” “Well maybe in four minutes you’ll understand..” Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: To quote Dante Hicks: 37! And not in a row but 6 is still a record. Let’s see here... hitting on Mol despite both her and brock having a CLEARLY complicated relationship and her being his employee temporarily, him questioning mol’s competence based on her gender, him saying “rusty calls dibs”, him being mad Orpheous is intrested in her and trying to shoo him away even if Byron honestly has a way better shot because he’s not a jackass, him calling mol one of brock’s “hussies” and him grounding hank even though hank attacked him on boot tranquilizers and Mol likely TOLD HIM this. I mean yes hank tried to kill him, I get that but again it’s rusty.

Sucky Sampson: 11. More transphobia! And yes that’s worth double you suck points. Hanktastic:The aformentioned best moment. Just Hank’s whole vibe there. It’s wonderful. Deanarific: Questions For Later: How did Brock and Mol first meet? Why is Gathers on the Run? Both will be answered eventually, though the former had an answer they just took several seasons to finally fit it in. This Didn’t Age Well:..... Duh. Also the use of a certain type of burial ground though THAT one’s more just them being clueless white idiots. Not entirely okay but it happens. First Appearance: Hunter Gathers, Kim

17. Escape to the House of Mummies Part II

Summary: The second part of a thrilling Egyptian adventure! While Brock and the boys get lost in time, Doc has a dick measuring contest with Orpheus after Dr. O gets tired of Doc being a huge asshole to him about his job. Naturally it’s over shrinking. My Thoughts: Back to the classics and this one just has a fun premise: one half is what Doc and Jackson describe as the kind of thing that happens when we aren’t watching. The adventures we only get see mentioned that are more standard adventure show fair instead of the deconstructive ones we see more often. Though fitting the show we only see bits and pieces of it with no coherent story as our heroes travel through time, teaming up with, Freud, Calligula, and...

Who.. naturally is troubled thanks to Brock. Along the way Hank makes a new friend in Mummy Mum Muggy, dean looses his torso and Brock gets poe in a headlock and has to split him open like a tauntaun. It was a clear opportunity for the guys to just go absolutely fucking nuts for once with no rhyme or reason and they enjoyed it. I wish we’d gotten another one like this.. not an annual thing but like.. one more.

The subplot is also great as it shades in both Rusty and Byron’s characters. Byron FINALLY stands up to the guy, fed up Rusty sees him nothing more as a party magician and gets into a contest with him over. This results in two great plots as both try to master shrinking.

On Rusty’s end he thinks he has it in the bag with his gun.. but Orpheous isn’t nearly as stupid as Rusty thinks, and thus knows he not only had a method but he sold it to Pete and Billy back in tag sale. Granted we saw him not sell it to them, but given this is doc they likely just offered him a bit more and he caved. So he tries outright stealing it because he’s rusty and he always had to try the most self destructive and half assed method first instead of just.. calling his only friends who’d be glad to help. For a price but even then i’m pretty sure they only charged because he broke in. Great line from Billy though “You’ve come to steal our brilliant secrets. You’ve been foiled, we have none”. This segment is hit and miss as the two bullying billy just isn’t funny, especially since their no less pathetic and frankly masturbating in weird ways and being a virigin aren’t nearly as much of a punchline as they used to be. Billy just isn’t enough of a dick to make this funny. There are some funny things here or there though so there’s that. But the real meat is the end of it when Billy shows he looks up to Rusty.. and tha tmaybe the guy isn’t as lost as he seems. He wasn’t just a boy adventuerer, he was the best.

Byron’s part is great though as we first see while mostly a good dad.. he makes mistakes. in this case casually mindwipping triana instead of letting her know abotu her closet being the doorway to the necropolis. or moving it into his own damn room. He’s still nowhere near as bad as Rusty but it’s not great and the real reason to this we find out later makes him look even worse.

That said he gets compupance in the form of the master. Oh boy the Master. The Master is sadly underused after a while since Dr. O is but when he shows up he’s fantastic, voiced by VA legend John Benjamin, who at the time had just gotten off utter classic Home Movies. Seriously check it out, it’s on HBO Max, ti is fantastic. Anyways he’s unsuprisingly good as the mysterious cosmic entity who takes up various forms. While his belittling orpheous was supposed to just humble his student, this being both a talent of johns and so hilarious it became a part of the master, as did shapeshifting to teach lessons.. while also getting off in this case licking his own balls. “I can taste my own genitals. It’s.. a condrum”. He has so many great moments while also filling us in O’s wife left because he didn’t make time fo rher and triana dosne’t respect him... which isn’t true. While she clearly lies she does love her dad, but hey not the point he was trying to make.

As a result both men are humbled and come to an understanding... and the mummies thing is’nt resolved but it’s better that way.

Best Moment: A LOT of contenders for this one. This might be the hardest choice of the series thus far... but Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 41. He mocks billy’s virginity, mocks the guy CHOKING, mocks his masturbation habits when it was an honest mistake, mocks orpheous an dforgets his kids. You can kinda see at this point, where he’s almost to his previous score of 25 in the span of 4 episodes, and only one of which he got poitns for, why he was insufferable this season. Hanktastic: Naming his mummy Mummy Mum Muggy. It’s just such a throughly stupid throughly hank name. And accidently knocking the poor guys top head off to Brock’s classic reaction of “this is getting stupid!” Deanarific: Dean’s “I wouldn’t worry about it” ... and the pan over to him being held by mummy mum muggy. Classic. Questions For Later: Why O keeps mindwiping his daughter, Dr. O’s divorce becomes important later too. Vitlaly. See you in March for that one.... but not really there’s still several episodes to go. First Appearance:The Master

18. 20 Years To Midnight

Summary: An old tape from Jonas sends our heroes on a globetrotting quest to assemble one of the old bastards inventions before midnight with JJ’s help, but obstacles stand in their way: a comaed col gentleman, a drugged out johnny quest, an egotistical rematch with professor impossible, and a grand galactic high inquistor blaring IGNORE ME!. My Thoughts: One of my all time favorites and it did not disappoint the fourth time around. While the plotting in the last act slips slightly, this is a fun romp with TONS of call backs, great new introductions in Johnny and the GGHI (who I wish hadn’t died this episode. ) There’s tons of funny bits, great character stuff and one hell of a climax involving turning a stretchy man into a windwock and an alien shooting the inquistior in the face before being kind of a dick. All in all fantastic stuff. It also finally gives poor sally a happy ending. I talked a lot about jj and her earlier so I don’t have much else to say so IGNORE ME! The returns of the pirate captain and professor impossible were also great as was col gentlemans list of toys he wishes he’d had when hew as a lad. For me it’s th ejapanese muscle tower dragon ball playset. I bet that things like.. hundreds of dollars.

Best Moment: Kinda a cheat but EVERY moment with the Grand Galactic Inquisitor though if I HAVE ot pick one it’d be “You can read my mind!?” “IGNORE ME!” Beat “Yes I can”. Just the idea of this watcher type character who wants everyone to ignore him and shouts in this creaky old voice was brilliant and I wish another one would show up sometime. Or a whole crowd. That’d be great. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 44. 1 for trying to get around JJ instead of swallowing his pride when the worlds at stake and a THREE POINTER for how he treats Sally. Good fucking christ. Even for him this is evil. Maniuplatuing her with NO intention of actually helping her and planning to leave AGAIN. The last one is muted by her meeting JJ sure but he would’ve left even if she hadn’t and we know it. Him using this poor, abused woman who desperatley needs to escape her husband is vile. Even with the time limit he has better options and it’s for a plan that was doomed to fail. His callign the herculoids hippies for not fighting in nam dosen’t count because he was 10 and his dad sucks. Deanarific: Dean’s “You wear them well” when hank admits he’s tired of kerchefs. What a supportive young lad. Questions For Later: We get the setup for JJ and Sally’s romance. First Appearance: Rocket Impossible

19. Victor. Echo. November

Summary: It’s Double Date Night Baby! Dean finally gets a date with Triana... but has to share it with Hank and Triana’s friend kim. Meanwhile at the same restraunt, Phantom Limb and Shiliea have a double date/guild contract signing with the monarch that goes terribly thanks to the Monarch’s date running away sobbing, Shiliea walking away pissed thanks to Limb calling a hit on the ventures just to get one over on the monarch. Now Doc struggles to surivvie as Brock struggles to get to the boys before Limb. Also 21 and 24 are there and this all started because Doc wanted to do a rusty venture to Dolly Parton. Go fig.

My Thoughts: Two all out hits in a row showing just how great this season was when it got going. But it’s one that just works on premise: our heroes going on their first date and getting in danger thanks to the villians having a bad double date.

This also brings us to Kim, Triana’s detached weird besty who gets courted for supervilliany then vanishes because Jackson and Doc had no real plans for her.. and fans thought they did and in a show with almost no female characters at this point, wanted another one. Granted Doc thinks for some reason it’s just because in his words he “drew her too hot” despite.. you know.. teenager.

I don’t think he realized how creepy that came off. Granted i’m also not 100% sure there aren’t some creepy guys in the audience who weren’t teenagers who wanted to bang a teenage character, but stilll. phrasing man.

But still I feel Kim was popular for more than that: she had a dry wit, was a newbie in supervilliany something we only see once later and with a character we all justifably hate. She also gave Triana a life and character outside of the boys. The issue was fans kept demanding her back and being stubborn contrarian assholes sometimes, I can relate, the guys lashed out by writing her off as going to florida and becoming borna gain just to say “there that’s where she went stop asking” instead of you know.. developing her. I get not watning ot develop a character JUST because of fan demand, you have to draw a line. But wasting a good character just because you can’t think of anything and dont wanna try..

So yeah wasting kim, even if she didn’t join the guild was bad. I feel it would’ve been intresting to have another outside angle on the boys. But everything else about this episode fucking rocks. From the introduction of the stanza, to Brock getting extra naked to feed on fear and the gags that result (”Nice ass sampson”) to Doc weirdly assuming best little whorehouse is in texas is a porno... though he did cheat himself it is a damn good musical.. especially this part.

The date unsuprisingly is my faviorite part. From Triana being barely phased by the boys weirdness to Kim’s introduction to it to of course the boys. Now fully formed their banter is great, with Hank requesting dean tell the girls how he jumped a bunch of on fire trash cans and Dean dryly responding with “I’m not doing any of that”, and Dean needling hank for calling himself hankanator. We also of course have Hank wanting to dress up as batman and setting his junk on fire because he’s hank. If his first date didn’t involve a crotch fire i’d of been suprised. I”m more surprised Dean made it through without literally shitting nickles.. because as Doc put it THAT’S the dumb kind of idea they go with instead of what you want. If it’s the dumbest idea they’ll put it. Yet we still haven’t had that episode yet. Let dean shit nickles cowards!

Finally we have Phantom Limb whose shown to be petty, ruthlesss and have no clear origin.. for a season. We’ll get to that next season but it did lead to easily my faviorite reactoin image

A great punchilne to a classic episode. P.S. Brass Balls on the monarchs for not only snarking to brock but telling the guy “nice ass sampson” he has no fear that one.

Best Moment: “nice ass sampson” was close, but let’s face it: Hank pelvic thrusting/swinging on a handryer before it sets his junk on fire.. that won. See i’m a man who needs his nut shots to actually have craft behind them. If you just hit a man in the strawberry basket, that does nothing.. but if you say call doing it that, make it as part of a game the other guy never signed up for but will gladly return in front of a dignitary with no shame while his gnome friend waxes on the elgance of ball tag, or set a young man’s crotch on fire due to a hand drier.. then you have my attention. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 45. Trying to fire Brock.. for going after the boys. I explained earlier why this was such a dick move, and it is. And what I didn’t think of when writing the first bit: going after limb FIXES THE PROBLEM. God damn rusty you suck. Sucky Sampson: Throwing the corsage dean brought for Triana out. You.. you do get this girl KNOWS dean right and would likely be mildly weirded out but flattered by it. Right? And that maybe giving your date a gift is you know just a nice thing normal people do. As is chair pulling as long as it’s meant to be kind and not some kind of power move. That said telling hank not to use the word score... that’s fair. 12. And as you can tell by the fact Brock is still this low despite his double score transphobia why maybe I have this: Doc sucking is just as inevitible as hank being great. Hanktastic: Hank’s batman thing sneaking up again was close as was the best winning crotch fire.. but I have to give it to him wanting Dean to tell peopl ehe wants to fonzie trashcans. That that’s his idea of how to impress women. God bless this boy. Deanarific: The Corsage. Such a good boy. Questions For Later: Billy and Phantom Limb’s origin story. Again.. next season/month. First Appearance: Kim. And yes i’m adding her just to spite them, two can play that game.

20. Love-Bheits

Summary: Hank is the Bat, This Episode Sucks Otherwise do I REALLY have to say more... I do?

Okay on way from a costume party the Ventures get kidnapped by Baron Underbeit who tries to marry Dean. Our heroes have to save Dean from child marriage while Hank is the bat. My Thoughts: This episode I dreaded and as you can tell it .. it did not do MUCH better on rewatch. It’s not the worst of the season and in saying that you can probably guess which one I DO think it is, and you’d be right, but it has it’s moments. Brock spinning two impaled henchman right round baby right round, him finding a lump during a testicular interigoation and of course the bat. Good gravy the bat. Giving hank not only an obessoin with batman but the insane thought he is some degree of batman is fucking amazing and one of the shows best choices in it’s storied history. Hank’s struggles with his mask, ruining of their group costumes, saying he’s the bat durin ga plane crash, minon wedgie and stumbling.. it alll works so fucking well. It elevates what would otherwise be a terrible episdoe to “eh watchable”

And it is bad... and it’s because as I tangented last time and will again, I do not like Baron Underbeit. he’s a flat character who does not fit the show and this ep is the guys realizing it, with Jackson TRYING and failing to make him work.. and having the guy thrown out of his country so he dosen’t have the resources to be relevant anymore, so they don’t HAVE to. He’s a level of over the top that would work fine in another cartoon but just dosen’t. He just has nothing to him in a cartoon where everyone feels lik ea real person.. even his cancer prone minon feels more real. He’s just an uninteresting 3rd rate dr. doom who dosen’t parody doom in any fun ways.

And of course there’s the gay panic aspect of this episode which unlike the transphobia the guys apologized for. Having Dean marry a man be the issue and not you know, statuotry with a creepy guy who will kill dean once he finds out he’s not a woman, the two sterotypically gay servants, A GAY MARRIAGE BAN SAVING OUR HEROES. Granted Underland probably overturned that but still why just.. why the fuck did you why.

This episode is just a boring slog when it’s not with the bat or the ocasoinal clever gag. It’s not as bad as I remembered but it’s not GOOD. Best Moment: I believe I said the Bat. All of it. Again know it’s minorly cheating. I also once named a channel after mishearing doc saying tinman, thinking he said tinman and the bat. He did not. Still kinda works but not really. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 46. Not wanting to help the rebllion escape in any way shape or form. I get you were just kinda sucked into this but fuck you. on the bright side Rusty managed to not match his previous score in the span of half a season so... there? Hanktastic: One more time for those in the back: The Bat. Questions For Later: Where did Underbeht go after this/ I could care less.. but sadly I know... see you in season 4 werner. No one asked for this. First Apperance: The Bat. Honestly I may change best moment to the bat award as it’s our first grand slam winner. or at least put his name in it. Give me a sec

21. Fallen Arches

Summary: Dr. O finally has his arch and reassmbles his old team for the interview process.. on the compound. Doc gets jealous of the attention and tries to compete with his walking eye, while Dean and Hank keep triana entertained, 21, 24 and Sheila all compete for the arching position with Dr. O and The Monarch.... sends a sex worker through a death maze and tatoos a minotaur on his back because he’s going through a lot. My Thoughts: This was a needed palette clensar, sandwitched between the two worst episodes of the season. And it’s yet another seasonal highlight because i’ve said classic too much. This is also our second Tagsale ep, another bout of a bunch of the cast gathering at the compound, in this case a hoard of mid-tier supervillians, a reforged superteam and a walking eye. You gotta have a walking eye. Add in a classic hank and dean messaround and you have pure gold even before you get to a subplot of 21 trying to turn double dare outfits and a name with no proper context how he’s using it and the monarch’s gloriously pasty ass and minotaur tattoo he painted on himself for a red dragon refrence. Because of course he did. Fun fact, I didn’t realize it was something he scribbled on like many fans, because Jackson and Doc forgot that The Monarch is the kind of crazy that he would get that tatoo just for a bit and people would assume that even if it wore off a bit in the shower. I wish they’d just ran with it and had him keep it. But this episode is just pure fire outside of one bit. So let’s get that out of the way: the treatment of sex workers is eh. They MEANT for this to be something terrible Monarch does to make him look worse, that’s fair, but it’s still another example of a hooker being treated as disposable.. even if this one went thorugh an acid lake and lived. So while I don’t fault jackson for this, it still kinda sucks. That said everything else?

We have Rusty giving a horrifying sex talk, Dean rocking a dress, that nerdy fish guy who gives us the great discussion abotu blacluas (I don’t know what the pc term for it is!). Really while all of team venture gets great stuff it’s justifably Dr. O himself who steals the show with two of the shows best additions: The Alchemist and Jefferson Twilight. Blade and.. some sort of monk based on an obscure movie refrence instead of an obscure marvel one. Well played. The two add a LOT to dr. o. While he was fine before, playing off as Doc’s friend and the only other sensible adult in the compound, as well as the only one who still enjoys this superhero supervillian stuff, Al adds a perfect foil: willing to cut his friend down and call this all stupid like doc.. but unlike doc he actually LIKES byron, is willing to play along when it suits him, and actually gives a shit about the world. He’s also casually and delightfully gay, getting one of the best lines summing that up “This is so gay.. and I say that as a man who literally sleeps with men”. As you can also tell Al is one of my faviorites and Dana Snyder does a fucking killer job. Jefferson is also a nice straight man to both, being a bit off in his thinking from time to time but being the only non-wizard of the trio, he’s a bit more grounded and hialrously and venturetasticaly specified.. despite the fact wielding swords works on anyone not just vampires and he should realize how badass that is. It’s why I love the comics version of hawkeye: he’s a guy with a bow and arrow, if some of them tricked going up against things 80 times above what his weight class should be and making it his weight class. The three just have fun banter, great chemistry and overall are awesome, elevating this episode from pretty good to all time great, attempted hooker murder or no.

Best Moment: A lot of contenders but the winner and champion is as always my boy (After triana disappears in a cloud of fire) Hank: Aw dude you accidently killed your girlfriend! Dean: She was my girlfriend? Hank: Probably.. until you killed her. Dean: Aw. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 48. Excluding hank from the sex talk, when he DEFINTELY needs it, and mocking dean for not knowing these things.. even though rusty culd’ve given it to him WAY earlier so i’ts on him especailly given how sheltered the boys are. Hanktastic: The exchange under best. Deanarific: Dean putting on whatever the fuck Lady Windermere’s Fair is for Triana. It’s adorably stupid as a way to woo her but the fact he has no shame about wearing a dress despite having a 60′s or 70′s mindset and not the mondern one that thankfully and rightfully dosen’t give a shit and rocks that thing says a lot about my boy. First Appearance: The Alchemist, Jefferson Twilight, Torid, Sgt. Hatred (Cameo), The Soverign (Head Mode)

22. Guess Who’s Coming To State Dinner? (Pissed in Gods Eye Winner)

Summary:

Fine fine fucking fine... the ventures go to the white house. Doc fucks up. Brock has a rival and gets sexually harassed, Manstrong is back thankfully for the last time. Lincoln is there. This episode fucking blows My Thoughts: I could leave it at this episode fucking blows.. but that’s not relaly enough. This is the worst episode in the series. Jackson tried to rework an idea Ben Edlund had> it didn’t work. This episode is a boring, plodding mess. The idea is good: the ventures visit the captial as guests after Bud Manstrong saves the gargantua one and Rusty’s attempt to sell one of his things and an old enemy of brock’s now working secret service complicate things while Lincoln’s ghost shows up and is the only tolerable thing in the episode. This episode is the lowest the series ever sank, being boring with only a few good bits and a horny clinton parody that was a half assed attempted at being bipartisan that ended up dated instead.. .though that’s something Jackson fully cops to as well as the episode not working. It’s just not good. And it implies Hank and Dean experimented which while probable is not something we EVER needed to hear. The stuff with Manstrong’s mom hitting on brock ALSO really sucks as he’s being sexually harassed for laughs when it’s really just creepy and has a creepy undercurrent of “get it it’s funny because brock DOSEN’T want to fuck her this time!” that just.. no. Manstrong also just sucks. While I agree with the guys there’s something to his boyscout nature and his actor tries... there’s just nothing funny to the character. He’s a sexually repressed moron. He dosen’t really fit into the show or the cast and thus never showed up again after this and even not liking him watch his mom berate him only makes it worse. it’s like kicking a puppy what the hell lady. Just a waste.

Best Moment: Hank’s solution to things, something so funny I had to pause the goddamn episode and laugh hard. When Lincoln realizes he can posses things resembling him and use those to get through the door, hanks solution? Hank: I’ve got it, we make a gun made of pennies! Lincoln: Exactly.. no wait that’s insane. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 49 We’re close to 50 but his mocking Lincoln fo rnot earning his wings is a dick move... and leads to lincoln revealing Rusty jerked it a LOT in the lincoln bedroom as a teen. Which.. I didn’t need to know what the fuck is wrong with you show. Masturbation shouldn’t be stigmatized but I still dont’ want to know about that. Hanktastic: Gun made of pennies. Questions For Later: What happened with gargantua’s remains suprisingly becomes important in season 7. After all the problem light hasn’t had it’s chekovs gun fired.. just yet.

23. I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills

Summary: Dr. Venture is haunted by an Oni, the boys get kidnapped by their alleged mom leading Brock to team up with HELPER to save them, and Dr. Killinger and his magic murder bag taking over the cocoon leads to 21 seeking outside help: Dr. Girlfriend. My Thoughts: This one is.. okay. It’s just a bit unfocused as it has 4 plots going on at once and while 3/4 converge well, only the Monarch one KINDA lands. The Monarch getting some compitent help works both because he’s been a mess.. and Because Dr. Killinger is just fucking amazing, from his demeanor to his magic murder bag to him turning out NOT to be staging a cou or anything sinister.. he just wants to help two lost lovers reunite, cracking through Monarch’s lairs of selfishness to get them to reunite. Granted reuniting doc and myra was an awful idea but hey, still better than the actual kissinger. Plus 21 gets some more case making that , as much as the idea of killing 24 was just jackson floating the dumbest idea and doc saying why not, necessary. 24 isn’t a bad character and they rock.. but Gary got to grow without him and always had it in him to carry things himself while 24, while great.. never really had much more to him than henchman and realist who sounds like ray ramno. He’s great but seeing where Gary goes without him.. getting rid of him was the righ call ine ned end.

The rest again is just kinda forgetable: i feel b ad for the boys with myra (and making it so hatred molested the boys was a decisoin they shoduln’t of done and still used him but that’s for later likely so i won’t rant about it just yet), Brock and Helper is fun and Doc and O is uncomfortbale givne doc accuses the guy of being a predatory homosexual, GENINELY insulting his friend and showing himself as a gay panicing asshole at the same time. Overall not bad, but forgetable despite introducing a lot of stuff. Best Moment: Dr. O happily surrounded by cats. It’s why I went outside mantis eye experiment for this one. I had to “They smell my cat! Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 52. His 50th anniversary issue is naturally a double as he accuses his friend of being gay which is bad for both making it like gays are predatory and for assuming his friend would be a predatory asshole regradless of orentatoin. He apologizes but just the fact he would. and the almost best moment winning “so I fucked her okay” thing with myra.. as well as lying about her being associated with them.. which makes it way easier for her to come back into the boys lives later. See you in April moira! Hanktastic: When moira says “your safe now boys” his response is suprisingly perfect “no we’re not”. Deanarific: Dean’s careful driving before the abudction Questions For Later: If moira is the boys mom or not. Answers in April! First Appearance: Moira Brandish and Dr. Henry Killinger

24. Viva Los Muertos!

Summary:

Doc pisses in gods eye again and he dosen’t blink this time, so Venturestein is born! While Doc tries to prepare his creation for the workfoce and then the army, Brock grapples with murder guilt for the first time and the boys grapple with a degraded mystery inc whose met them before.

My Thoughts:This episode is unique in two regards. The first is that it’s the only time i’ll probably be watching an ep with my good friend @jess-the-vampire who I watch a lot of stuff with and go to for help on shows she knows well. This is not one of those cases. She hasn’t watched venture bros outside of two episodes i’ve shown her and both were because their scooby doo adjacent. She liked this one for the record, wasn’t as hot on ghosts of the sargasso but didn’t hate it or anything. But I had to given we watch a LOT of scooby doo together. Anyways the main anomaly here is the writer: Ben Edlund, mentor to Doc and Chris who they’d tried to get to write a script , and both times he had to bail to go work on other things. This time he did’nt and the result is awesome. This never happened again and I don’t feel it’s out of selfishness or gatekeeping or such bullshit: Doc and Jackson `do praise the animators designers and other people on the show, and there have been a lot given many have to leave for steadier work or between seasons. They aren’t selfish bastards.. but Venture Bros is very much there work. It’s essentially a long running indie spoof comic that’s somehow aired on television. Same team, same spotty schedule, same charm.

The show is purely THEM and there’s no shame in that. Sometimes the creator writes every episode, and honestly the guys pioneered that idea in animation of having one guy write most if not all episodes. Well two guys but still point is I get why they do it and while it has it’s disadvantages, I can’t fault it. Ben was asked because he’s their own personal jesus just as much as these two wonderous weridos are mine in some ways. He’s someone they could trust to keep it in their tone, to get how their stupid brains work. He only hasn’t again because motherfucker busy. But their pickiness paid off as his episode is a dream. Both plots are great: Doc taking another piss in gods eye and making a frankenstine is just fantastic and venturestien is awesome and i’m glad he came back in season 5. See you in april too buddy! But as I outlined in brock’s section, it really has some great character stuff for brock.. and some fun stuff at orpheus party, mostly the head guy talking about how he fucked a dolphin aporpos of nothing. The real star though are the Grovy Gang. Mystery Inc but based on various serial killres with Ted, voiced by Chris of Course, being the standout. Jess noted just how he SOUNDS like fred in tone. The rest are fine but are seperated from how their gang counterparts actually behave. But Fred Bundy here just perfectly has the originals milquetoast nature.. while casually using the same tone he talks about dracula factories in to talk about putting a woman in a box or strangling a guy with a bike chain. He’s a great character and while his death was OH SO FUCKING SATISFYING, he shall be missed.

I also like the clever misdirect: the boys see the clones and you think “okay now they know”.. only for the series to swerve, with Doc just barely managing to find a way out of having to tell the truth.. one that will backfire horribly come next season but still.

Overall another shining moment for the series as it approached it’s final victory lap for the season. And given I havne’t given out super good yet and all but said it earllier, you know who wins.

Best Moment: Ted is great but he’s not exactly a moment, so I have to go with the whole dolphin conversation “Hot Dolphin!” Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 56. For his response to creating life being to try and sell him into slavery, a double for wanting brock to just.. go out and murder random people to fill his venturestien quota and one more for wanting to disconect some slugs to meet said demand. Hanktastic: Hank clearly having given venturestien a batman mask. While he naturally has multiples and we’ll see the mask again, it’s a sweet gesture.

Questions For Later: The fact there’s tapes Jonas made in the learning beds for third world labor, showing he not only created them but used them for other stuff.. and given the beds are used for the cloning progress, to help feed the banks it’s anothe rlarge hint rusty didn’t create cloning. Also the questoin of where venturestien went. Again see you in april buddy! First Appearance: Venturestein

25. Showdown at Cremation Creek Part 1 (Super Good Award Co-Winner)

Summary: The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend reunite, with the Monarch finally making the commitment she needs by proposing. Problem is one condition of that is to stop arching dr. venture.. just as the minons get a lucky break and caputre them so to save face the Monarch invites them to the wedding. As Hank makes a forever friend in 21 and Dean gets trapped in the engine room due to 24′s stupidity, Brock handles the guest list and Doc tries to hit on the bride after realizing she’s his almost hookup from last season. All the while the Phantom Limb seethes and prepares hsi vengance. Oh and the order of the triad go through some growing pains that involve bringing a Nien Nub to life because of course they do. My Thoughts: Others were consider but in the end the best.. was the last. The final two eps of the season collectively win the super good award as both parts are great on their own and I tend to in any project I do consider two parters as one big thing. As such this one easily won: it’s packed with comedy gold, great character moments nad ends one of the shows best seasons on a hell of a high. If it wasn’t for season 4 this would be my faviorite season ender of the bunch. But it’s pretty close.

Thankfully I don’t have to talk about both parts all at once since while I do consider them one thing for choosing a best episode, I’m giving both seperate entries for awards and stuff. To be fair to the other eps and because I can pack in more great shit from both episodes if each gets a turn.

Part one is packed with great moments, the proposal itself, Limb’s creepy intimdation most dangerous game shooting gallery, but it really gets going once the ventures get loose in the cocoon. As a result we get bunches of great moments we normally don’t get: one of the shows best duos, 21 and hank is forged as the two are on the same weird wavelength and all it takes is two seconds of hank posteruing how to make 21′s collectiables into action figures for the two to start playing together and for 21 to giv ehank an old costume, leading to his second alter ego: Russian Badguyovich. Also gets the poor guy plopped near his assaulter. God Hatred is a lot in this one and they rightfully switched from brendan small whose great but makes the guy extra creepy to jackson who does just the right amount.

21 being fed up with dean is fine, but Doc’s sleezy hitting on the bride is the main attaction. From his half assed attempts to pick her up in her room with her being just so done with him not getting it was for a job (though she did pitty him a little, that’ snot the same as attraction) though the real highlight is him quoting jesse’s girl.. and The Monarch’s annoyance when he notices. Throw in 21 and 24 signing, killinger officaiting and david bowie (kinda) giving the bride away and this would be great without a part 2... but Phantom Limb strikes and we’re hit with a cliffhanger.

The Triad stuff is also great as it shows Al has priorites. he’s fine with the costumed game but wants to do big sweeping things.. not daily fights with some idiot. It’s why he dosen’t take that seriously: he may be a jovial guy who throws out quips, but he wants to actually help people. But when the ventures ar eind anger he’s perfectly fine both due to the big scope nad the actual peril and rallies. Also them making fucking Nien Nub is the perfect final star wars refrence before they had to restrain themselves. From Al wantin got kill him with a shovel to the fact the guy just.. sticks around for two episodes till his plaincrash death. It’s s so fucking stupid I love it.

Best Moment: Hank figuring out how to play with 21′s stuff.. and 21 slowly going along with it was oh so close, as was one of my faviorite lines eve r”holy shit I thought we dreamnt that part!”.. but I gotta give it to doc reciting jesse’s girl. The delivery is perfect and the Monarch’s response is equally perfect. Doc’s trying to be suave but comes off as stupid as ever. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 58, double points for hitting on the bride on her wedding day. Sucky Sampson: Let’s say 15 since I lost count and this is HOPEFULLY his final case of being a transphobic dick and frankly it’s gotten tiring at this point.. and it was exausting to begin with. Hanktastic: Hank figuring out how to play action figures with 24′s stuff. Despite knowing the names the boy comes up with a scenario right away.. and 21 rightfully goes with it. Deanarific: Dean being facinated by the cocoon. So precious. I really feel bad knowing he’s in fo r a lot. First Appearance: Soverign Bowie (Since he’s treated as David BOwie but isn’t actually him it’s easier to split the diffrence), Iggy Pop, Klaus Nomi, Sgt. Hatred (Proper debut), Princess Tinyfeet, Truckules, Russian Badguyovich

26. Showdown at Cremation Creek Part 2 (Co Super Good Award Winner)

Summary: The Wedding of the Decade gets crashed and it’s up to Brock, the Henchman, and David Fucking Bowie to save her from her clingy ex. Meanwhile Dean goes through a fantasy story of his own imaginging/gas leak hallucination and the order of the triad tries to figure out how to work the X1. My Thoughts: As I said these two parts are both awesome, and while the first part is more casual comedy and setup this one is the rare all cyllnders action piece from the show. They rarely do this but the guys bring it for epic final battles and this one sets a series standard. While still fitting as we dont’ see bowie vs limb (sadly) but we see Brock leading the minons, Bowie punching out iggy pop, and Dean’s never ending gas leak, which shows he not only gets those around him, seeing Billy as a helpful mentor, pete as a cyncial ass and his dad as his biggest critic, while also showing he wishes triana were more aprochable, showing how they just may not work out. They do not. It’s pure greatness and I wish I had more to say but I don’t. I will say.. this episode got me into bowie as a teen. So I eternally thank the show for that. Especially for oh you pretty things. Such a great song give it a listen. Best Moment: Bowie again, with both showing up in iggy’s cigarettes as well as his one liner “Make way for the homo superior!” Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: Ends with an even 60, both for snarking the monarch on a fucking rescue mission and for chiding brock for missing dean.. while he was leading a fucking assault. And he was trying to save ALL their lives. Also sets a high score at 35 prickish moments. Will he beat it? probbaly not but he’ll certaintly. Hanktastic: “Why must you be the screen door on my submarine” , with a close second being “it’s like dracula vs yoda down there!” Deanarific:The entire fucking fantasy sequence. So amazing. Questions For Later: Monarch I’m... which is never properly answered, something the guys cop to and apologize for. Also the fate of phantom limb. While he’ll pop up for a cameo at the start of next season, we won’t find out till march. Final Thoughts:

This season, while not without i’ts incredible lows, was great and I can’t wait to dive into the next one... and I plan too sooner as I got behind binging this one and especially if I end up doing season 4 in one big ball, i’m going to NEED to get ahead. But this season solidfied why I loved the show so much and catching an episode or two of this go tme curious.. but it’d take watching the next season as it came out that got me hooked for life. So join me next time to revisit it as we flash back a lot, go to daycamp, and the ventures are changed forever.

If you got time before that please drop by my patreon. Patreon is a site that helps creators by letting you fine folks give us money for our work. And if you become one of my patrons for just a buck a month you get exclusive reviews, to pick one of the choices for my now monthly polls, and if you back me for 5 bucks a month or more, you get a guarnateed half hour review amonth. So if you want me to take a deeper dive into any of these episodes or any show you enjoy, please don’t hesitate to sign up or to simply comission it directly via my ask box. And evne one dollar still gets you one free review , and that review also comes with any tier so for five dollars up front you get two reviews, so sign up TODAY WITH THE LINK BELLOW

And until next time, Go Team Venture!

#the venture bros #hank venture #dean venture #rusty venture #the monarch #brock sampson #dr girlfriend #henchman 21 #phantom limb #dr byron orpheus #triana orpheus #the alchemist #ba da!#adult swim #cartoon network #adult animation

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harlequinmoss · 4 years ago

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How would you rewrite season 3 so it would be more coherent? I'm not talking about a full on rewrite of the entire episodes, I just mean how to make the plot lines and development flow better or changing them to be satisfying for all the characters.

Okay this is a really good question. I was going to say to make it more centered on FOWL but going back and reading the episode titles, it already kinda is. Like there's not that many episodes that don't tie into the finale in some way. I do have tweaks here and there that would help with plot and character development throughout the season. This ended up being a lot longer than I thought so here's a page break lol

Going in a linear format, Steelbeak should have made himself smart in Double-O-Duck instead of making the ray to make everyone else dumb. He'd be a more competent villain and more in line with his character in the original DWD. Maybe he could have even played a roll in LGD. It also would have avoided both him and Launchpad being mostly comic relief characters. I think there's too many jokes at Launchpad's expense about him being dumb. If he went back to his "normal" level of intelligence at the end, he could have told the family about FOWL without jeprodizing the search for the rest of the season. All they'll know is that FOWL is trying to take down the family and where the secret headquarters is. There's still the search for the leader and why FOWL is doing what they're doing. This makes it so that Huey has more to do and accomplish in what is supposed to be his season.

Next, The Rumble For Ragnorok. I'm just going off of memory here. I don't think that this episode did very much in the way of developing characters. Or at all. It was a forgettable filler episode where Dewey learned a lesson about humility or something and then it didn't come into play ever again. This episode could have been removed entirely to make room for an episode after LGD to give the Mallard-McQuack family more screen time and development. A general plot of this episode could be: Huey is helping Fenton and the other adults search the other realities for Gosalyn's missing grandpa. They end up finding him but he's either dead/a totally different person with different memories that doesn't remember Gosalyn at all. This event causes Gosalyn to give up the search and accept that her family is gone. Dewey has an emotional moment with her aside where he comforts her and relates the situation back to his mom and talks about found family while looking back at Launchpad and Drake. (Not really integrating this into any of my other points but if Della died on the moon in season 2 and the kids knew about this, it would make the interaction more impactful) At the end of the episode, its shown that Gosalyn has her own room, either in the lair or in a house similar to the original DWD, and Drake tucks her in while singing her lullaby.

The Phantom and the Sorceress. Oh God, what a mess. There's way too much wrong with this episode. Soup-Du-Silence had a good idea on how to fix it from Lena's perspective, which you can read about here. As for Gladstone, he could have still lost his powers and come to the mansion for help. But instead of him asking literal children, its Della and Donald (and maybe Fethry is there too) and then its a cousins adventure! Donald revels in Gladstone being unlucky but still wants to help. Gladstone doesn't seem so pathetic and played for comic relief. They track down the Blot together after Lena and her family fight him out of the Saberwing house, or they're about to find him when the Blot's gauntlet breaks and Gladstone magically gets his luck back for seemingly no reason, much to Donald's dismay. It might have to be two different episodes because cutting back and forth between the two plot lines would detract time from each and make the episode harder to follow. Idk but there's so many things they could have done that would have made the episode actually good and coherent

Let's Get Dangerous. It was good but it felt rushed. It needed to be longer. The timeline was hard to follow. Instead of the cheap shot at the end were Heron picks Bradford up in a FOWL helicopter, have the triplets being suspicious of him and figuring it out for themselves. Maybe they're all wary for different reasons and talking about it in a group huddle and Huey connects the dots in a dramatic reveal. They confront Bradford who does an evil villain slow clap congratulating them on figuring it out, but before anything else can happen, he's able to escape.

How Santa Stole Christmas. I don't think we needed this backstory. Instead, give us the opportunity to see bonding between characters. Its Della and Donald's first Christmas back together. Let us see that. Give us an interaction about the sweater. "You still have that sweater?" "Of course, wear it every year." And then they hug or something. That's literally all they had to do. Instead of following a Santa storyline that ends in Scrooge leaving an impoverished child alone in a house with nothing but a lump of coal when he could have given a tiny portion of his wealth to help her, let Scrooge learn the true meaning of Christmas through his family. Or even better yet, let him throw a party, inviting over recurring characters, and have it double as a brain storming session on how to defeat FOWL. Show them coming up with the plan for Webby's birthday party. Give us interactions with characters who haven't been there all season. Penumbra can help. Where has she been? She was building a ship back to the moon before, right? Give a conclusion to that. If she's decided to stay on Earth like it seemed in the end of her episode, all we really need is a short two second clip of her hanging out with the other Moonlanders, having their own form of Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever else.

As for the last few episodes leading up to the finale, I get what they were going for. Give each of the triplets one last centric episode. However, I think that the messages fell short in the Dewey and Louie episodes. I think they should have taken more of a Beaks in the Shell approach where the selected triplet still gets to shine, while also setting up high stakes for the finale. Don't be adding new characters so late in the game, be wrapping up storylines with already established ones. There wasn't really a point in adding Kit or Poe, other than the writers wanting to make reference to as many characters as possible. Same with April May and June.

Now for the finale. My main thing: don't make Webby a clone. It messes too much with all the dynamics in the show and ruins the found family message they've had this entire time. It would have been a lot better if Webby's parents were FOWL agents who had a change of heart after having their child and got killed by Bradford or Heron when trying to leave the organization. That's ample reason for Beakley not wanting Webby to know. I think the finale did a pretty good job of wrapping things up outside of that, honestly. Again, there wasn't really enough time to give all the characters a proper ending, like Gene who just disappeared once he was saved, never to be seen again, but if time was managed better in the episodes leading up to the finale, it would have made it so that more characters could have accomplished what they needed to. And what was with Bradford getting turned into a real buzzard at the end? You really going to just undomesticate him like that? Give him some poetic justice, push him into the void that makes people cease to exist.

That's about all I can think of at the moment. Thanks for the ask! It was fun to go through everything and think about what could have been done better

#ducktales #ducktales season 3 #dt season 3 #ducktales critical #ducktales criticism #dt criticism #dt critical

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breakingbadfics · 4 years ago

Text

Thought Experiment. Part 1.

or “How would I have done it”

So The Sith Resurgence is a petty bashfic driven purely by a desire to spit in the face of canon, but specifically ReyLo Shippers, specifically the Kylo Ren/Ben Solo lovers of the ship. The plot is hollow, the only characters given any consideration of depth are the romantic leads making the supporting characters even more bereft of substance. and in trying to fix certain things with in the canon it somehow has even less than canon

What does a good version of this look like?

“Course Correction”

So lets start with an easy version of this question. The story is sitting at 35 chapters as of my writing this section of the essay.

Lets say Hypothetically Lily Orchard reached out to me to outline the final arc for the story. How would I do that?

So as of the end of chapter 35 these things happen

Kylo Ren is intending to fake the return of Emperor Palpatine.

Aliana and Rey have just gotten married

Rey’s growth in power has been climbing and causing concern among her friends for her safety.

The First Order know the location of the Resistance’s new base after they survived the events of episode 8

There is still some sort of conflict between Aliana, Rey, and Leia.

Kylo Ren is Angling towards setting up the fall of the republic.

Rey and Aliana are sent to Nathema reinforce the extraction of child recruits from The First Order.

I’m missing something I’m sure, but we’re moving forward from these points.

Chapter 36 begins with Aliana and Rey arriving on Nathema, They do the fighting, clear out the base, begin the evacuations and save a bunch of children. During this The Message is sent out to all First Order bases. The Emperor has returned from the dead.

On Nathema The Message arriving causes a shift in the morale of the fighting and while Rey and Aliana make it out in time along with any resistance back up they had, but everyone is ratttled.

in spite of that Aliana is basically no-selling the threat of The Emperor’s return. and while Rey is also nervous about it Aliana assuages those fears by explaining that, that wasn’t Palpatine at all. Because there was no shock in the force. If Darth Sidious had cheated death, it would have been something everyone force sensitive could have felt, and would have been felt long before the emperor even composed the message.

And so Chapter 36 ends

Chapter 37

With the force bond having been unblocked Kylo Ren was able to detect Rey had left the Resistance base. And in an impulse chose to personally lead an attack on the base. During this he made sure to have The Message from The Emperor sent out

During the attack a lot of casualties occur, but The Core Cast srvives but the big casualty is that Kylo Ren slashed a path through and took out his mother.

the rest of the story is trying to recuperate and then convey that Palpatine’s message was fabricated as propaganda.

during all this it’s decided amongst the remaining resistance that when they make the retaliatory strike it has to be the final blow that sets off the collapse of the first order.

Chapter 38

Aliana and Rey train more, Rey start learning various Sith Techniques.

Captain Phasma leading the last remnants of The Knights of Ren reveal themselves to have been waiting in hiding, they’re further accompanied by a collection of bounty hunters aiming to overwhelm the jedi and the sith through sheer numbers and power.

It is not an easy fight but Phasma’s attack force is defeated and the captain is forced to retreat as one of the sole survivors of this attack. The victory is owed in both to Rey and Aliana’s capabilities as a unit as well as Finn and the remaining Resistance assisting where it counts.

Kylo Ren is continuing his own private solo training and has found a collection of sith holocrons in Snokes original private quarters that have aided in honing his skills..

The First Order itself has made an order for all forces across the galaxy to return to the original coordinates of Star Killer Base.

once the full force of The First Order arrives in one place the plan is revealed that they intend to pull a full final assault on The Republic, intent to basically glass the surface of Corruscant.

Chapter 39

The First Order again.

They are preparted to set out only to find themselves faced with The Resistance and The Sith Fleet having arrived to make their own final attack.

The fight begins

During all this Rey, Aliana, and friends infiltrate the lead ship with intent to find and eliminate the leaders of the first order.

The eventual final confrontation between Kylo Ren, Aliana, and Rey happens.

And Then everythings for a moment as hundred of thousands of Imperial Star Destroyers warp in from nowhere. And start attacking both sides.

A mesage relayed across all channels.

Emperor Palpatine is actually somehow alive, and has arrived to reclaim control of his fleet.

Chapter 40

Emperor Palpatine’s message is simple; he’s returned to take his throne as ruler of the galaxy. To the Resistance he demands surrender so that their deaths may be quick and merciful. To The First Order a message to stand down, declare fealty to him or die.

The entirety of the battle as far as the fleets go dissolves into chaos and immediately Rose and Holdo declare a fall back and as many people in the resistance get out, leaving the first order and imperial forces to engage in a massive civil war.

While this is happening Aliana and Rey are trying to gauge what to do while also fighting Kylo Ren, only for Kylo Ren to get shot in the back of the head by General Hux, who retreats to take his side with the empire.

Aliana and Rey spend the rest of the chapter escaping and being very very angry they were denied the catharsis of killing Kylo Ren

Chapter 41

everyone is panicking.

The resistance is down to their last legs and the entire galaxy is with little hope

meanwhile Hux and Phasma are called forth to see The Emperor personally. where it is explained that even in spite of the unifying desire to re-establish the empire the first order was not the entirety of the remaining imperial forced and some chose to quietly seek out planets known to be inhabited by the dark side of the force. during this a ritual was carried out to allow a suitable individual to become the vessel for the emperor. The Emperor is basically wearing full fitting body armor at all times. but basically he’s inhabiting the body of a Galen Marek clone.

Oh also Hux is executed, because the emperor saw what he did to Kylo Ren who was the acting supreme leader of the First Order, and so determined Hux to be not trustworthy.

The resistance are still having doubts to their abilities now that they’re low on forces. further faith in Aliana is wavering due to the whole “I’d know if the emperor was back” blowing up in her face.

However because Palpatines Message was delivered across the galaxy, and on all channels they get a message from The Senate that basically declares that they’re going all in on the resistance and fully endorsing them. planets from across all systems as well as former rebel alliance members are en route to bolster their forces. it is now a full scale war to snuff out The Imperial Remnant.

Chapter 42.

Aliana and Rey are declared high generals with only Holdo and Rose Tico holding equal authority to them

The Resistance manage to find the current whereabouts of the emperor.

They set out to finally put an end to his reign of terror once and for all.

Chapter 43

Rey, Aliana, and crew launch a strike on Emperor Palpatines personal cruiser.

It’s revealed that Palpatine has “resurrected” Kylo Ren. though no more than a puppet to act as an extention of Palpatines will.

The final fight for the fate of the galaxy and the right to be The one true sith lord begins.

Chapter 44

The fight happens.

Rey fights the husk of Kylo Ren, The final step in Rey Beniko’s empowerment, destroying and ending the life of her abuser, lamenting only in that the soul of kylo ren never occupied the husk so she couldn’t revel in the end of his pathetic existance.

Aliana and Palpatine fight, The right to call themselves the True and Rightful Sith Lord. Palpatine almost wins, even with the act of the fight becoming a one on two drag out brawl between the two lovers and the emperor.

However Galen Marek proper, and Finn arrive, and proceed to even the odds in a 4 on 1 fight.

As one last attempt at a moral blow is Palpatine reveals that somewhere along in the past he set up an arranged marriage with the Beniko line of sith lords something that had been set up several hundred of years back somewhere between lana and aliana’s grandmother. The suitor was a member of his bloodline which he says to be rey. And that in falling for one another they’ve played into his plans to the letter

Aliana, does not care. Murders palpatine, and as to whether or not he was telling the truth. No one cares about that either. taking it as an attempt to fuck with the both of them

Chapter 45

The story ends with the usual “where are they now”

Finn and Poe get married, Rey and Aliana adopt. under the leadership of Holdo and Rose The Resistance slides back into being the officially backed “Rebel Alliance” hunting down the last remnants of the first order and the empire with the full scope of the republic military

The future for Force users is made a little more weird because the sith and the jedi are effectively the same thing trying with what ever opposes them being recognized as extremists of both sides

Somewhere the sole remnants of the first order and empire gather quietly to lick their wounds, lead by “Supreme Leaderl Phasma” as a potential sequel bait

The story ends with Rey and Aliana drinking wine. and a toast to the future.

#The Sith Resurgence #star wars fanfiction #lily orchard

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smokeybrand · 4 years ago

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I Am No Jedi

With season two of Mando over and the entire series in the can, for now, i was still on a pretty high Star Wars kick. Since i have Disney+, and time before WandaVision starts, i figure I'd ride this wave right into another Star Wars show i didn’t have the opportunity to actually get into deep; Star Wars: Rebels. Now, i have REALLY mixed feeling about this show. It’s an odd watch for me because of the conflict between the parts that are clone wars-y and the original content being presented. I kind of hate it when Ahsoka, Vader, Maul, or Thrawn aren’t onscreen but, at the same time, there are some really standout episodes. The Honorable Ones and The Forgotten Droid immediately come to mind. Unlike Clone Wars, however, which is a whole ass masterpiece of storytelling and character development, Rebels feels incredibly flaccid, overall. Still, i did like some things therein. Others, not so much...

The Things I liked

This show is gorgeous, man. The character models are lovely, this soundtrack is one of the best in the entire franchise, and the animation is head-and-shoulders above the first last season of Clone Wars. By that i mean season six. This thing ain’t got sh*t on season seven. Not even a little bit. Even so, this how is f*cking stunning to see. Everything about this aesthetic is just chef kiss levels of kino, as the kids would say.

All things Ahsoka. Look, its no secret i adore Ms. Tano but she really comes into her own with Rebels. You get to see that wisdom she gleaned during the Clone Wars on full display, even if she isn’t a proper Jedi anymore. Watching her reunite with Rex was wonderful but watching her fight Vader? That was hard. That was really hard. That episode, Twilight of the Apprentice, is easily some of the finest Disney Star Wars produced to date. It’s up there with Mando and the seventh season of the Clone Wars, for sure, and is the best episode of Rebels, itself, hands down.

Vader.

Maul in Rebels was exceptional. I enjoyed his turn in Clone Wars, of course, but his relationship with Ezra and his growth over the course of this series was exquisite. I was stunned by how much i liked Maul because, admittedly, i didn’t see the allure. I came to Clone Wars late so watching Maul blossom was a surprise. Seeing that continued evolution through Rebels was a real treat. That last duel with Obi-Wan? F*cking tragic. Beautifully tragic.

The Inquisitors. I like the whole concept of the Inquisitors but, specifically, The Grand Inquisitor and the Seventh Sister are decidedly the superior of the lot. I really enjoyed Grand and felt like his character was a little short-changed but Seventh Sister came along and picked up that slack only a few episodes later. Thanks to Rebels, i got other amazing characters like Second Sister in Jedi Fallen Order, The High Inquisitors in

F*cking Thrawn, man. I knew this dude was the dude from the Thrawn trilogy sequel books and never expected him to actually be canonized. Seeing my favorite blue sociopath show up in season four was a real gas, giving him proper credence as a threat going forward in the canon Disney mythos. The revelation that Ahsoka’s whole mission in her Mando appearance, was just to find a lead on this dude, was one of the biggest geek-outs i ever had for Disney Star Wars and it was Rebels that set all of it up.

Speaking of canonization, Rebels mad Darth Bane a thing and i will forever be grateful of that fact. Darth Bane is a huge deal in the canon and Filoni sneaking his legitimacy into the new lore, right under Kathleen Kennedy’s hating ass sabotage, was genius. I heard that he wanted to do the same for Darth Nihilus, Darth Traya, and Darth Scion, but that script was rejected. I imagine Darth Kennedy didn’t care for the Bane slip and put the kibosh on all other lore.

I actually like a lot of the additional lore. The Bendu, those temples, the mega-weapon on Malachor, The Veil; All of it enriches and expands upon the new canon. It gives it more life, more potential. and i love potential in storytelling. Makes for a ton of different, wonderful, possibilities.

Look, i just really like the Bendu. That motherf*cker is hilarious.

I really did enjoy Hera and Sabine. Those two ladies were a delight. I’ glad they were added t the lore because, particularly Sabine, there is a wealth of potential for them going forward. Hell, we’ve already seen the return of Hera in Star Wars: Squadrons and, with Mando going full anthology, i would be hard pressed not to think that Sabine will have her turn as the titular Mandalorian in a few seasons.

Not going to lie, seeing Zeb in this show was pretty dope. As a Star Wars geek, i knew that the Lasat were basically prototype Wookies that were cast aside. It’s dope seeing that design getting a second wind onscreen and a prominent role in the main cast. Plus, i mean, Zeb is actually a pretty chill character, himself.

The Things I didn’t

What the f*ck are these lightsabers, man? They're supposed to reflect the original concept of the weapons from one of the first Star Wars draft scripts, which is cool in a geek sense, but corny as sh*t in practice. These things look anemic, as f*ck, man.

It’s ridiculous to me that the crew of the Ghost are so goddamn pivotal to the fledgling Rebellion. These assholes cannot be this important, even with all of the plot armor. Like, seriously, I'm supposed to believe that they were the ones who retrieved the B-Wing, founded the first Rebel base, and stole Phoenix Nest from the Empire? Word?

There no stakes to this show. Like, i get that our principals had a lot of plot armor in Clone Wars, i never once felt like Ahsoka, Kenobi, or Anakin were ever in real danger, but there were certain episodes where i thought, for sure, their characters would be totally crippled somehow. Not with Rebels. I don’t expect any of these motherf*ckers to have even a semblance of lasting bruises. Kanan literally dies and nothing of importance was lost. Like, i know this is Ezra’s show but goddamn.

Speaking of Ezra, i hate this kid. I don’t know if that’s by design, like Filoni did with Ahsoka in the first few seasons of Clone Wars, but i grew to love her. She’s literally my second favorite character in the entire mythos, after Vader. Ezra did not grow on me. At all. I hate that so many lore altering events surrounded this dipsh*t. Kid ain’t even all that powerful in the force. I’m pretty certain that Ahsoka is stronger than Ezra is but he gets to be the one to “discover” the Veil of the Force. Like, bro, for real? You telling me Anakin, Yoda, or even f*cking Luke missed out on this sh*t? Word?

This show feels a lot like Avatar The Last Air Bender but worse. I had a whole ass emotional connection to the characters in that show. It broke my heart to see Azula having that meltdown. I did feel that same agony in Rebels, but it was for Ahsoka. When Vader looked up and you heard Anakin’s voice through the filter? “Ahsoka.” F*ck, that broke me. It was like watching Spider-Man getting dusted in Infinity War. I never felt that way about any of the ghost crew. Never. Not when Kanan died. Not when Ezra disappeared. Never.

The best parts of this show, of the actual, Rebels, canon, is either leftovers from Clone Wars or Legends content. Bane, Thrawn, Ahsoka, Rex, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Vader, the Emperor, even f*cking Hondo; All characters that existed before Rebels. Outside of the Inquisitors, Rebels added nothing of worth to the canon. It’s effectively a non-show. I mean, The Veil might be a thing eventually. We’ll see. That motherf*cker is a whole ass retconning mcguffin if I've ever seen one.

It’s weird to say, but nothing about this show feels of consequence. I know, for a fact, there are certain aspects Rebels added to the lore that will be vital to the overall canon but it doesn’t feel like that, you know? It feels like this was a detour, a frolic of, like, three or four episodes but holds no bearing to the grander scheme playing out. Sh*t’s ridiculous because Clone Wars felt like a whole ass problem, Rogue One gave us a legit catharsis, and Mando outdid everything Disney ever made while setting up an entire new age. F*ck, man, even the sequel trilogy gave us Kylo Ren. Rebels feels like Star Wars: The Filler Show and i kind of hate it.

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violethowler · 5 years ago

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A Farewell To The Clone Wars

Yesterday was the end of an era

After 11 years and 104 days

After a theatrical movie, a novel, a comic miniseries, 8 incomplete story reels, and 133 episodes

After 49 hours and 12 minutes of incredible, heartbreaking, beautifully animated television….

Ended, The Clone Wars have.

I watched all of the existing Star Wars movies on DVD when I was a kid, but I was never particularly enamored with them the way that others are. And then in August 2008, I went to the local movie theater with my grandmother to see an animated movie that – while I didn’t know it at the time – would chart the course of my future for years to come.

While a lot of the general Star Wars fandom looks down on the theatrical Clone Wars movie as weak and lackluster, 11-year-old me loved every minute of it. I’ve been obsessed with animation my entire life, and around 2 years before the theatrical release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I had just begun to explore the world of animation outside of my childhood Disney bubble, diving headfirst into SpongeBob and Avatar and Codename Kids Next Door. Whenever I saw commercials for an animated movie playing in theaters I would beg my family to take me to see it. It didn’t matter what the movie was actually about, all that mattered was that it was animated and I thought it looked fun.

So, when I saw Star Wars: The Clone Wars in theaters with my sister and my grandmother, I loved it. I enjoyed the movie so much that when I learned there was going to be a TV show following the movie, I was ecstatic. From the moment that the first episodes of Season 1 aired on Cartoon Network a few months later, I was hooked. From the very beginning I refused to miss a single episode. From middle school all the way through high school The Clone Wars became the axis around which almost all of my entertainment consumption revolved.

I started reading more Star Wars books and comics from all over the timeline. The Thrawn trilogy. Darth Bane. Fate of the Jedi. The Old Republic. Lost Tribe of the Sith. I devoured every piece of Star Wars media I could find as this show awakened in me an appetite for all things Star Wars. Whenever my parents asked for gift ideas for my birthday or Christmas, at the top of my list would be the latest season of The Clone Wars on DVD. Every summer I trawled the internet looking for news from Star Wars Celebration or San Diego Comic Con about the next season – trailers, clips, plot details, whatever I could find.

When the show was initially cancelled following the purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney, I was devastated. This show had such a staple of my life that the idea that it wasn’t going to be coming back hurt. As I started looking around at online Star Wars fandom to find someone, anyone, who felt the same way that I did, I discovered #SaveTheCloneWars, and joined the campaign. Through that first year after the plug was pulled, I wrote to Disney asking them to continue the show. I signed fan petitions and made posts on Facebook. It was my first real engagement with the wider online fandom.

Then came The Lost Missions and the Clone Wars Legacy releases – Crystal Crisis, Son of Dathomir, Dark Disciple… Having more Clone Wars stories helped soften the pain of the show’s loss, but the story still felt incomplete. Hearing about future arcs that had been planned for the show only added to the sense of incompleteness, knowing that there were more stories we didn’t get to see. When rumors had begun circulating about an animated Star Wars show set post-Clone Wars, resolving unanswered questions of The Clone Wars was at the top of my wish list for a future Star Wars show.

When Rebels was announced I was cautiously optimistic. I didn’t want to get attached to a new set of characters when the loss of Ahsoka and Rex and my other Clone Wars favorites still felt so raw. After Dave Filoni and the production crew of Rebels posted videos introducing the crew of the Ghost and the core cast of Rebels I reluctantly became more interested, I still was cautious about investing my time in this new show out of fear that it too would be ripped away from me without a proper conclusion just like The Clone Wars was.

So, when the final episode of Rebels’ first season confirmed that the mysterious Fulcrum was none other than Ahsoka Tano I was out of my seat cheering. There were still questions I needed answered about what happened to her after she left the Jedi Order, but the fact that she was there, back on my TV screen once more, was a relief. And when I watched the first trailer for Season 2 a month later, the words “My name is Rex,” made me scream and cry. I was overcome with tears of joy knowing that not only would my favorite Jedi be appearing in Rebels but my favorite Clone Trooper as well.

By the time Rebels’ first season had ended, I was getting ready to graduate from high school and planning where I would go to college in the fall. Taking art electives in high school, particularly a computer art class during the airing of Season 5, made me appreciate just how beautiful the show’s art style was, and when the time came for me to plan where I wanted to go to college, I chose schools that had programs for animation. I had originally wanted to be a game designer because of Kingdom Hearts, but The Clone Wars made me realize that the passion I truly wanted to make a career out of was animation.

I continued to follow Rebels as I went off to college, and by the end of Season 3 – with Maul dead for good, Ahsoka MIA, and Rex and Hondo as the only major Clone Wars characters left on the show – I had gotten attached to the Rebels characters as well. I was just as invested in their fates as I was for those of Clone Wars characters like Rex and Hondo. Season 4 finished airing at the end of my junior year, and the knowledge in the final five episodes that Ahsoka had not only survived her confrontation with Anakin at the end of Season 2 but that she was still alive years after the events of the original trilogy had me crying tears of joy as I went to sleep.

The trailer announcing the return of The Clone Wars had me in tears for hours. Long had I been dreaming of the remaining stories of this show being released in some form. I would have been content with more novels and comics like Son of Dathomir and Dark Disciple, but to have the show return in animated form was a miracle I had given up hope for years ago.

But within the last twelve months, my interest in Star Wars cooled.

I was never the biggest fan of the movies. Revenge of the Sith was my favorite because in the absence of a proper conclusion it functioned as a de facto finale to The Clone Wars. I enjoyed the original trilogy, but they weren’t movies I considered my favorites. I saw The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi in theaters and cried on my first viewing of both films, but on repeat viewings the magic of them faded and I lost interest. While I could understand why other fans liked them, there was a spark that was missing from most of the movies released under Disney that prevented them from really having any staying power for me.

And then The Rise of Skywalker came out and completely shattered any expectations I had that Disney really knew what they were doing with the franchise. Where before I was willing to trust that there actually was a plan because of how precisely Rey and Ben Solo’s arc followed the path of the Heroine’s Journey across The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, now I realize that what I initially believed to have been a carefully planned narrative arc was most likely JJ Abrams planning to set up a conventional Hero’s Journey which Rian Johnson used to try and tell a Heroine’s Journey instead. And even if there was a plan for Rey and Ben Solo that got screwed around by behind the scenes conflicts, there was clearly no plan as far as Poe and Finn and Rose were concerned.

For months after this, I started questioning and doubting my love of all the canon Star Wars media. How could I enjoy anything in the Original and Prequel trilogy eras knowing that all the hard work of dismantling Palpatine’s empire would be undone in order to rehash the same plotline with new characters and no concern given for whether the audience could follow what was happening or why these events and character decisions mattered if they hadn’t read every comic and novel and played every video game connected to this era.

Since the last trailer for the final season of The Clone Wars went up on YouTube, I vacillated between enthusiastically sticking to the shows I loved regardless of my problems with the film saga, and abandoning the franchise altogether and gifting my Clone Wars and Rebels Blu-Ray sets and associated novels to my college friend who had just gotten into Star Wars.

And then ‘The Phantom Apprentice’ Happened.

Ahsoka and Maul’s two-part duel in the throne room and the rafters of Sundari reminded me of everything I loved about The Clone Wars in the first place. The animation. The art style. The music. The attention to detail on every character and in every detail. The tragedy of what was to come. On my third re-watch of the third-to-last episode of Season 7, that was when I realized that despite my problems with the Sequel Trilogy, despite the many flaws in the writing of the Prequel movies, I could never give up on The Clone Wars, or on Rebels. These two shows have meant too much for me to ever walk away from either of them.

I have cried at least ten times in the last five days watching the final two episodes of The Clone Wars. The final of this incredible series was such a gut punch even though I knew what was coming and who would survive. I had and saw so many ideas about what the last episode would include. Would their be a montage of all the Jedi who survived Order 66 as a mirror of the death montage in Episode III? Would Ahsoka and Rex receive Obi-Wan’s recorded message from Rebels warning surviving Jedi to stay away from the temple?

But in the end, none of those things happened. The focus of the episode remained on Ahsoka and Rex. Their escape from the ship. The tragedy of their inability to save the other clones. And ending with a shot of Vader finding the ship some time later, all these symbols of the Republic buried beneath the winds of time as the empire rises. It was bleak and depressing and when the credits rolled I was holding back tears. But looking back on the entire series and the era of the war, knowing what was coming, there was no other way I could have expected it to end. The audience already knows that this is not the end, but Ahsoka and Rex don’t know that, and so the finale of The Clone Wars reflects this. The pain and despair. The tragedy and confusion over what will happen next. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Despite all the movies I’ve watched; the comics and novels I’ve read; the video games I’ve played; very few things in Star Wars canon or Legends have been able to match the magic of The Clone Wars in my heart. I have never truly been a Star Wars fan so much as I have been a Clone Wars and Rebels fan. The novels and comics and movies I enjoy are an extension of my love for the shows, but the shows will always come first. The characters these shows introduced have stuck with me more than any characters from the movies ever has. Clone Wars made me love Anakin and Obi-Wan and Padme and Yoda, but to me, my Star Wars favorites have always been Ahsoka, Maul, Rex, Ventress, Fives, Hera, Zeb, Thrawn, Sabine, and all the rest.

So, I just wanted to say thank you to Dave Filoni, Ashley Eckstein, Matt Lanter, Catherine Taber, James Arnold Taylor, Sam Whitwer, Nika Futterman, Dee Bradley Baker, as well as every single person involved in bringing this show to live for all the hard work and passion you have poured into this series. Your work on this show shaped the person I am today, and I look forward to seeing what you do next.

May the Force Be With You.

#star wars the clone wars #clone wars season 7 #thank you dave filoni #the siege of mandalore #victory and death #farewell to the clone wars #tcw spoilers #clone wars spoilers

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halfambidextrous067 · 5 years ago

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This will be a bit of a long, personal post buuut

I’m very sad to see the end of Clone Wars. I don’t quite have the history with the show that I see a lot of people do, I never watched it prior to this season while it was airing. At the time in 2008, I was 14 in junior high and I wasn’t even aware of the show. During its runtime, I saw snippets of it here and there, but I had a bit of a pedantic opinion of it as a “kids show”. As it was, I had distanced myself from Star Wars; growing up I was bullied a lot for my love of the series, and that made it so I stopped loving it. So that combined with my very untrue and uneducated opinions about what makes good tv, I never watched it.

Years later, I was home on vacation, visiting a friend, when I caught a rerun of Rebels on tv in the hotel. I watched, and to my surprise, enjoyed it. But that was it, I didn’t have streaming capabilities at the time where I lived, so I couldn’t watch it even though I had burgeoning interest.

Finally, at the end of 2016, I was home for Christmas, and finished watching some series on Netflix. The algorithm suggested I watch Clone Wars, and I was surprised because I didn’t realize it was on the app. I got through the first three or four episode before falling asleep. A few days later, I had to go back to where I lived. I still had about a week of vacation left though. I was in a pretty bad way, with depression, and over the course of that week, I binged the series. It helped a lot with my depression, keeping me occupied.

And it also helped that the show was (is) incredible; I was ashamed that thought of it simply as a “kids show” because it’s so much more. To me it’s some of the truest interpretation of Star Wars as you could get. Having that long run of episodes allowed so many great ideas, characters and Lore to be fleshed out. I was enraptured watching it. But having binged it knowing there was no “official” ending outside of Ahsoka leaving the Order, I was sad but had the catharsis of an ending. Especially since the show had been over for a while and I’d have to accept the ending that was there.

But then we get the announcement of the final season, and a proper ending that wraps up the story and brings everything in line, I was excited. Who wouldn’t be if they had actually seen the show? But to have the ending be on such a haunting note....I can’t help but feel overwhelmed with emotion. I watched the last episode at midnight, and this morning on a drive to get coffee, I had a little bit of a breakdown in my car, rather unexpectedly. Of course, I can always rewatch on streaming or physical copies, it’s not as though the series is gone. But with its official ending, it almost feels as if part of me ended too, for better or for worse.

But that’s the thing about great art: it should move you, should make you feel something. I’m glad I was able to overcome my aversion to Star Wars after the bullying, to get over myself on what is good tv despite seemingly intended audiences, and to just appreciate something for myself. The Clone Wars really helped me in a dark time, and continued to help me outside of it. I love this show so dearly, I’m glad it was able to get the ending it deserved.

So, I felt like I’d share my little journey with the show, to show my appreciation for how it helped me grow. I suppose I’ll close with “May the Fourth be with you” and thanks for reading this.

#star wars clone wars #star wars rebels #star wars #clone wars #clone wars final season #tcw #tcw s7 #personal #may the fourth be with you

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weeklysparksofjoy · 4 years ago

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8.9.20 - 8.16.20

What a whirlwind of a week. This week was my first week off for summer break. I had finally wrapped up my internship and spent a week soaking in the pleasures of life, aka just video games since it’s quarantine time. As a result, this week was filled with fun leisurely activities and naturally, house cleaning. So look down below for what really sparked joy during my period of respite and of fulfilling homeownership responsibilities.

Items

IKEA Karlby (1): Given the current times, a good work-from-home place is a must. It was time to upgrade our cheap $34 Linnmon tables. This was our desk table for 3 years! 3 years! We had silver legs instead of the bright blue ones featured on IKEA’s page, but still, this was literally the cheapest table we could get from IKEA. Now that I will be starting my doctorate program and my boyfriend is working fully remote, plus something called COVID, it was time for us to get a proper office set-up. Enter the Karlby. Yes, it is a countertop. It’s a beautiful, 60 lb., long slab of sort-of wood that gives me enough space to lay 3 monitors on it, if I pleased. If you remember last week’s post on the IKEA Alex , those are the base for our desk. We have one underneath each end of the Karlby and all we had to do was put a non-slip adhesive on top of the Alexes and that was it. No drilling necessary to put two and one together. Essentially, our set-up looks like this (thank you random person from the internet for the photo). It is beautiful and freeing and space to breathe.

Ridgid Shop Vacuum and Toshiba Dehumidifier: Now, for a not as freeing item, but a stress-relief item that I am just truly grateful for. I love storms. I love the sound of the rain hammering against the glass. I love the color of the sky. I love the nostalgia of childhood rainstorms. What I had not yet experienced until this week was what comes with rain - possible flooding. Maryland was hit with rain for almost a week. It was flash flood warning after flash flood warning. Being in the new house, we were tricked into comfort that our sump pump was in working condition. It had only been a month since we moved in and it had passed inspection. It had worked. But let this be a life lesson, after any storm, just check your basement to be sure. We had moved our old Linnmon desks into the basement to make room for the new desks when we stumbled upon the shallow pools of water. Long story short - we had to replace the sump pump. But the basement doesn’t slope down towards it, so we still had standing water. I ran a quick google search after my failed attempt to mop all the water towards the sump pump left us with only a little bit less of water and found that pros recommended a shop vacuum. We rushed over to Home Depot to get there 30 minutes before closing time. Initially, we planned to rent the shop vac for a third of its selling price, but who knows what might happen in the future, so we just bought the thing out right. We purchased the Ridgid 12 gallon wet/dry shop vacuum and watched that thing just inhale all the water from the floors. I had essentially wasted 30 minutes of my life mopping that mess and should have just purchased the shop vac instead. This was such a relief. I was worried we’d have to hire more professionals to clear the flooded waters, but nope, this made it so easy. Sure, there was a bit of water left, but when coupled with the Toshiba 50-pint dehumidifier, which we bought during the same trip, the floor was clear of a single drop of water the next morning. We felt guilty placing the sleek dehumidifier in our unfinished basement, but it fulfilled its role with 5 stars. As a first-time homeowner, the flooding was rather stressful - from worrying about safety to waiting on available professionals, but these two items let me sleep soundly after a long, hectic day. Last, but not least, I need to thank Len the Plumber for sending us a technician within the specified time window (unlike Roto-Rooter) and for the tech replacing our sump pump so quickly! This was definitely a learning experience and although it seems more like a spark of gratitude, I do have to say a clean environment sparks joy for me!

Weed B Gone: Another spark of joy from a clean environment came from our backyard. When we moved in, our backyard was completely ridden with weeds. There was not a blade of grass to be seen. Nevertheless, the weeds were probably about a foot tall. Fast forward a few weeks, where us naive millennials had neglected to care for this problem while continuing to move out of our old apartment and into the new house, and we have ourselves 3-feet tall weeds. I lie not. They were up to my hip. Anyway, they were a major stressor and a persistent nag in the back of my mind. Thus, I got to work and sprayed some Weed B Gone after identifying the majority of the weeds as crabgrass. Alright, so the label says it works immediately - that’s a lie, but it did work in a couple of days. Each day, I would stand by the back door and gloat over the sight of the increasingly limp weeds. Within a week, they were yellowing and hanging over the patio. Once again, this week I found joy in cleanliness and in accomplishing a stress-inducing task.

Video Games

Darkest Dungeon (2): I promise I did not spend my entire week off cleaning. I actually spent most of it playing Darkest Dungeon. I normally hate single-player games, but this one was so fun. I was so addicted to it that I played it almost every day. I really enjoyed building my team, figuring out how to defeat the enemies, and just learning the inside tricks for dungeon interactions. It’s not difficult to learn and I would definitely recommend the game for others!

TV Shows

Star Wars (3): The Clone Wars: My boyfriend and I began watching all Star Wars content in chronological order back in June and we finally finished all of The Clone Wars. I really enjoyed watching The Clone of Wars even though it’s touted as a children’ show. Those final four episodes of season 7 were so beautifully done and had us rooting for Ahsoka the entire time. As a side note, we actually watched Revenge of the Sith in 4(?) different chunks. We followed a guide that showed us where to stop, so that we actually heard some lines repeated in the movie and in The Clone Wars, which was pretty cool. We didn’t follow this guide, but this one is more precise than the one that we used. If you are remotely interested in Star Wars, I recommend you give this challenge a try. It was a lot of fun and touching to see the character development. Also, this may be heinous to say - but the writing in The Clone Wars was better than the prequels’.

Videos

Chloe Ting: I’ve been doing Chloe Ting’s workouts for over a month now. I’ve wrapped up the 4 weeks summer shred challenge and am currently in the middle of the 15 days intense core challenge. I have to say that her videos have successfully transformed me into a daily workouter (I practice Yoga with Adriene during rest days). I actually find myself needing to workout daily, like if I know that I have a busy day ahead, I will figure out how to fit a workout in - no excuses. The truth is I look forward to these workouts and to reflecting upon my progress. I find myself becoming stronger, completing exercises I couldn’t execute the first time around. Even though my weight has actually increased, I feel great and more confident.

Makoccino (4): Last, but not least, this week I made more time for art - something I haven’t done for a long time. I think after high school I was such a workaholic, bouncing from club to club and job to job, that I didn’t give myself to have fun by myself. Makoccino’s videos helped me take the step forward and purchase the art supplies to get started in my watercolor painting journey. I began with her beginners video, which was super easy to follow and although my painting still turned out to look like a product of those wine and paint classes, it still encouraged me to continue further. Watercolor painting is so relaxing and seeing the end product is just so satisfying.

That concludes this week’s sparks of joys, but just to highlight a pattern throughout these posts, joy comes in different shapes and sizes. Joy is often intermixed with other emotions that may sometimes obscure it. If there is anything this practice has taught me is that identifying joys in life on a consistent basis requires patience and a willingness to tease apart the whirlwind of emotions inside us.

Special thanks to Cassie for designing the image! Check out her work on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meta__morphosis__design/

#weeklysparksofjoy #gratitude #ikea #star wars #clone wars #darkest dungeon #lawn care #chloe ting #makoccino

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foolishlovebugbaby · 5 years ago

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stupid cupid | part 3

part 1 | part 2 | part 4

college!au / bang chan x fem!reader

Summary: bang chan is always complaining about being single since birth, so best friend reader decides to play cupid and sets him up. big mistake.

Genre: angst-y?? with some fluff later on idk you decide (a Lot of slow burn so idk how many parts this multi-shot will have lmao)

Warnings: mentions of alcohol, drunkenness, swearing

they say time heals all wounds. in your case, time came in the form of a box-dyed blonde tending to your every need.

after that day of rain heartache, chan tried his absolute best to make it up to you even though you had already forgiven him. he wanted to show you just how much he cared for you and how sorry he was, even if it meant going out of his way just to do the little things.

for example, he’d be there extra early at the library just to wait for you to finish up, even though that meant he’d have to leave class a lot earlier than he was supposed to. on wednesdays he’d pop popcorn in the microwave and set up a fort of blankets around your couch, ready for the both of you to snuggle up in while you watched how to get away with murder. and he’d take you out for coffee whenever he was free, even if it meant cancelling his plans with hana.

piece by piece you felt your heart slowly come back together. it still left you uneasy and hurt knowing you had a romantic inkling for your best friend when you know he could only be just that, but it was something you had to learn to accept and move past.

it didn’t help that the man in question was the one that was picking up all the pieces of your heart and putting them back together. a part of you knew that by the end of it all, even if you did heal, a part of you would still always belong to him.

so you tried your best to keep your walls up, not wanting these feelings to grow more and more. you kept them boxed up and locked away; away from chan and away from yourself.

but chan could tell your guard was up. he sensed it in the way you smiled at him, when your smiles didn’t fully reach your eyes like it used to. he sensed it in the way you always left early; you were always the first to pull away from hugs, the first to say goodbye whenever you left in the morning, and the first to say goodnight on wednesdays even though you’d normally stay up together until the sun rose.

he could feel you slipping away, and it drove him insane.

“hey, what’s wrong?” hana tenderly rested her hand atop his. they were sitting at a coffee shop, spending some time together right before their next lecture.

“it’s nothing.” he replied faintly, shaking his thoughts of you away.

“are you sure? you’ve been looking kinda down lately.” she was looking at him but he wasn’t looking at her, doing his best to avoid her gaze. it stung.

“yeah, don’t worry. tough week, that’s all. i’ll talk to you later, okay? i gotta head to class.” and with that, he was out the door, leaving hana alone.

she sighed to herself. his coldness towards her didn’t go unnoticed. ever since that night where he disappeared without saying goodbye, she could feel something shift between them.

she stopped seeing more of chan, and when she did see him it was during fleeting moments like this. conversations between them became shorter, held less substance, and become one-sided. and she knew it was because of you.

it’s hard not to come to that conclusion when she always saw the way his gaze followed you on the campus grounds when he was supposed to be looking at her. it’s not hard to come to that conclusion when the only time she’d see him smile was when he was around you. and it’s not hard to come to that conclusion when all he did was worry about you when she wished he would worry about her.

jealousy and insecurity were feelings she was not accustomed to.

they may not be an official couple, but there was no denying the feelings hana felt for the boy. he was kind and tender and smart, it’d be harder to not fall for him. and the amount of time they spent getting to know each other must’ve brought out the same feelings in chan...

right?

she decided she needed to up the ante when it came to chan, even if it meant losing face. and if it all proved to be in vain, then so be it.

“please please please come tonight? it’ll be fun, i promise- scout’s honor.” felix whined and pouted, placing a hand on his heart.

“but i won’t know anyone there besides you!” you said exasperatedly. he had been begging you to come to the frat party being held tonight, but you weren’t having it. you learnt the hard way in freshman year that frats and alcohol were the perfect concoction for making bad decisions, and bad decisions weren’t exactly on your to-do list tonight.

“exactly! this way you’ll get to make more friends and get your mind off of a certain someone- heck, you might even find someone to go home with~” he winked and you gagged.

“no thanks, i’d rather be brooding and sulky than getting it on with someone who could very well have an std.”

“no one said you had to ‘get it on’ with someone, get your filthy mind out the gutter young lady!” you glared at the freckled boy. “all i’m saying is that it’ll be a good distraction. one that you very much need.” he placed both his hands on your shoulders and looked you dead in the eye whilst he said that. you sighed.

“thanks for the offer, lix, but i’m just not up for it tonight. maybe next time?” you said tiredly.

“okay, whatever you say, your highness. but if you change your mind at any time just give me a text, okay?” he gave you a smile and began walking off. you sighed.

on any other day you’d be game to go out and get a good drink in. but today was... wednesday. and let’s just say your heart was already firmly planted on that deteriorating couch, laughing at the man that had the cutest dimples in the world.

from solo: if you make me watch another episode of star wars the clone wars ill switch out your cola for soy sauce

you giggled at his text.

his heart remained on that couch with yours, even if you didn’t notice.

“i just wanna know which psycho convinced me to major in creative writing. i just wanna have a chit chat.” you breathed out frustratedly, leaning back on your dining room chair.

“you’ve only got yourself to blame there, dummy.” chan said, the smile evident on his voice as he continued to type away on his laptop.

you both were getting some studying done together as you usually would do. like old times, you both were slumped at the dining table with sheets upon sheets of notes and handouts accompanied by empty boxes of takeout. was it the most efficient of workplaces? no, but that was all you both could afford. was chinese chicken and stir-fried noodles the healthiest dining option? again, no, but that was all you both could afford.

but even if you barely had money to get a proper desk, or get a better couch, you had each other. and that, in itself, was enough. (gag that was so cheesy ihms)

“thank you so much for reminding me and for your endless support.” you sarcastically retorted and huffed, playfully glaring at him.

he laughed and turned to look at you.

“just one more year, we got this.” he said and shrugged, leaning back to stretch.

“easy for you to say. at least you’ve got better chances at securing a job you actually like after you graduate, what with your good grades and sensible choice in major. i’d probably have to work at a low-paying 9-5 that has nothing to do with writing.” you said sadly, pouting and resting your face in your hands, looking at your scribbled notes. chan’s heart softened at the sight of your sulking frame.

“stop being so negative. you’re a great writer, the best i know,” he grabbed your wrists from across the table and made you look at him. “and you’re going to make it one day. i just know it.” he stared into your eyes deeply, the sincerity in his words making your heart flutter. it was nice having someone look at you like they believed you could change the world.

“you really think so?” you said hopeful, your eyes going wide with wonder. there was something about the way you looked that caused his breath to hitch- was it the way your features were illuminated perfectly by your cheap living-room lamp? or was it the way your eyes twinkled as if it held all the stars in the universe when they were looking at him? was it both? he didn’t know.

“of course i do.” he said smiling, and you smiled back at him, cheeks flushed and over the moon.

“you’re gonna make it one day too, channie.” god he loved the way you said that adoring nickname you had for him.

you both stared at each other for a moment, silence filling the room. his hand were still gently gripping your wrists and he could see the red tinge to your ears as he studied your face. he started to notice all your tiny, faint moles and how they speckled your right cheek like constellations, and how your left eye crinkled a little more than your right as you smiled. he found it absolutely charming and couldn’t understand why he never thought of pursuing you as someone more than a friend.

what the hell she’s your best friend, get it together mate!

he retracted his hold on your wrists and coughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. you looked at him quizzically, tilting your head to one side.

why is she so dang cute?

“so, kettle corn or salted?” he stood up from his place at the table suddenly, chair legs dragging across the floor, and stalked towards the kitchen to check for popcorn.

“uhm, kettle corn?” you said, but it came out more as a question than a statement. you were so obviously confused by his change in aura but he decided to brush it off, not wanting to confront these... thoughts and feelings.

“cool cool. pick something and i’ll be there in a sec.” raising your eyebrows at his back, your rubbed the nape of your neck and decided not to question it. you waddled your way to the couch, grabbing the remote off of the coffee table and turned on your second-hand tv. you flicked through all the series you both downloaded, and decided to be mischievous.

“i swear if you put on clone wars-” he said as he chewed on a piece of popcorn, now standing right next to the couch. you smiled devilishly at him, his mouth hanging open and his gaze looking at you in an ‘are you serious right now’ stare. you giggled.

“give me that remote right now,” soon enough you both were wrestling for the remote after he set the popcorn bowl down safely on the coffee table.

“never!” you giggled as he tackled you to the floor. luckily you were bundled up in blankets, making your landing a lot less harsh, especially considering that he was on top of you. still unfazed at the position you both were in (his legs on either side of your waist, basically straddling you), you continued your little episode of wwe.

“i’ll tickle you.” he said arrogantly, raising his hands up.

“you wouldn’t.” you gasped, eyes going wide at the thought. he knew just how ticklish you were, so the ruthlessness he displayed had you in shock.

without another word he started to attack your sides mercilessly, your squeals and giggles filling up the entire apartment accompanied by his feigned evil laughter.

“okay, okay! s-stop! i surrender, stop tickling me!” you squealed as you laughed, shoving the remote on his chest. he stopped moving his fingers against your sides but still held onto them firmly. both of you were panting from all the tackling and wrestling and tickling, still not noticing just how close your bodies were as you were not eye-to eye.

when you brought your gaze to meet his, your heart skipped a beat.

he was staring down at you, his eyes half-lidded and skimming over your face. both of you were panting softly and you felt the rise and fall of his chest coupled with his pounding heart rate through your hands. you didn’t notice how close your faces were until you could feel his breath fanning over your face.

as the seconds flew by his face started leaning towards yours steadily, his tongue skimming over his lips. it felt like you were lost in a dream. your heart beat erratically in your chest but all you could focus on was how badly you wanted to kiss him then and there.

ding dong

the sound of the door bell brought you both out of your trance and half-lidded eyes were replaced with wide ones. he quickly got off of you and you quickly sat up, coughing awkwardly. both of your faces were a deep red, and heart rates picking up speed in a different way than before.

did we almost just-

“i-i’ll get the door.” chan said and rushed to open it. he took in a deep breath, still not fathoming the situation that took place just moments ago.

“hey.” hana stood out the door in sweats and a hoodie, shuffling awkwardly in place.

this was something he was definitely not expecting.

“h-hana? h-hey, what a-are you doing here?” he breathed out, voice laced in clear shock and he felt as though the floor was crumbling beneath him.

“uhm, well, m-my roommate has some... company over tonight and we share a studio so... it’s not very ideal for me to... you know...” she trailed off, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks. truth be told, she didn’t even have a roommate. but she wanted to be around the blonde more, so what better way than to show up at his front door? chan was a sweetheart, she knew that, and wouldn’t blatantly turn away from someone in need of shelter.

“i-i’m sorry for intruding i just didn’t think of anywhere else to-”

“no, d-don’t worry about it. come inside, you must be cold.” he opened the door wider, allowing her to step in. he closed the door behind in, sucking in his cheeks. this situation was less than favourable, but this was the unfortunate reality you both had to confront.

“we’ve got company.” chan said, not daring to look in your direction and instead focused his gaze everywhere and anywhere else.

“h-hana? hi.” you muffled out, mouth stuffed with popcorn. you were planted on the floor, blankets drowning your figure. you certainly did not expect her of all people to show up at 9pm on a wednesday night.

“you guys watching anything?” she said, pointing to your illuminated tv screen.

“it’s movie night...” you trailed, staring at chan in shock this time but he refused to meet your gaze. you heart was faltering and you couldn’t make sense of the situation.

“you can pick something if you want.” he said and shuffled awkwardly next to hana. your eyes flicked back and forth between the two before you quickly composed yourself.

“you can take the couch, i’m good here.” you brought your legs up to your chest as you turned away from both of them. you sighed to yourself.

maybe i was dreaming.

chan and hana sat next to each other, hana getting comfortable and leaning her head onto his shoulder, their arms interlocked. you glanced to the side and saw it out of your peripheral vision, your heart instantly breaking. you sucked in your cheeks and took a deep breath.

“have you watched chilling adventures of sabrina? i hear it’s really good...” you didn’t focus on what they were saying, instead their conversation became the background music to your heartbreak.

you stared blankly in front of you. you felt more alone now than you did the first night he left you by yourself. you tried to numb the stinging in your chest but it didn’t help that the two of them were right behind you. the only thing that was getting numb was your butt from the cold tiles and poor circulation.

to f-elixr: can i take you up on that party offer

you nervously waited for his reply.

you didn’t want to sit on the cold hard asphalt feeling sorry for yourself the whole night, third-wheeling in your own apartment.

from f-elixr: already on my way

whatever deity was out there, you secretly thanked them that you had a friend like felix.

“felix is forcing me to go to this party with him tonight so i’m just gonna leave you two lovebirds alone...” you mumbled as you got up from your seat on the floor.

“now?” chan questioned, glancing at the clock. “it’s really late, are you sure yo-”

“i can take care of myself, chan. i’ll be fine.” that came out harsher than it was supposed to, but you couldn’t help it. you were feeling frustrated and annoyed and angry at the world.

his heart broke a little at you calling him by his name and not his nickname.

you quickly entered your room and threw on some jeans and a thick hoodie, as well as a beanie to protect you from the cold. and then you were gone like the wind, muttering a quiet ‘bye’ as you made your way out of the apartment.

chan could only stare at your fleeting figure, hurt evident in his face. but you wouldn’t know that because you were out the door in a flash.

hana felt the tension in the room and hoped her sneaking suspicion of the shifting dynamic between chan and you was just that- a suspicion that wasn’t true. so the two of them remained on the couch, not focusing on the series that was playing on the tv and instead on the endless questions that ran through their brains.

“that’s enough tequila for you.” felix said as he snatched the shot glass out of your hand. you hiccupped.

“you ain’t fun~ c’mon~ just one more~” you slurred your words and hiccupped in between each one. you were completely, totally and absolutely pissed drunk at the frat house, and you were pleased.

after ranting to felix about the situation that occurred in your apartment earlier, you decided the only thing you could do to get your mind off of it was to get blackout drunk. he agreed, a little disappointed that he couldn’t wild out as much as he wanted, but decided that you needed someone sober and someone that you trusted to drive you home.

god he’s a saint.

“no, no more for you. c’mon, i’m taking you home.” he hauled you off of the bar stool you were slumped on, slinging your arm around his neck.

“but i don’t want to go home! felix please, it hurts too much.” you mumbled that last part quietly, tears brimming in your eyes. he sighed sadly at you.

“i know, but chan’s going to have my head if i don’t get you home.” and off you both went to his car.

felix discovered that you were a very sad drunk.

after a long car ride of you sniffling and crying in in the passenger seat, wailing about how much the universe had it against you in terms of love, you both finally pulled up to your apartment complex.

“c’mon, one step, two step...” felix said as he guided you up the stairs. in no time you both reached your front door, and felix loudly knocked on it.

“oh my god is she okay?” chan said as he rushed over to hold you.

it was almost 1am and throughout the night chan grew increasingly anxious about you, not being able to focus at all.

“one too many shots, but she’ll be fine.” felix said as he passed you to chan.

“thanks for bringing her home.”

“don’t mention it. oh and chan?” his ears perked, turning his focus away from your drowsy and drunk state over to the freckled brunette. “take good care of her, please? she’s been hurting a lot, but she needs you.” felix said tiredly. chan could only nod at him, still being unable to register his words.

felix mumbled a goodnight parted ways, chan using his leg to close the door behind him as he hauled you over to the couch.

“ch-channie~ it that you?” you mumbled sleepily, your eyes squinting up at him.

“yes it’s me.” he smiled sadly down at you and removed your beanie, tucking your hair behind your ears. he sat down next to you on the couch as your hands gripped tightly onto his.

“are you for real?” you leaned forward and buried your head into his chest, hiccupping as you did so. “yeah, you’re for realsies. i can smell ya.” you said and smiled to yourself. chan chuckled and caressed your head.

“why’d you get so drunk, silly?” he wondered out loud.

“because of you.” his heart stopped as you said that. you leaned away from him, a frown spread across your features and eyes watery. he furrowed his brows.

“what do you mean?” he held your face in his hands, wiping away the tears that slowly streamed down your cheeks.

“my-my heart is hu-hurting because of you.” you hiccupped as you sobbed. chan hated seeing you hurt and sad, even more so now when you said it was because of him

“i love you to-too much bu-but you don’t want me s-so i-i-” you rambled on but stopped as chan shushed you as he wiped your cheeks and brought you closer.

“of course i want you, you’re my best friend i-”

“no channie. i’m i-in love with you a-and i can-can’t do anything about it.”

he could swear time stopped around him as you said that. you? in love with him? what? he couldn’t believe it, and he didn’t know what to make of it. how could you be in love with him after all this time?

“y-you’re drunk.” he stuttered out, staring at you in shock.

“doesn’t m-make it any less true.” you breathed out and leaned on his chest once again, clutching on the fabric of his shirt.

“i-i tried not to, but i don’t know. y-you’re my favorite person i-in the world, w-what was i supposed to do?” you sobbed and he bit down harshly on his lip. his heart was breaking seeing you cry over him but at the same time a part of him felt free- relieved, even, that you had feelings for him.

you leaned away again, looking directly at him with your blurry vision. his hands instinctively went to wipe away your tears again.

you didn’t know what came over you, but with your resolve washed away by all the tequila and your judgement diluted in a beer keg, you sprouted the courage and leaned over to place your lips on his.

to say chan was shocked would be an understatement. feeling your lips on his made his mind and heart go sporadic all at the same time. but your lips were soft and warm and oh god did you feel like a dream, and he couldn’t help but melt in you. you tasted like cheap tequila and gum, but he could care less. you were heaven, and you were kissing him.

when you both pulled away you immediately crashed onto his chest, falling asleep almost immediately from all the alcohol and crying. but out of chan’s peripheral vision he caught a figure he so wished was just a figment of his imagination.

there, standing right outside the toilet with wide eyes and lips agape, was hana.

ph myg od yall dont know how long this took me to write i had m a j o r writers block i didn’t have a concrete plan for this part n had to come up w multiple but when i did settle on a plan it was so hard to write the dialogues n wrhlfhwrlgh but here it is yay finally ●‿● this mini series ends in the next part, so pls stay tuned for that!!!! like reblog comment subscribe follow ask- u know the drill

ヾ(＠＾▽＾＠)ﾉ and pls leave requests in my ask box, i really wanna fill up my masterlist. hopefully the last part gets uploaded within this week <3 ily all muah muah happy reading </b>

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therealchrisclem · 5 years ago

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Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker thoughts

I have seen Star Wars: Episode 9 - Rise of Skywalker. I wasn’t going to share my opinion, but it’s not everyday I get to go to a press screening for one of the most anticipated films ever made (of course, hype being what it is, doesn’t mean as much as it did in 1999), so why not try to get some of my thoughts across?

A few things first - I’m not a critic. I was told a long time ago you can either be someone that does things or someone that criticizes them, but in order to treat either with the respect it deserves, you need to delineate that line clearly. I still work on my scripts and writing packet, I don’t see my self becoming an actual cultural critic of any kind in the future. This is just my views on this film as a guy who loves movies and really, really loves Star Wars. Secondly, Lucasfilm and Disney asked us not to spoil any of the movie, and while I don’t think that’s possible in a macro sense (do you honestly think the good guys lose?), I will try to respect their marketing wishes. There are some things in this movie that were incredibly shocking. Not enough of them for my taste though.

Finally, I liked The Last Jedi. Was it flawed? Yes. Did the humor in it fit with the rest of the series? No. The humor coming from actual jokes is about as far away from George Lucas comedy like Jar Jar and farting space camels as you can get. It’s actually one of the biggest reasons why I think some fans didn’t think it was really “star wars-y.” Despite it’s issues, that movie introduced new concepts and themes and pushed the series forward in a way that The Force Awakens (which I liked better overall) didn’t, and the spin-offs Rogue One (which I thought was great but unnecessary) and Solo (which I hated more than any other Star Wars movie I saw in theaters, even Attack of the Clones) didn’t. I waited my whole life for new Star Wars because I wanted new Star Wars, not retreads playing in the OT’s bathwater.

A side-note for a second: I used to always leave my takes on the big blockbuster movies I saw on Facebook. I realized, while ruminating on this movie during the afternoon that I stopped doing that a few years ago. Looking back, it was The Last Jedi that caused that break. I argued so much with friends and family over that movie that I must have decided at some point it wasn’t even worth sharing my opinions on social media. In terms of big budget cinema (I said it) I can’t think of anything as divisive. At least when it came to Batman V Superman, it was so overwhelmingly negative that I don’t remember the lovers of that movie feeling the need to justify it. Or maybe it’s just that social media is overwhelmingly toxic or that our culture in general is sick. I dunno, I’m not writing a Sociology thesis paper here. Back to Rise of Skywalker:

My sister Abby informed me last week that I was going to get to go to this press screening as my brother-in-law Leo’s plus one (he works in the industry) as an early Christmas gift. I was so excited and happy, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to get to see the conclusion of my favorite movie series of all time over two days before paying audiences got to! I was pretty much buzzing on a tibana gas high all week. This is why I moved to LA! (Yes, I know that Tibana gas doesn’t get you high. Spice does. Let me mangle these EU references like Solo.)

The El Capitan Theater in Hollywood is a historical building I’ve always wanted to see a movie at, and what could be better to see than the END OF THE SKY-WALKER SAGA? (Well, Avengers: Endgame*, for starters.) Despite how small and cramped the seats were (humans my size did not exist in the 1930s), my anticipation couldn’t have been higher. I even had my complimentary bucket of popcorn and my free Coke Zero Sugar like the paid off Disney shill I am. The theater darkened, the Lucasfilm logo shone, and we were taken back to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

I’m just gonna get blunt here. It’s impossible for me to say Rise of Skywalker is anything other than a disappointment. I have felt upset and angry after seeing a Star Wars movie (Solo). I have tried to convince myself I loved what I just watched after seeing a Star Wars movie (The Phantom Menace). I have never felt as indifferent about what I’ve seen after I left a Star Wars movie as I did today. And this was something I was really, really, looking forward to.

I promised no spoilers, so here’s my best attempt: The movie is at least 2 movies in one, crammed together at a breakneck pace that is basically held together by the charisma of the actors and the beauty of the special effects shots. The movie looks and feels like a proper Star Wars. I just can’t think of a time where I left a two and a half hour movie and thought it could have used 15 minutes more of exposition. It’s not like it doesn’t make sense, but nothing’s explained and you’re either on board or not. There’s an important character moment that gets brought up repeatedly and never resolved or mentioned after the climax starts. Things happen and exist and this movie doesn’t have the time to tell you why. The pacing is a mess. It is a ton of movie. Hope your eyes are able to keep up. There are also lots of groan-inducing moments and scenes that aren’t enough to ruin the movie but definitely pushed my goodwill to the breaking point.

If you hated The Last Jedi, I have a feeling you’ll be much happier with this. It turns that entire movie into a steaming pile of bantha poo-doo. There are still some things from that movie that resurface, but this movie does a better job honoring the prequels than it does it’s direct fore-bearer. (Seriously, this movie does some heavy lifting to make sure the prequels are connected to the rest of the series in a way George Lucas himself never bothered to do. Despite hating a lot of the prequels, it’s pretty cool.)

And that’s not to say it’s all bad! The action is so, so great, the effects are on another level, the stuff that is good is really good! There are iconic shots throughout that I could have seen on a poster hanging on my ten-year-old bedroom wall. The classic iconography is exalted in Rise of Skywalker. Once it switches from the “first movie” to a Force Awakens-style redux of Return of the Jedi, it’s pretty awesome. I love BB-8, and more that will have to wait for spoiler talk.

It’s never boring or hard to watch either. Plus, having John Williams finish out this series ensures it always sounds like Star Wars. What a gem.

So that’s it.

A mixed bag.

After all the hype, after all this time, after all the money Disney spent devouring our childhoods and pop culture, that’s all this movie is. Honestly, I was hoping for a lot more. And maybe that will reveal itself when I see it again Thursday night. Even if it doesn’t, I’m still happy it exists. This sequel trilogy (for all its faults) is more than I could have ever hoped for as a child.

I can’t wait until everyone sees it and we can talk about the plot and argue about the movie online until we all hate each other again.

*This movie’s pacing made me appreciate the work the Russo brothers did on Infinity war and Endgame so much. It was a harder task than this movie, and they did it so easily I forgot what a near impossible task that must have been. Honestly, the MCU is really the Star Wars of our time. Don’t shoot me.

#StarWars RiseOfSkywalker

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icypantherwrites · 6 years ago

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Voltron Season Seven: Thoughts and Reactions

As you can see, I am out of hibernation mode ;p Just finished up a bit ago.

My thoughts in no particular order on season seven. Prepare for a few unintelligible spazzes and random questions that like, why were these not answered? Oh Voltron writers, you and your plot holes. Tagged with all of my previously mentioned ones so here goes!

Okay, so Adam? As much as I didn’t care for how he wasn’t supporting Shiro, I was excited by his role and inclusion in the story! Also, haha, I laughed because I named the one character in my Keith and Shiro backstory Adam and he’s a pilot too, haha. They definitely aren’t the same one because mine was a jerk, but I love that somehow I still got that name. (or maybe that’s how he and Shiro got to talking after Shiro confronts him for what he said to Keith? hehe. Look at me ;p)

But then. When they were mobilizing to fight the first wave I’m like, is Adam a pilot? And then we saw him and then his ship blinked out… gosh. Shiro at the wall with his name broke my heart. There’s a lot of regret there. Definitely something I wish had been further explored, but I’m not surprised they didn’t. There’s a lot that has been skipped over already.

So… Shiro has a disease that gets brought up once, never impacted him at all in the first six seasons and… never mentioned again? Er… what was the point of that exactly? (clone body not have the illness?)

Oh baby Keef. I cheered when he punched Griffin. Glad to see Griffin has grown up since then. But uh, can someone confirm for me the new cadet pilot with the glasses. Is her name… Wasabi? Usagi? And while I adore my Keith backstory this one was endearing too. And his dad died in a fire? Gosh. I had a feeling after the fireman refs but to hear it confirmed. Sad.

Where did Axca go? Like, she left the base with the Paladins and they have no resources to provide her a ship. So…? I’m curious with her popping up at the end behind Krolia and Keith at the grave… interesting. Once it was disproved that she wasn’t Keith’s twin I thought she might be Krolia’s sister but no mention when they met so… hmm. Curious and curioser. (does she like Keith? Hehe ♥ I admit I think they’re pretty asthecially pleasing together and I love Axca’s new design.)

Veronica is a fucking badass. As soon as she showed up on screen I’m like, that’s Lance’s sister. My sister was like, no, and I’m like, uh, her name is Veronica, coloring is the same including the blue eyes and in that really crappy family projection photo from season one there was a relative in a military uniform. Damn, I love her so much. Almost cried when I thought she died (twice xD). Also, her teasing Lance about Allura and her little smirk smile there? I died. So fucking cute.

This is my personal preference but I did not care for the game show episode at all, nor the “reason” behind it. There were a couple cute moments in it (all of them choosing each other to leave and I winced when Lance kept being called the dumb one and could taste the angst) but overall, my least favorite filler. And this coming from someone who adores game shows xD

The “lost in space” episode also wasn’t high on my list. I loved the idea of it and them forming a circle (that was so flipping cute) to stay together with the check ins (and a note to Keith and Krolia’s time together) but the words exchanged? I get it and didn’t mind but they never *really* resolved it. Not really. And some pretty hurtful things were said. Also, the fact they have almost fatal oxygen depletion based upon Keith’s indicator and their weary lines under their eyes, but then they literally bounce back full power to fight? Just throw the realism out the window. Just like the castle of lions losing all oxygen in a matter of hours two seasons ago xDD

How have we ever survived without the space wolf? Seriously? I’m bummed his name is not Yorak but I’ll take Cosmo. Very cute! Love how keith is waiting for the wolf to name himself. Oh, sweetie.

The Blade of Marmora luring with the Druids was delicious. Loved that bit. Glad Kolivan made it out. Wasn’t surprised when Krolia left the main cast; it was getting crowded and given that the writers have difficulty managing characters on a regular basis at times the more the less merrier.

On that note, loved Romelle in the first episode but she practically disappeared for the rest of the season. Disappointed. Thought her and Hunk were hilarious.

Same token bummed Matt was offscreen for most of it. But again, see above.

The three year time gap was interesting. Never really explained well either; pretty much I think a way for earth to get completely overrun by Galra. On that note, loved all of the Sam episodes, think the new pilots are pretty neat additions. Particularly love… Usagi? Wasabi? Kinkade too; a man of few words and I adore his name. Iverson too was a pleasant surprise and I loved his apology to Keith later and his constant backing of Sam. Also, Collen is a badass too. I do have to give credit to the writers; they make some amazingly strong female characters and it’s such a breath of fresh air (from watching YYH it was a stark reminder how things have changed over the years in terms of representation across the board on many things).

But one woman I did not care for was the Admiral. Boo hiss. I also hate that I called her turning on them as she was adamant throughout the entire thing about protecting earth in “her way” and I was waiting for this move. She did save the Paladins lives but she endangered them in the first place so… I acknowledge her desire to protect earth but am disappointed in how her character was played out. (and honestly, why the fuck would she trust Sendak to keep up his end of the deal? Why? Bit of weaker writing there).

Speaking of characters… where’s Haggar? At the end with the giant robot my sister and I were arguing who was driving it; I was Team Lotor and she was Team Haggar. Nada to both of us. Very interesting with that result too; how was one Altean doing all that? Hmmm. And with the colony missing something is definitely up.

The Hunk family feels I was not expecting and loved them. I was glad he didn’t endanger the team anymore after he found his parents were not accessible, but dios I felt so bad. It’s hard especially to see Lnace and Pidge with their families and he with none. Loved his and Keith’s moment too. ♥ Keith was particularly awkwardly sweet and I loved it.

And Lance’s family! Gosh. Him hugging his niece and nephew broke my heart and then his being mobbed by his family stomped it into the ground with love. So. Beautiful. My boy has his family and I am so so happy.

Speaking of the families! Haha, I’m excited that I was write in that both Lance and Hunk’s families are stateside and I am going with my headcanon of Arizona (Garrison location) given how they were *right there* to be rescued. My childhood besties idea for Lance and Hunk when Lance immigrated over is still well and strong!!!

Back to Lance. I was so so so excited to see him getting some really nice shots and pieces in this season. The sword (c’mon broadsword, let’s see you come back too), the giant cannon gun, the amazing sniper shots (hoshit don’t get me started on that part, I love good sniper cover and damnnn ♥) his attempts to seat everyone in Lions (whoops xD), his stepping up to really support Keith and be second in command... just so much good stuff for my boy ♥ I was freaking out when Red didn’t come right away in the summoning thing after he and Veronica went under fire, but I’m like, Red always does things differently. And then she came in like ajdfkajfklda right when Lance was closing his eyes and thinking it was the end and just, so good. Great timing on that part.

Shiro’s new arm… loved the angst and pain as first one didn’t calibrate xD I’m terrible. I will admit I’m not sold on the design; very bulky and I dislike that it’s not attached; that’s not a proper hug! But I am happy he has one so will go with that.

Er, this is getting long. Last few.

How was Shiro breathing in space in fight against sendak? Someone, please tell me. But also yesss, loved that the two of them had a final fight. Brings back memories. When Keith saved him I really wanted a throwback to the “as many times as it takes” but alas, no go.

On Sendak… is he the main big bad? He sure has quite the Galra fleet. How do Ezor and Zethrid’s turn to piracy factor in? Was expecting something else with Lotor given their mentions of him early on. Is space just one giant war out there right now? We never really found out any details and here I was expecting Axca to fill us in.

The Atlas turning into its own Voltron was super cool. Loved all of the fight scenes although I admit I get bored with all the constant blasts so would have liked those shortened down and more character stuff, but it is a show geared for little kids so… boom boom pow.

The very end speech via Shiro had me on my toes as I didn’t think any of our team died but I was legit slowly starting to panic that somehow the new cadets were going to be the new Voltron pilots because ours were unavailable Phew, not the case! Loved the little hospital scenes popping around, particularly Lance’s nephew wearing his helmet and then Keith waking up to Krolia there. Oh, and Matt getting a hug from his mom! (and that ponytail! ♥ I love guys with a nice ponytail, mm, weakness).

Overall giving this season a 7/10 rating. Not my lowest, definitely not my highest. Very much appreciated though having a longer season to watch.

If you have thoughts feel free to comment on the post! I will not be posting any asks with spoilers in the ask until next Saturday though so best way to get a response is comment here. What did you all think of the season?

#Voltron #VLD #Season Seven #Voltron Spoilers #VLD7 #Voltron7 #Voltron 7 #VLD Season 7 #Reaction #Thoughts #This is a giant wall of thoughts #I feel like I'm missing some but that's what I get for writing it all once I finished #I miss my chromebook #Lance #The Lance parts made me very happy #Lance Lance Lance

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Lilo and Stitch Crossover Arc: “Rufus” (Kim Possible) Better and Worse (Paid for by WeirdKev27)

Aloha all you happy people! It’s back to Kauai for the third of my look at LIlo and Stitch’s crossover episodes! This retrospective was made possible by WeirdKev27, who had the idea for it and paid for me to review these episodes. You too can buy reviews for only 5 bucks a pop. Just go to my ask, Direct Messages or discord.

Now with my plugging out of the way, this one, out of all four is the one I looked forward to the most, and out of the four shows in this crossoverathon to make the trip to the Kauai, this one is hands down my faviorite.

Kim Possible was just damn good and having rewatched a handful of episodes and the movie (Easily one of my faviorite Disney movies and the best DCOM, I will not back down on either), I can say it holds up every bit as good as it did in the early 2000′s. Frankly like Danny Phantom i’m surprised I never thought to get to it till now. But no time like the present: The show proper is a fun super spy sendup, but still feels unique: Instead of i’ts Teen Superspy working for some knockoff of MI6 or S.H.I.E.L.D., Kim is self employed, simply helping people because it’s the right thign to do and not for any reward with the help of her bumbling but loveable sidekick and future boyfriend Ron, though the romance angle wasn’t overplayed with the two, just hinted at here and there, enough to make it plausable for Ron to realize he has feelings in the movie and for Kim to return them and frankly it’s probably the best handled “Friends to lovers’ plot i’ve seen in a children’s cartoon. I”ll get more into that if I hit my stretch goal for it on patreon, more on that at the end of the review, but while it has no baring on this review I still felt it worth noting as that trope is NOT easy to pull off.

Point is, the show was smart, funny, engaging and had two great characters, a tremendously talented voice cast, and more anchoring it. It was a treasured part of my adolsence. It also had one of the only succesful “Save our show” campagins from fans i’ve ever seen. Despite So The Drama having been written as a finale and having reached Disney’s episode count, fan demand for a fourth season was so incredibly high we got one and it’s to this day one of the very few Disney shows to live past three seasons as a result. The show is in full on Disney Plus, along with the movie, which I HIGHLY recommend and hope I get to talk about, and the recent live action remake movie which .. is not bad. Not GREAT but the leads do make a good kim and ron, paticuarlly my boy Sean Gambone as Ron, and for a live action remake it really does get the spirit of the show.

But obviously we’re not here to talk about the show proper, though I REALLY want to now, but instead it’s crossover. So far the crossovers for Lilo and Stitch have been, much like said live action remake, OKAY, but nothing amazing, often shoving in sideplots related to Lilo and Stitch proper we didn’t need, forced morals and not really having a good amount of character intraction. The good news is this crossover DOES fix a lot of that.. the bad is that it also has some new problems, and still falls into some of the same traps the other episodes have. See what I mean with the full review under the cut!

We open at night, with Lilo and Stitch playing hide and seek. Adorably though Sttich dosen’t quite get the hang of it and proudly announces where he is. However things are quickly interupted when he’s kidnaped by a mystery ship out of the blue. It’s a good hook to start with, leaving us wondering who it could be...

And thus, if you hadn’t gone into this episode knwoing it was a crossover, giving us a hell of a reveal with a cut to Dr. Drakken being the one to kidnap stitch!

Look I love this Doofus. He’s easily one of John DiMaggio’s best roles, up there with Jake and Bender, and the one along with Bender that cemented his career. as one of voice acting’s finest. He’s just so loveably incompetent, over the top and quick to bicker with Sheego, which leads to some of the funneist moments in his home series as she’d either skewer him good or he’d shove his boot in his mouth and help her point instead of his own. He’s just such a great character and he not only fits neatly into Lilo and Stitch’s world, but the writers clearly get him perfectly. We get a hilarious bit where, fed up with Hamsterviel, who he’s teamed up with, he simply fakes the radio going out, adjusting the dials purposfully to make it come in buggy something I GUARANTEE he put in for SHeego and I gurantee she saw right through. His plan is to create a clone army of Stiches.. meaning Hamsterviel’s big evil plan.. is a copy of someone else’s.

Lilo goes to Jumb and Pleakly, the latter of whom has been collecting magazines adorably. Lilo plans to go after Stitch but Jumba says she can’t go on dangerous missions without him and to get a professional and this part.. does not work for me. Most of the time Jumba ENABLES Lilo’s behaviors and while not wanting an 8 year old to run out into the night is a good call, he also suggests getting help.. instead of you know GOING WITH HER WHEN IT’S LIGHT. It sounds more like Nani’s idea... it fits her more to not want Lilo to run out and to want to get help versus Jumba whose admant about keeping secrecy yet very lax on things, and you know would BE concerned that his prized creation was suddenly stolen and actually think about it. He’s just so horribly out of character it hurts.

And Nani’s absence really hurts the episode. See the last two, as much as I missed the lovely and talented Tia Carrere’s presence, didn’t really need her, though still could’ve included her: she could’ve made a cameo at the start since Lilo was there to visit her and she woul’dve made a better target for Spats than trudy, with Oscar fighting Jumba instead, allowing us some crossover interactions instead of having Jumba argue with a random asshole the episode wrote in. But it’s minor stuff. Here though? Her being the one to tell Lilo not to go would’ve made more sense: She’s protective by nature, and while she’s let go more since the movie, it’d make sense for her NOT to want Lilo to blindly chase after someone who beat stitch of all beings, as well as for her ot be the one to later tell Kim not to let lilo be involved. It’d be stronger coming from her sister and surrogate mother than Pleakly and it would’ve been a better arc to have Nani let Lilo off the leash so to speak and accept she needed to save kim. Instead she’s just gone for no reason and Jumba is grosly out of character and i’m disapointed.

That said the setup is the best and most intergrated so far: Pleakly sees an article about kim so he reaches out to her via a message on her site, while Lilo is stubborn about not being help.. obnoxiously so to the point it hurts the episode. While her being inscure about someone else saving Sttich would be fine, the episode never adresses that and instead just has her say she can because shut pu instead of accepting help. The episode would’ve flowed better if instead she accepted kim but Nani had Kim push her away, and thus create more problems. More on that in a bit.

But as I said this setup is great: it uses BOTH shows for once isntead of feeling like the first two, and honestly the next one judging by the blurb on the wiki, where its just “Hey x character visits Kauai”, here it blends both: The two main villians team up, and Kim is logically called for help since that’s what she does and they don’t want to risk lilo’s saftey. It’s good stuff.

So our other heroes enter the episode, on a ritzy jet as Kim’s dad had an old college friend with an airline. I admit the episode weirdly downplays Kim’s penchant for getting rides, getting a helicopter that appears to be a touring one and getting this one via her dad instead of the usual person who owes her a favor. IT was a neat part of her character: that she got help from people she already helped on adventure’s we hadn’t seen to establish she can’t drive herself yet and to show she’s an experinced heroine with a lot of history before the show started. I also like how a handful of episodes after season 1 had returns from people we HAD seen before or linked to them, a clever way of having callbacks.

It’s simple stuff Kim is ready for the wrold saving mision and ron hopes to get a vacation in. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

So the next day Lilo tries to go it solo but is spotted before she can leave, while Pleakly has built a.. photo colloage of Kim’s face on the wall...

... no wait i’m getting paid for this. Nevermind.

It is funny as it is unsettling though and Kim arrives and Pleakly faints.. Ron also arrives doing fake kung fu moves. This episode gets ron about half right... they overdo it a bit on the shenanigans, but Will Freidle’s natural charm and talent mean that even standard ron bits coughed up by a cat onto a page and used for this script still work simply because he’s that good at delivery.

We also get the who’s on first bit you all knew was coming as Kim asking what’s the Sitch confuses lilo and i’ts .. pretty funny. Again you could see it coming from a mile away, but Daveigh Chase and Christy Carlson Ramano really sell the hell out of it and we get a nice runner after of Kim misprouncing his name and trying NOT to say her usual catchphrase.

She also gets filled in on the alien thing... and while she admits i’ts a lot to swallow, she also admits she’s seen weirder. And given this episode would, by airdate (ignoring the one for So the Drama as that aired before the last batch of season 3 episodes but continuity wise takes place between seasons 3 and 4), take place around the same time as the season 3 intended finale “Team Impossible”, by this point she’s seen vengeful fishteens mutated by a horrifying summer camp, a rogue gentecist who basis her crimes against nature on a beanie baby knockoff, magical monkey based kung fu, a magican egyptian amulet, killer robot’s resembling teenage girls, a body swap episode, a plan using a barcode to destroy the internet, an attack on canada, a giant poodle, a complicated time travel plot, a trucker with a mullet, her sidekick getting turned into a surprisingly competent supervillian, and draken’s plan to use his rap career to promote brainwashing shampoo. And that’s just a handful of the things I was reminded of on the episode list. So yeah, this isn’t THAT much of a stretch. Oh and lest you think Kim never encountered aliens the series finale was an alien invasion by aliens Draken had pissed off earlier in the season. Suprised Lilo didn’t you know have Stitch and the family army pitch in. Maybe Leory and Stitch was going on at the same time?

Point is she’s in but goes with Pleakly in trying to keep Lilo out of it. And here’s yet another place the episode missteps: Kim’s REALLY patronizing to Lilo, treating her like she can’t do anything and later ignoring her advice when she brings up the current later, something that ends up getting Kim caught. The latter part especially bugs me since Kim normally listens to her clients pretty well, and had she doubted him could’ve at least asked Waid since she contacts him in the same scene. Speaking of which THAT’S why I feel her patronizing “not now kiddo” atittude dosen’t work: her spy master IS a child, her brothers have helped out multiple times, and the incident I mentioned from where she met her younger cousin who idolized her at an old west town was understandable: Her cousin was getting into dangerous stuff and throwing herself out there recklessly with no regards to her own saftey and impeding the mission with her well meant antics. Lilo.. knows who their looking for, knows the island well, and knows stitch’s weaknesses. And she goes from being annoyingly hostlile to kim to helpful, so it makes kim even more obnoxious for not accepting said help. It’s just.. draining as when this part of the plot ISN’T in play, Kim is fine. She’s her usual self.. not AS well written as the parent show, a bit too reliant on her catchphrases, but still not half bad and Christy Carlson Romanao, like Fredle helps paper over the weaker bits of the script. She’s not even out of character in her actions, as she does have a tendency to think she knows everything or undereistmate people.. the problem is it’s written poorly enough she comes across as insufferable, and unlike the show, where she actually learned something here.. she just learns to work as a team? When she does on a regular basis with Wade and Ron?

It’s just so frustrating because they almost had it just right, but instead just had to try and put some half assed moral about teamwork in there. They broke from the formula of having an experiment of the week but they still just HAD to keep to their own formula. And look Kim Possible has it’s own formula.. but it used that to great effect, often using the episode’s plot to shake it up in fun ways, and the plots were still diffrent enough and the villians bold and intrestin genough that it didn’t grate. This is starting to grate. And I do remember good and intresting episodes of the show.. but i’m starting tor ealize why I don’t remember NEARLY as much of Lilo and Stitch as I do the other shows it’s crossing over with: it’s so bolted to the formula they all just sorta blend together. It’s really fucking disheartning to realize something you loved so damn much as a kid just.. isn’t as good as you remember. And with these other shows.. I don’t have that as much. I accept proud family’s fault, Jake Long actually seems MORE intresting than it was at the time, and rewatching kim possible it’s excellent, same with recess coming up. I really need to watch more Recess. The most disheartining thing about this arc is the crossover just shows how BETTER the other shows were. Lilo and Stitch wasn’t a BAD show, and it isn’t here.. but it’s a mediroce one. it has a good premise. but it feels like they just don’t break away from the premise enough. This just... hurts a lot to type and realize. I really loved this show and movie as a kid and while the movie likely still holds up this.. this just dosen’t.

I need a moment... i’m breaking open the glass case containing my emergency patrick stewart clip excuse me...

youtube

That.. I needed that.

So before the bicker sisters can head off, we get our goofy comedy subplot: Jumba thinks Rufus is one of his experiments, one that could destroy the universe if not cancel and is highly unstable. As for why this one wouldn’t of worked out, I get why: it’s TOO powerful. Stitch is a weapon of mass distruction in a cuddly package, but he’s also easily deployable, kind of like Wolverine if he was in the body of a cartoon mascot. Having the THREAT of destroying ap lanet is fine and good for the long term but it does you no good if you can’t control it and i’td just destroy you too.

So he and Pleakly try to steal rufus without telling Ron why after Ron naturlaly refuses to sel land a chase insues. So while the boys and gender fluid person have their comedy plot, the girls head to where stitch was taken and find Draken’s glove.... they know it’s his because he put a note saying “return to dr. draken, his mother gave it to him”. That’s just.. fucking precious. And entirely in character. So kim aranges a ride, and dives into the ocean, but finds lilo in her parachute, and tries to send her back despite LIlo offering valuable advice both about the area , the current I mentioned earlier, and about stitch, i.e. Draken’s base is underwater (something Kim didn’t realize which feels odd for her), because Stitch can’t swim, something I genuinely forgot.

So while Kim sends Lilo back, or rather intercut with that but I choose to compress plots for my own convinence we cut back to Drakken and Shego. And I WAS worried that Shego wouldn’t show up, she wasn’t in the synopsis or anything and was delighted to find that nope she’s here. Drakken just isn’t the same without her.. I mean I liked the recurring subplot in season 4 where other villians would break her out, that was great, but in the end the two need each other. I may not ship them romantically but as a comedy team one just needs the other: Drakken needs Shego to cut down his ego and Shego needs someone to snark at and complain about. Sullivan and DiMaggio just had perfect chemistry and it’s easy to see why Drakken and Shego went from just another part of the Rogue’s Gallery to Kim’s arch enemies.

Which is why I am sad Gantu and 625 don’t show up for this one. I mean I can buy it: Hamsterviel likely is doing this on the sly to see if he can find a better minon, but the two sets of villians have similar dynamics and i’d love to see Shego and 625 dunk on their bosses together. It’s a really big missed opportunity but I do get it as they may of just nto been able to fit the two together or it may of been hard to block a lot of scenes iwth the human sized drakken and the giant sized gantu. So unlike a lot of missed opportunites in the other episodes, this one I at least can understand.

We get some GREAT banter with the two though. Out of the four guest characters in this one the crew really got Drakken and Shego down and the two bicker like any episode of Kim Possible, with Shego pointing out the massive bill on Stitch’s cage and how Drakken’s tried cloning about five times now and it’s never worked, and of course how he’s 50 50 splitting with a hamster bellow his station. Seriously why get rid of Gantu and 625 but keep the annoying rodent, I don’t get you episode.

Of course while they quack quack bicker bicker Stitch escapes and Shego gives chase. Sadly we don’t get a fight between the two like we did with Jake, another missed opprotunity but Stitch getting out of her grasp by licking her is objectively funny. Stitch finds he’s underwater though and gets recaptured.

Kim gets captured for the first time shortly after as the current caught her, but luckily she has kimunicator gloves and calls waid to call ron. Meanwhile Ron finally catches rufus back and Jumba explains the situation.. but Ron understandably dosen’t want to give up his buddy especially since Rufus has shown no signs of being a planet killer before. He’s not mooncake... althought i do think those two could hang. God now I just want a final space kim possible crossover to wash this out of my mouth.

So it’s down to Lilo, the really not all that ambigiously gay their pretty darn gay duo, and Ron to save the day. Lilo finally gets to do what she kept asking kim to do: use jumbas hot rod car spaceship thing to go down under the sea, and they send Lilo and Rufus in since hteir small enough to get in and suriive the pressures. Our heroes arrive and Drakken is nonplussed.. only for Lilo to prove WHY she can keep an alien in line by freeing stitch from teh leash drakken has him on using kim’s grapple gun, and then frees kim. The good guys win and the bad guys loose and the base starts to self destruct.. eh they’ll be fine. They still have the movie to get to.

So time for the wrap up: Stitch sniffs Rufus and confirms what the audience knew... that he’s a naked mole rat not an experiment. Which didn’t make sense to begin with for either show: Jumba’s archive should’ve been able to scan him or something (And if not he could build something to do that), and Kim Possible not only implied from day one Ron had Rufus a while, long before the rain of the pods, but A Stitch in Time outright confirms Ron bought him years ago in middle school. It just makes no sense and while it thankfully dosen’t take up a ton of the episode it still takes up too much.

But with that our heroes prepare to part on good terms but Pleakly decides to celebrate with Luau. Kim’s repsonse “Well I can do anything...”

And we get a gratuitous luau sequence! I do love a job that allows me to type the phrase “Gratuitous Luau Sequence’ They clearly ran short and we just get a good minute of everyone doing hula dances for no reason. I mean.. you could’ve done a quick gag with the experiment who was mistaken for Rufus... who I now realize given the finale was befriended by someone. I’m headcanoning now Kim and Ron came back for that one and Kim had him sent to space as part of one her dad’s projects where he and earth would be safer and he could help with space missions or something.

Final Thoughts: As you could tell I had mixed thoughts. As a crossover this melded things better, had a more original plot and the actors from Kim Possible brought their a-game.. but once again some disapointing characteteriztion and downright stupid decisions really let the episode down. These episodes just depress me every time and I’m looking forward to being done.. which given how excited I was going into this.. yeah. Like all of these despite their flaws I recommend checking it out if you like Kim Possible, if nothing else than for some extra drakken shego banter but.. keep your expectations low.

Next Time on Kim Possible: A team of spiteful assholes who are in a way repsonsible for Kim’s Career try to shut her down. It’s the intended finale episode outisde of hte movie people buckle up.. or you would if I was doing any of these. Though I should do “Team IMpossible” at some point.

On the finale of these crossovers: The Recess Gang are the final visitors to Kuai as Lilo must find and stop a lazy monster... no i’m not guest starring too.

Tommorow: Another kev one this time by patreon as I put two similar episodes of a show or franchise against each other and ask “Who Did It Better?” This time it’s two episodes of Celebrity Death Match, original versus revivial may the original.. probably win.

If you liked this review, please consider supporting my patreon, YOU CAN FIND THE LINK TO IT HERE. For just 2 bucks a month you get access to my discord, to pick a short each time I do one of my shortstravaganzas, and acess to my Patreon exclusive reviews! Next month I intend to do one for the show whose crossover gets the most likes within a week of it’s relase. Proud Family has already passed American Dragon so you have a week to get it ahed. And if you like Kim Possible, help me reach my 25 dollar stretch goal! At that i’ll review So The Drama, along with the Recess and Proud Family Movies. So check it out and i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

#lilo and stitch the series #lilo and stitch #kim possible #ron stoppable #doctor drakken #shego #Lilo Pelekai #Stitch #experment 626 #jumba jookiba

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