Top 20 Cartoon Episodes of 2021: #’s 10-1
CLICK HERE FOR PART 1
Getting anyone just coming to part 2 up to speed: I’m Jake, I review stuff and since last year I take all the animated shows I got around to watching last year, pick 5 episodes from each and pick the best of the best. This is the top 10. If you want to see who else made the list, my thoughts on the year and other good stuff, click on that link above then come back for the final countdown. Otherwise join me under the cut as I finish counting down one truly excellent year of animation.
Warning: Entry Five contains talks of sexual trauma, so please skip past it if you must for your own mental health.
10. The Flood (Tuca and Bertie)
“Maybe it’s me... maybe i’m the reason I’m alone” “Tuca.. your never alone”
Tuca and Bertie got a raw deal with it’s half assed cancelation after being out only a month, despite plenty of people loving it and more slowly finding it. Thankfully the second time’s the charm and not only did Adult Swim snap up the show, but they promoted it to hell and back, including a giant floatie in a river. Sadly no merch but thankfully i’m covered there thanks to some wonderful fan merch my buddy @jess-the-vampire got me for christmas
And despite having some hills to climb: having to reach a new audience despite not being able to re-air season 1, being on cable instead of streaming this go round and of course having to follow a giant incest baby TWICE, the show rose to new heights, deftly easing new viewers in while not throwing out season one as a whole, having tons of call backs and followup to the previous season. The result was a true work of art, taking what made season one great and making it even better, with more deep themes, more delightful weirdness and way more Speckle. I didn’t know I needed him making out with a translucent toilet but it made my day better so thank you Speckle. Thank you toilet.
So it’s not a huge shock Tuca and Bertie not only kicks off the top 10, but has two more entries. So keep out for that. But this one’s no slouch, ending season 2 in a flood of tears and on a wave of vibrator fish and hope.
This episode brings Season 2′s main arcs to a conclusion: After months/a season of therapy with her wonderful therapist played by Pamela Aadlon, Bertie is worried she’s made no progress. Meanwhile Tuca is at the end of her abusive relationship with Kara, a seagull nurse she met with a ton of chemistry, meetings we’ll get to.. before Kara’s selfishness, desire to change Tuca in ways she didn’t need ,and refusal to really let Tuca’s friends into her life slowly reared their ugly head. Now Tuca’s desperatley trying to hold onto something she knows is unhelathy while Bertie’s trying not to interfere due to finding out Tuca blames her for keeping her alone, having screamed that anxiety and others into a cup.
The two end up flooded out of the apartment though, and that’s where the episodes amazing gimmick comes into play: Tuca unleashes those anxieties which manefest into neat forms from birds cirlcing her iwth doubts, to her intrusive nighttime thoughts allowing Tuca to become their impromptu boat’s motor, to the most heartbreaking, a giant whale representing Tuca’s unresolved issues iwth her deceased mother.
But most heartbreaking is Tuca’s denial her situation is unhelathy and her desperaton to get to Kara.. only to find her just fine, partying with her friends and not even remotely bothered by Tuca’s clear anguish or risking her life for her. It sums up their relationship in the most painfully accurate way possible: Tuca puts in tons of work and love.. and gets nothing back. It’s there both threads mentioned come together: Therapy allows Bertie to have the healthy perpsecitve to help her friend, inslirping Tuca to get her own. The two also pick up Speckle who sees his dream house flooded and learns he was the prettiest doorknob all along. And for those who haven’t watched the show, no i’m not giving you context there. It’s a stirring, warm ending to a truly spectacular season.
9. Cats Do Dance (Jellystone!)
“Wait hold up why’d you draw yourself like that?” “Like what?” “Like wiith Gorgeous Muscular Legs”
Jellystone was easily one of my most anticipated shows coming to HBO Max. The next cartoon by CH Greenblaht after the shoddy way Nick treated him, CH came home to Warner and was given free reign to do whatever the hell he wanted with the Hannah Barbera Cinematic Universe.
The result is the wonderfully offbeat, insane and heartfelt jellystone. Going back to a more chowder style of madcap humor, Jellystone takes the vast library of HB funny animals, from big names like Yogi Bear, Top Cat and Huckleberry hound, to smaller ones I only found out about thanks to this series like Loopy De Loup, and lovingly taking their own spin on them. The result is pure comedy gold, succesfully updating the properties for a new millnium, givng us some nice trans represntation, and in general just being fucking hilarous.
And while I had plenty of options, the one that made it’s way to the top of the heap was Cats Do Dance, our first ep focusing on what I consider to be the show’s best group: Top Cat and his gang. Though Jabberjaw and Loopy are a close second, they just need more episodes.
Top Cat, played to perfection by Thomas Lennon, is as always trying to hustle, but this time around his gang face a new threat: the main cast of forgotten Happy Days knockoff Heyyyy It’s the King who dance them out of their beloved ally home and into Peter Potamus’ house, whose gone from asking if you got that thing he sentcha to being a hardcore weeb who tries our heroes patience but at least netted Choo Choo a girlfriend and me my most popular post of the year.
As you can tell this one’s all about the jokes, the finest of these being the gang’s brainstorming session which.. I can’t even put into words and that’s my job.
The rest of the ep is a whilrwind of half assed schemes, blasters, and a bonkers climax where all of this turns out ot have been a delicate plan that results in Choo Choo sicking a KILL SAT ON THEM. Killabunga indeed. This series is fucking great and I won’t be shocked if it makes the list next year. I’d be suprised if it didn’t honestly.
8. Yesterday’s Lie (The Owl House)
“You chose to stay there?”
Whelp this one hurt even more than I was expecting. As I said last time Owl House is having it’s best season, and sadly that will likely remain true given season 3 has the unenviable task of cramming an entire seasons worth of content into essentially 6 episodes. It’ll still be good, don’t get me wrong, I have faith in Dana to pull it off. She just shoudln’t of HAD to.
So with this one we get some long hinted at payoff as Luz finally returns home. And what I expected to be a tense confrontation with a malvelonet mysterious doppleganger who stole Luz’s life... ended up being somethign far diffrent, wtih the crew wisely leaning on the audience thinking Doppleluz would be something sinister.. only to turn out to just be someone deeply scared longing for home.
Upon finding a way home, albeit as a mirorr projection that won’t last forever, Luz finds someone else living her life and takes it about as well as you’d expect... as does Vee the person living her life.
It’s only when Vee gets caught in a trap, and finds her shapeshifting breaking down, that she finally listens to Luz who while understandably suprised at what’s going on, is willing to listen. Vee turns out not to be some monster.. but just a lost child herself, a baslisk jurassic parked by belos who escaped. However given Belos is such a resonable and sexy man.. he naturlaly had the poor creature hunted till she just so happened to wonder through the open portal to earth shortly after Luz arrived back in episode 1. With Luz’s quirky nature helping ease things, she went to camp then fit in fine afterwords.
This swereve is brilliant not only adding further worldbuilding and hinting at just what Belos is doing, hello hunter sorry you didn’t make the list, but also allowing Luz a look at what would’ve happened had she stayed, finding her mother with the daughter she always wanted and Vee having made the kind of friends at camp Luz has been desperate for her whole life. We can’t blame her for running, Conformist Camp looked like a horrible place and Camilla came off a bit bad trying to get her daughter to let go of herself. Wanting Luz to change was fine, as we’ve seen these two seasons Luz needed to grow as a person, but wanting her to give up who she was wasn’t.
Thankfully this episode fixes the Pilot’s mess by showing that Camillia.. didn’t want that. For starters we find out her first actions to Luz after the book thing.. was to apologize and offer to drive her down, with it all but stated she realized she was a bit hard on the girl, gets she’s diffrent, and wants their last memory together not be leaving the girl on a bus while she’s already upset.. but taking her there herself and sharing a few hours together before they won’t see each other for months.
The rest of the ep fully fleshes out Camillia, showing her as a kind compasionate woman who lets an animal out of a trap and helps treat it, supports her daughters intrest and even salvages Luz’s old stuff when Vee tries to throw it out, seeing it as a phase and something she’ll regret actaully doing down the line. She’s not perfect, but no parent is and having a kid whose neurodivergent, especially as a single parent can be difficult. My mom had to deal with that all through middle and high school after my parents divorce. While dad didn’t abandon me he wasn’t the one attending IEP meetings or being called when I had a mental breakdown. It was mom who had to carry that weight so seeing Camillia a second time helped me empathize more, realize she was carrying that same weight.
And we see her compassion and empathy at it’s best when she finally find sout just what’s going on, when luz is forced to bring Camillia to help a captive vee when a local asshole wants to disect her live. While the shock of her daughter being replaced by a changeling is naturally a lot, once Camillia has a second she sees vee for what she is: another child and just as much her daughter as the one currently trapped in a world she never made. So she quickly dispatches Qanon Roger Craig Smith.
But things aren’t so easily resolved with Luz.. especailly one Camillia found out her daughter chose to stay.. and Luz isn’t given enough time to explain it’s not Camillia’s fault. She just had.. nothing else but her mom back there. She was alone. She’s not here.. which makes Camilla promising luz to come back tos tay all the more tragic. Luz can’t possibly keep that, especially with the stakes as high as they are with Bellos.. but can she possibly do this to her mom again? We’ll see soon enough and the wait is as painful as it is intresting.
7. True Colors (Amphibia)
Did it ever occur to you — Anne, Sasha — that one of you knew more than she was letting on? That one of you might've gotten you stranded in Amphibia... on purpose?
I ranted at length about how much of a clusterfuck this episodes airing was.
The episode was delayed at the last minute, leaked and thus had a LOT of pressure put on it. Lesser episodes would be swallowed entirely by this level of controversy, stupidity and network dumbfuckery.
Thankfully True Colors is NOT that kind of episode and after a season’s build to it and an extra month of tension waiting, it proved to be the culmiation of everything Season 2 had acomplished and the springboard for the show’s best season yet.
Season 2 itself was a bit lopsided. The first quarter was a mess, mostly wasting the road trip premise that got me pumped for the season, with hardly any of the worldbuilding you’d expect and only two standout episodes. The Newtopia arc was slightly better, giving us a new city and part of amphbian society to explore, the glory that is Marcy Wu, and some truly fun and sometimes heartbreaking character stuff. It’s only true flaw was a lack of Marcy, especailly given they KNEW she wouldn’t be there next season.. or at least not the same.
Thankfully the second half ratcheted things up to the quality the show has now with a return to wartwood with tons of character development, plot progression via the temple and reflection on how much Anne’s grown.
And it all lead here: with the gems charged and Sasha reunited with the group, our heroes prepare to go home.. only for Sasha to flip the script and sweep the leg, staging a Coup. This ends up being the last straw for Anne, Anne ends up fighting to stop her.. and Sasha ends up fighting knowing Anne freeing andrias will be VERY bad after seeing a tapestry. It’s not as good as what’s to come but the opening act nicely sets things up, leaving us with a no win scneario: sasha and grime becoming dictators isn’t much better than Andrias winning, but while we don’t know his full plan, it’s not good. Whoever wins we loose and the tension in the sword fight because of that makes it an utter joy to watch.. and crushing when Sasha looses.
I also have to give props to an often forgotten part of this ep: Sprig Vs Grime. It’s a matchup I never expected, mostly because I thought it’d be one sided: a seasoned warrior with a mythical war hammer versus a kid who while resourceful and scrappy and no slouch as a fighter.. is still going up against a brick wall with a sledgehammer that has rockets to it.
Instead what I got was a spider-man, or daredevil if you prefer both fights have the same kinds of rythum, vs kingpin style slugfest: a much more agile oponent going up against a much stronger brickier one and in a mostly up close fight, going against Sprig’s strengths as a sniper. Seeing sprig have a close but ultimately triumphant fight with grime wher ehe uses the enviroment and grimes own weapon to sucker the old toad was a brilliant and awesome thing I was not expecting.
The next half though blows an already great first half out of the water, starting with that truly amazing shot of Andrias.
Just how unsettling he looks as he’s only moments from his goal... and how Anne unknowingly gives him the tools he needs to carry out multiversal conquest. it’s brilliant.
And while the rest of the cast does briliantly from here on out, the star of the show is far and away Keith David. He spent a season having to hold back, playing the goofily charming king.. all while the Audience knew there was something worse under there, but we coudln’t quite figure out what. Just who WAS this guy under his facade.
And the answer is the best kind of villian; totally, thoughly loathsome but immensely engaging to watch. We find out his backstory where he was betrayed by his closest friends, robbed of his possible multiversal empire and left sething and playing the long game for a thousand years.. and how he played everyone there to see it finished. He told Marcy his people were exploerers.. but their really conquerers, earth is next, and going home isn’t an option as they could warn people. The true meance and cruetly David gives Andrias is awe inspiring, being laughably evil one minute and terrifyingly petty and vindictive the next, throwing out cruel jokes as he murders, attempted murders and ruins lives.
Which leads to the best and most utterly crushing moment in the episode: Marcy reveals she was only on board as traveling, to keep her friends together after the amazing opening revealed she sent them there on purpose, even if she didn’t know it’d work. And being a petty sort of bastard, Andrias reveals this right in front of Sasha and anne and that Marcy was mereley another piece to be sacrficed in his grand game of flipwart.
The resulting scene is easily Haley Tju’s finest work. I’ve raved about how good she is in past articles and reviews, but it bears repearting: this woman is fantastic and her delivery here as Marcy DESPERATLEY tries to justify the unjustifable, all while Anne, Sasha and Sprig back away from her and Anne, already betrayed horribly once today seems utterly broken by it.. it’s fucking powerful. She tries to justfiy it with all she gave, and while we empathize given the circumstances.. it dosen’t make what she did any less harmful as Anne, in Brenda Song’s own finest hour, fires back with what it put her parents through, how much danger they were in. It’s painful.
The insuing fight is also great as our heroes easily overpower the frobo’s andrias has produced and get the box.. only for Andrias to pull the classic “i’ll kill your friend if you don’t” move by threatneing to drop sprig out a window.. and then doing it anyway because he’s an evil dick. And this is AFTER killing frobo and telling a fucking BABY “don’t worry you’ll be with him soon” good good he’s amazingly evil.
This leads to another shocker as Anne’s hinted at blue gem powers finally make her go super sayian god super sayian in a sequence that echoes and easily matches Dragon Ball’s most iconic super sayian transformatoins with Goku and SS2 Gohan. The sheer fury in her voice, the fear and majesty coming out of the transformation it’s awesome as is the cathartic beating she briefly gives andrias. Thankfully Marcy’s woken from her shock and saved sprig and then we get the devastating ending as one by one Anne’s best friends are left behind, first Sasha who, hoping to make up for her terrible actions helping cause this, holds the line (love is always on time), while Marcy gets them the box for the same reasons.. only to get gutted
I’ve used this shot for comedic effect plenty.. and will again, but it dosen’t make it any less horrifying to see a 13 year old suddenly stabbed by her mentor figure while he mutters a low gutteral “look what you made me do”. And it all ends with a brilliant flipping of the series on it’s head: Anne stranded back home in LA.. but with the Plantars by her side, now with her froggy family trapped in a world they never made. Add in the season 3 opening after this and you have an utter masterpiece. True brilliance and the fact it’s only #7.. speaks to how high the bar’s been this year.
6. What If?... Dr. Strange Lost his Heart Instead of His Hands? (What If?)
“ I know, but the world! The world shouldn't pay for my arrogance. I-I read about you; sensed your presence. You're a god. You can undo this.” “ I'm not a god. And neither are you.”
This year saw a WELCOME return of animated superhero shows. After Marvel had been easing off them due to the failure of their Disney XD universe and there sorta attempt at a new one with Marvel’s Spider-Man and DC has been sticking to slice of life comedies and utter garbage, we hadn’t got many. But thankfully this year Young Justice returned, Kid Cosmic Debuted and I failed to get to both. Luckily I Managed to get to two aimed at mostly adults that were tremendous and give me hope for the future, this one especially given Marvel has MORE animated shows coming. And wanting to catch up on X-Men TAS before the sequel series means i’ll probably be covering that series soon so look for that.
What If? is marvel’s first stab at animation for the MCU and is the perfect property for animation. Like the original comic it asks the titular questoin and shows us what happens when things go slightly diffrently from Hank Pym massacering the avengers before they could avenge, to a zombie outbreak to Black Panther becoming Star Lord instead. It’s all damn good stuff though I was reluctant to jump into the show at first, not sure if it’d really grab me. while Episode 3 got my attention it was this episode that cemented the true potetial for the show, how it could take things from the movies that hadn’t quite landed and make them matter
In this case it goes back to one of my faviorite MCU Outings, Dr. Strange and uses it’s weakest element to tell a truly heartbreaking and unvierse shattering tale. In this case that element is Dr. Christine Palmer, Strange’s love intrest whose just sorta there, dosen’t really impact him or the plot, and felt utterly anniclary in a tale with this scope.
So What If? finds a way to both lampshade that and show just what she brought ot the table: she was Stephen’s heart and together or not, was the only person he HAD before Kamar Taj. And this ep shows just what would happen if instead of being to operate.. he lost her instead.
Said lampshading is the fact that the events of the film.. don’t change. Christine’s death is now what brings Stephen to learn magic, he still does, things with forgetable bland guy and Dormmamu still happen, all that. It’s very much pushing the film to the side quick to get to the story.. but the story’s so good I can’t balme them.
So Strange, now sorcrer supreme, wallows in his grief despite saving the world.. and plans to undo that night, not realizing he’s trying to undo a fixed point in time and unlike the doctor not getting that this is a VERY bad thing. But we also wee WHY he goes so far with the first act: with the time stone he keeps going back to that night, keeps trying to change it.. but true to final destination rules chrstine somehow dies no matter what he does? Take her for pizza? a mugger gets her. Not go at all? She dies anyway in an unrealted accident, try and make himself die instead? Dosen’t work. No matter what he tries he’s left in an awful loop of watching the love of his life die again. and again. AND AGAIN.
So the lengths he goes.. aren’t suprising but are horrifying, slowly eating eldtich monster after monster till he’s left a pale, nightmarish, barely human shell of himself ready to tear apart everything to bring back one person. This leaves The Spirit of the Ancient ONe forced to call in a strange form an earlier piece of time, a plot device that would be used in a diffrent but still awesome way in the comics with the death of dr. strange, to stop him. This fails.. and what happens next is miserable. Strange saves christine.. but not only is she now afraid of him.. but it destroys reality.
And the final scene is what REALLY brought it up this high. While the rest of it is amazing from the horrifying time loop of deaths to the spellbinding and equally nightmarish scnee of strange absorbing beings while taking on their traits, it’s this that truly puts it over the top: Strange begging the watcher, who he can see, for help. Bendect Cumberbatch truly owns this episode from his arrogance, to his slow slide into evil, to his heartbreak but here he’s at the best he’s been as the character, and the movies he’s been in have given it PLENTY to compete against, begging the watcher to undo it.. with Jeffery Wright equalling him, being stern but not unfeeling. He’d undo this if he could. but it’d only put more unvierses at risk.. so even if he dosen’t WANT to watch multiversal genocide. He has no choice but to watch as Stephen is trapped in a prison of his own making, alone and broken. God damn this was some good stuff, can’t wait for season 2 or multiverse of madness. hot dam.
5. Vibe Check (Tuca and Bertie)
“That hurts my cervix just looking at it”
If you thought going back to colorful birds after the last one would be a break...
This ep is packed with great jokes: from Tuca’s build a vibe up there which as quoted hurts Bertie’s cervix just looking at it, to the entire concept of a vuild a vibe in the first place, to bertie throwing her vibarator into a river leading to it mating with a fish somehow (and those children coming back as a chekovs gun0, to Speckle deciding to just farm instead of quest with his best bud HairyStallion69, and yes he does use that sign on despite knowing the horses name and yes there is context to that your not getting, and finally the clerk at the store telling Bertie vibrators aren’t responsible for sex nightmares.. except the sex nightmare of course.
But what brings the episode here is how this bucket of fun is deftly ballanced around two mature and deeply intresting plots: the first is the lighter one as Tuca has a flirty relationship with Kara, the nurse she met in a later entry on this list and who utterly broke her heart earlier on this list. We get some fun bits with the two having great chemstiry and tuca accidently liking one of Kara’s old pictures while scrolling instagram.. only for Kara to do the same as a joking response to. But it goes from loose as a goose and ready to gander to “poor tuca” as Tuca tries to find Kara after she gets those dreaed three conversation dots. While this leads to another great gag of everyone bringing it up, from Speckle pointing out his sister dottie to Bertie bringing up her period, which leads to a phone smash and Tuca crashing Kara’s night with the girls.. but not before a forboding warning from a bartender who SEEMS to just be smarting from the breakup.. but instead sets up just how bad things are going to go later.
Though the two end up sharing a passionate kiss that had me playing this on loop for a few days
This.. this can’t not have been intentional.
The darker plot of the episode though that gives it both it’s name and gave us the sex nightmare, is Bertie’s own sex nightmares. While having some vibrator alone time while Speckle games, something I applaud the series for as it tackles bertie having a vibrator as normal and simply makes vibrator jokes out of fun instead of “oh look sex thign”. I’ve seen too many sitcom back massager jokes for one lifetime.
But it soon takes a turn when Bertie’s abuser from last season, Pastry Pete, who she had a weird and horrifying psychosexual attraction to, intrudes the dream. While her therapist tells her it’s normal and something she’ll have to deal with bertie spirals, literally falling apart.
And what fixes it.. is easily the most touching scene of the year. Bertie games with Speckle so she can finally talk this out with him and while fighting a dragon due to a messup, finally admits what’s been making her act erratic all week (she also threw out their bed).. and Speckle is understanding. Not only was he aware of her crush on Pastry Pete, and thus easily figures out he abused her, but he sympathizes with her, pointing out that ther’es nothing wrong with her, he’s here for her and ther’es nothing to be ashamed about. He also relates his own far less traumtizing story about having a crush on a friends mom who baked... and thus revealing par tof why he likes Bertie is a baking fetish. Not the main reasons, he’s a good boy but he does want his dick rolled up in a crossant if possible, which he knows it isn’t. The two find a way to have rough sex without it fuly traumtizing Bertie and the episode is resolved not with shouting like most couples resolve things on tv or big emotinal moments.. but with two adults talking through a serious bout of ptsd like mature responsbale people and growing closer as a result. And that, that is the sohws true magic: taking very serious topics and not overblowing them or getting melodramatic, but not underselling how bad things are either. They simply play things are realistic.. despite being in a world of vibrator fish and bara tomatoes, it works.
4. Knock Knock Knockin On Hooty’s Door (The Owl House)
“Dang Hooty.. you really are something”
So yeah let’s discuss the elephant in the room: no one had high expectations going into this episode. While we all love and begrudingly tolerate Hooty much like our main trio, we all understandably expected a Hootycentric episode to be a fun side plot before things got more serious and we got to more intresting things like Lumity next week. Cue the episode actually coming out and..
Yeah Dana got us good, not only adding depth to our beloved owl tube but managing to advance ALL THREE of the main cast’s arcs for the season in one episode. How someone pulls that off I do not know but those glorious sons, daughters and others of bitches did it.
And I do mean it gives depth as we find out beneath the screechness, oblviousness and clingyness hooty radiates the guy has some talents as well as genuine insight into his friends, being an expert with his own contacts on the three demon types, a master baker, phrasing, and shockingly knowing luz and romance well enough to land a 3 point romantic gesture for his young friend. And it all starts finding a useful way to use one of the dumber decisions this season to their advantage: Lilith leaving. While i’m still against Lilith’s exit, as I feel her addition to the main cast added something for her breif tenure and nicely shook things up, this episode almost justifes it by showing the impact it has on her only friend: Hooty. Hooty is naturally devistated the one person who ever respected him and cared about his company at the house has left and is in a deep depression. Lilith, seeing her friends pain, messages him back with hope and that he CAN help his friends. So naturally he sets about it in the most hooty way possible leading to three seperate but equally great stories.
First off is king who Hooty kidnaps/eats for the venture.. despite taking him to King’s own room for it. But as I said Hooty is an expert on demons so we learn the three types, including hooty’s which is suprisingly insect as he’s some form of worm.
Did.. did not need to know that. After some tests including our good old friend big nose (”I gwaduated from med school!” , good for you sweetie), we find out King.. isn’t a demon. It’s a suprising and intresting twist that begs the question of just what he is.. and leaves the poor boy spiraling, both at his abandoment issues and at not knowing who he is.. and gaining a sonic scream that would make Banshee and Black Canary both deaf and proud.
Hooty thinks he failed and tries eda and once again his way of starting things is some crimes... this time by giving eda some mmmmm drugs to get her to sleep as Eda’s been hyperfocused on trying to stop Belos, which is fair but she can’t fight tyranny if she dosen’t sleep.
Said sleep forces her to deal with her least faviorite person: the owl beast, who takes her through a traumatastic tour of her life that shows just how horribly the curse, and eda’s own hangups about it have impacted her life, from a horrifying incident where she claws her dad’s eye out to refusing to open up to Rahne, destroying their relationship.
But with the third flashback Eda finally gets some clarity: the owl beast isn’t some heartless monster trying to ruin her life on purpose.. but a lost beast horifically bound to the curse by a mysterious question mark man whose just as trapped as she was. It’s at it’s core.. just an animal who was lashing out due to it’s own extreme emotions meshing with eda’s. It didn’t MEAN to hurt anyone it just does what an animal does when cornered.. and this twist is both utterly awesome, taking a character I honestly didn’t think was one and giving them a heartbreaking twist, and allowing eda to finally accept her curse.. and thus unlock a kick ass new mode. And hot too, and hey she said it first i’m just confirming.
So onto our final contestant. Luz is distracted by her feelings for amity as well as her inablility to get the echo mouse to talk.. so to speak. So Hooty does one more crime and kidnaps Amity. Just straight up naps her. It’s a hilaroius reveal just having her burst out of a sack.
And once again he proves to have the right idea, making a tunnel of love that’s ENTIRELY something Luz would do. Out of all of these it showed the most thought and consideration, the only thing Hooty didn’t consider was Luz’s own insecurities. We find out Luz has been rejected quite a bit for being too cheesy, which helps explain WHY she was so oblivious at first to Amity’s affections: having a lifetime of people she liked NOT feel the same way meant she coudln’t possibly fathom Amity feeling that way until the proof was calling her mine while fighting a giant blob monster.
And even then she panics, and while Amity likes the gesture, luz has no serenade, no fire brigade just pyromania for the tunnel, making Amity think she dosen’t want her.
This, in a painfully relatable way sends Hooty spiraling. Like the creepy tube man, I too am constantly afraid of fucking up and thus overreact when I think I have. Granted I don’t try to yank myself out of the walls but that’s not how my anatomy works. Trust me I would if I could.
So King and eda are forced to clean up this mess while Luz is forced to be honest.. and thus it FINALLY happens. we FINALLY , after generous well set up build up, see Luz and Lumity come together, with Amity asking her out, Luz doing the same in return and the two finally being a couple.
Look I havent’ remotely held back on how well written and adorable I find this romance is, why start now. While it was a shock to get it an episode earlier, it was the best way to do it, forcing Luz to realize she dosen’t have to be “cool enough”, she IS enough and having Hooty realize he’s truly the richest man of all.. and to please never do that again. All in all a truly great episode.. feels like i’m forgetting something. oh yeah kings dad, the letter, all that... just in case you thought there HADN’T been enough plot movement dana smacks us with another bit that’s bound to come back. Truly spectacular.
3. OZZIE’S (Helluva Boss)
“ Stolas, don't act like what we have is anything but you wanting me to fuck you. Okay? You make that really clear all the time. But I just... I-I can't do it tonight. Okay? I'm sorry.
So we’re back from mildly painful to good god this is a gaping wound with Helluva Boss’ last episode for the year and part one of a season finale. As of this article we haven’t gotten anything close to a release date for part 2 but given the show moves at a “when it’s done and at it’s best” pace, I can patiently wait for the resolution to this episode kali ma-ing my heart out of my chest.
This episode is the blow-up that’s been building all season: Blitzo’s clear loninless.. and Stolas treatment of him keeping the two from having an actual relationship. At first Stolas harrasment of blitz was largely played for laughs, something he put up with because he had to and to the show’s credit lead to easily it’s funniest moment in the series back in episode 2
But the same ep also showed the core of the two’s broken dynamic: Blitzo tries to keep Stolas at arms length due to seemingly having no romantic intrest in the bhird, while Stolas agressively flirts and is oblivious to just how unequal their paring is or how demeaning he treats blitzo, his position as royal menaing he never really HAD to enagage anyone lower than him on the totem pole as an equal, and thus dosen’t know HOW to treat Blitzo.
And as the episodes go on we see that Blitzo.. is just as emotoinally stuntned, trying to wedge himself into Moxxie and Milie’s relationship at every opportunity to have what they have while being overly protective of a daughter who can take care of herself. It’s clear from the start Blitzo has attachment issues.. but it isn’t til lthe episode beofre this that we get full clarity. Via his drug trip, we, along with Blitzo realize he has a terrible habit of putting up walls pushing and pushing at people till they leave him because he feels it’s inentivitble. And ONCE AGAIN, that’ ssomething I can relate to. Most tellingly though his vision of stolas.. is being forced to crawl to the guy in chains, badly wanting something more but feeling he can’t get it because Stolas dosen’t treat him like more than a plaything. While the vision helps Blitzo not push Moxxie away and helps a little with stolas.. one person in a relationshp having an ephinay isn’t enough to solve it.. and the messy end that was always coming came next episode.
And it’s natural starting Point is blitzo’s desperatoin to have what M and M have. When Moxxie decides to take Milie out for his anniversary to the hottest joint in the lust ring, Blitzo decides to do his usual thing and stalk them. But it comes off diffrent: normally it’s mildly creepy but entirely played for laughs, hiding in a fridge, recording their dates, hiding in the celing. Here though it’s just.. sad. It hits home the guy ONLY has three people in his life, two of them happily married and would be fine without him, and one who while his adopted daughter struggles to accept their family, that he just WANTS what they have desperatley but isn’t healthy enough to have that. And while I haven’t stalked anyone, it again hits close to home: wanting that to fill the void but not being emotoinalyl ready or having a prospective partner.
So needing to get in, he does something somehow even lower than stalking his two employees on a date. He calls Stolas. And we see Stolas isn’t doing so well, sulking at home in an empty mansion, watching hella novellas (”That’s a mood gabriella”) and naturally darting to the phone when Blitzy calls him. We learn at the end that he and Stella have, thank Lucifier, gotten a seperation. And while that’s good in the long run, it leaves Stolas in the same position: without the one person in his life. The two’s situation mirror each other: two broken, lonely people who would be happier together.. but they don’t know HOW to do that. Stolas can’t stop treating Blitzo as beneath him and as a result Blitzo can’t see him as anything other than an annoyance. While Blitzo calling Stolas for a date seems cruel, to him he simply dosen’t get Stolas does love him.. he’s just an idiot.. but after treating him like a fucktoy and nothing else for so long nad never really seeming to care about him till now, how could he? Things only get worse after an awkard silence when we meet the clubs MC: Fizzarolli, aka that jester what had a robot him. I honestly didn’t pay robofizz much attention, figuring that while Blitzo probably had some issue with the real one, that the real one didn’t matter. In hindsight that waas dumb: not only did they get beetlejuice himself Alex Brightman to play him, a big get honestly in a cast full of stacked talent, but it was clear the two had more of a history and Blitzo himself had a history with the original.
And we find out here that a long time ago they used to be friends, then clearly more, then it fell apart. .and judging by the season 2 trailer and his positoin as right hand for Asmoedus, Fizz abandoned blitzo for both a better career and a fucking hell lord to fuck. So having to face him isn’t great. Stolas also isn’ tstoked one of the 7 deadly sins is running this club.
And while the two MIGHT have dodged the clubs heads... something happens. Moxxie decides to sing a lovestruck ballid to millie.. in the middle of a club dedicated to F-U-C-K-I-N-G. Sure people are on dates and it’s a couples club, but it’s less about the sappy aside and more about the getting nasty side. Nothing wrong with that mind you, especailly for Stolas butler who has a harem. Good for him. Cannot be an easy job especailly when Stella was around. But it awakens the sleeping giant and for the first time in either side of this franchise, we’re introduce to a hell lord, Asmodeus, lord of lust, actually giant cock, and velvety voiced assholed played by James Monroe Engleheart, who went from not really doing any voice acting to jumping hard into it first with Tarus Bulba last year, then with vortex and ozzie this year. Good for him, he’s damn good at it.
This results in at least a third if not more of the episode being a big, showy music number as the ambigiously coupled assholes torment Moxxie. And once in a nice moment of noblility, knowing he’s painting a target on his back and revealing his scam to Stolas as well as his pathetic stalking to moxxie and millie, Blitzo stands up for them (If also revealing he’s watched the happy couple have sex multiple times which while gross and horrible.. is also not suprising).. and thus gets verbally demolished by both Fizz and Veroskia, who happens to be there both because we missed her.. and because let’s face it if your going to make blitzo’s life hell might as well tag in the person who doe sit best. We also find out that , as hinted at in “Truth Seekers”, their relationship falling apart was his fault: he was all take and no give and it clearly does bother him to have his failures brougth up. While before he was utterly defensive with her and her bitchy with him.. i’ts VERY clear he hurt her, even if she tries not to show it.
Stolas dosent escape either: not only does he not try to help blitzo but he’s left hiding behind a menu when Ozzie zeroes in on him, pointing out he “gave up his life for a thrust”. And while ti’s more complicated than that, it still hits him enough to not do anything.. and for blitzo to leave miserable and humilated, seemingly validated that Stolas dosen’t care about him. For her part though MIllie bludgons fizz and given she beat up the secret boyfriend of a hell-god, and all she and her husband god for it was a GET OUT, props to her. The fact Ozzie IDND’T kill her for it and simply asked her to get out, something more reasonable, is remarkable as these two.
So we get an utterly devistating scene as Blitzo drives stolas home and Stolas tries to simply have cuddles inside, tries to do the right thing.. but it’s too little too late, with Blitzo, as quoted above making it painfully clear how he thinks the owl man feels.. and how frankly Stolas has MADE HIM FEEL. It may of been accidentla.. but it still hurts and i’ts clear saying this.. is a lot for Blitzo. He wants to like him on some level but to Blitz.. all Stolas sees is a toy. And unless that changes... there’s nothing worth saving there.
So that leaves our hero, with Loona having gone out partying, to sob on the couch as he revisits his lfie.. with seeing his sisters hitting him the hardest. What this means... we’ll have to wait for next time but Brandon Rogers kills it, both before this finally breaking it to stolas.. and after with his quite sobs. God damn man, this may be his first major voice roll but god damn he could be one of the greats if he keeps going like this. Truly amazing stuff. Waiting on part 2.
2. Nighttime Friend (Tuca and Bertie)
“Tuca. Tell. Bertie. About. This. Shit. “
And coming in second we have Tuca and Bertie with it’s most inventive episode yet. It reminds me of the format breaks Bojack Horseman tended to do, doing more as the series go on, playing with the medium to create something truly memorable from the scratchy writing based drawings of “Good Damage” to the silent episode to Free Churro being a monologe. And given LIsa Hanawalt is both a very visual creator and was responsible for Bojack’s visuals, it’s no shocked she decided to do an ep like this herself and even less of a suprise hers is a masterpiece.
This one focuses entirley on Tuca as she wonders around bird town every night due to her insomina. The other half of our main duo isn’t absent, as each night starts with Bertie TRYIGN to watch the latest prestige drama on Nestflix, something I can relate to. Best Boy Speckle also isn’t left out as he gets a fitness watch.. and ends up sleepwalking every night, escalating to biking, canoing and other swole activites with his legs getting super jacked, a nice running gag.
As such we get an absolutely gorgous nighttime view of the city, done in sharp contrasts with the backgrounds almost entirely back with only dots of light or the people around illuminating it. The buildnigs Tuca enters are also starkly lit, a diner she goes to is bathed in pink, the convience store she goes to in green, etc.
There’s also a really nice runner with an adorable elderly couple who play checkers and get fresh.. only for night 2 to have one of them gone, clearly dead... and a truly happy ending when a bunch of teens from an earlier event accidently bring his ghost back, reuniting them.
There’s other connective tissue too: a kid, who turns out to be a teen in a great payoff, asking Tuca to sing him to sleep, and said teens, who Tuca interupts when they have a screning of vintage campy sexy movie, aka rocky horror but with brids. God I want that whole sexual eagle song.
But the main one is Tuca’s aunt Talula. Coming back from last season where Tuca broke off her relationship with the woman, despite getting cut off as a result, due to Talulua’s constant abuse, here the two have reconnected... albeit still unhealhlity sneaking her booze. Talula decides to give Tuca power of attorney, something Talula’s nurce Kara questoins. We’ve seen her before here, but this is where Kara first showed up, serving as a mildly judgmental but ultimately right concisence. With an added push from Bertie Tuca takes her duty seriously.. only for Talula to shift back to Tuca’s sister Terri once i’ts clear she won’t be able to easily manipulate her niece.
This leads to Tuca finding some solace in Kara, the two hanging out and having real chemstiry and Tuca finding her the next night, leading to a truly sweet ending where Kara sings her to sleep. Granted things quickly went down hill as should be obvious, but it dosen’t lesson the ending’s impact as Tuca finally has good nigh’ts sleep and hope for her future. And frankly the later abuse is more effective given that Kara , like most abusers, STARTS OUT nice. There’s hints of the gaslighting bitch she is deep down, but the story wouldn’t of worked if we didn’t buy into the romance as much as tuca did before the cracks settled in. Still even with future events this is a brilliant, atmospheric episode with some of the best animation all year. And with it we’re down to 1. And given the cover image and the fact it hasn’t come up yet, you all know what’s coming.
1. Where I Really Come From (Invincible)
“ WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THIS?! YOU'RE FIGHTING SO YOU CAN WATCH EVERYONE AROUND YOU DIE! THINK, MARK! You'll outlast every fragile, insignificant being on this PLANET! You'll live to see this world crumble to dust and BLOW AWAY! EVERYONE and EVERYTHING you know WILL BE GONE! WHAT WILL YOU HAVE AFTER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS!?” “ ...You, dad...I'd still have you...”
Invincible.. was one of my most anticipated shows for some time. Not only were they adapting a comic I truly enjoyed, even more so having now finished the entire run, but as they announced the voice cast I only got MORE excited. JK Simmons, Steven Yuen, Gillian Jacobs, Jason Mantzokus, Andrew Rannels, Mahershala Ali. I could go on and on, but I was hyped.
That said I had some understandable worries too: I worried about the budget, since an adult superhero animated show that wasn’t a comedy hadn’t been attempted in decades, about the show finding an audience, and about the streamer as Amazon Prime had previously canceled the utterly brilliant Tick Reboot after two seasons.
And once the show started airing.. all those worries were sent hurtling away like a teeange boy tossing some garbage only to find out he’s super strong now. The animation was gorgeous, with only the ocasional corner cut. The audience quickly found it as the show became massively popular, and Amazon Prime , unlike last time, realized what they had and quickly gave it two more seasons.
The show is easily one of the best adaptations i’ve ever seen and being a big fan of superheros, a work that, much like the source material, is both a deconsturction and love letter to superheroes. Like many works it shows what it’d take to actually have superheroes around, a shadowy goverment orginzation ran by an equally shadowy and dubious head in Cecil who nonetheless makes sure superheroes widows are taken care of, helps cover up identites and helps out when needed, as well as the real cost: unlike most super hero works Invincible in both mediums is CAKED in blood, nicely lampshaded by the titlecards which get bloodier with each episode, and shows the massive damage taken by both the heroes and the environment. The show goes a step farther even by showing how the silver age concept of hiding your idtenity from your love intrest.. is deeply stupid after a certain point.
But unlike other deconsturctions like the boys or kick ass (and especially their far more edge lordy comic versions), Invincible shows these heroes are still NECESSARY, and that underneath most of them are good people trying to make some diffrence in the world. And that in the end if you have the power to help someone, you should, wether it works out or not.
The other aspect that makes it work is remixing thigns: some plots are moved up, some are taken out all together (an insufferable plot about William dating eve was removed, in part because the series choose to make him gay from minute one instead of in the closet), and it all works, helping keep the plot moving at a steady clip and compress hundreds of issues of story into what will likely be 5 or 6 seasons. Maybe 7.
All that comes together in the cumilation of the season’s major arc: At the start, the show comes off as a breezy, if honest look at a teen superhero. Marc Grayson, played by the utterly spectacular Steven Yuen whose gladly getting the career he deserves and thankfully has this roll to replace his wonderful one as Little Cato, the son of the world’s greatest hero Omni Man (Played by JK “Get me pictures of spider-man” Simmons”) and Debbie, played by the utterly awesome Sandrah Oh)
The show seems normal.. until the end of episode 1. See both series have a major twist, one now widely known thanks to the “think mark” meme I couldnt resist using as the image here as it’s also the perfect one for this episode: Omni Man isn’t some beneveloent hero from another world, but a conquerer, sent to see if they can breed offspring, and protect the world till the Villtrumite Empire comes for it. And he first shows this off by brutally and horrifcally murdering the Global Guardians, basically thin stand ins for the justice league of america.
Where the show improved on it was captalizing on a regret Robert Kirkman had: Rob had regretted NOT having this as the ending ot issue one, a big twist that he could then develop in the background. As such season 1 is spent on investigating Omni Man’s massacre of the guardians, as Cecil naturally suspects him but wonders what the actual hell he can do to STOP Omni Man. LIkewise Debbie starts to grow suspcious of her husband, taking her from what was essentially a block of wood for the first 20 or so issues of the comic, to an dynamic charcter who dosen’t like her husband showing his true colors, and serves as a necessary counterballance to the more viltrum flavored way Nolan’s teaching their son, even leaving the guy with a fuck you. Despite KNOWING he could snap her in half.
This season long manhunt cumilates in the way it had to: the episode before this had Nolan easily tearing thorugh most of Cecil’s stalling tactcs to keep nolan from grabbing mark, who was busy working through stuff. The father and son reunite to fight a giant monster.. only to be interupted during it bythe Immortal, one of the heroes killed. Because really he’s a guy called the immortal, Nolan should’ve seen this coming.
Much like the comic, Nolan rips him in half... and Mark sees it leading into this masterpiece of the episode. While we see plenty of the others as they worry for mark and the world, the global guardians get a paticuarlly nice moment defying ceciil’s orders to go save lives, the real action is where it was in the issues this adapts: Between father and son as Mark reels at his dad’s true nature. It’s the painful confrontation I knew was coming, the moment I waited all season to see adapted.. and as you can tell by the fact it’s # 1 it not only didn’t disapoint, it IMPROVED on the original, beautifulyl adapting the best bits while expanding it in horrifying annd mesmerising ways.
For starters Mark, naturally given he’s a superhero and this is a comic book universe, tries to snap his dad out of brainwashing. This fails because he’s NOT brainwashed and quickly explains the whole conquerer bit in a great flashback. But naturally Nolan trying to pitch “hey son let’s enslave everyone you’ve ever cared about and go against everythign your mom and I ever taught you” dosen’t work. Mark is the true hero Nolan PRETENDED to be. Thanks to his father’s inspriation and his mom’s kind nature, Mark truly grew up to be a great hero. Flawed sure, who isn’t, but a good kid.. who now , depsite KNOWING he likely stands no chance against his dad, KNOWING his dad will likely kill him, stands firm. Nolan isn’t taking this planet without a fight.
And the fight that insues.. is a total, nightmarish curbstomp. Mark does his best but he’s mostly a punching bag for his dad. It shows Mark’s badassery in his own way, refusing to back down no matter HOW much his dad puts him thorugh, but it dosen’t make it any easier to watch as Nolan absolutley destroys his son.
And the cartoon decided to somehow make a grown man beating up his child for doing the right thing even worse as Nolan goes out of his way to try to mentally break his son. He kills as many people as possible, tells mark how he only saw his mother as a pet, and in a peak dick move when Mark manages to save a person... nolan makes sure they die JUST to spite the boy.
The peak of this though is the train sequence. Good fucking god the train sequence. Nolan PLOWS HIS SON THORUGH A TRAIN. And we see ALL THE PEOPLE DIE ALONG THE WAY.
This cumilates in the comic’s best scene (still plenty of great stuff after it, but still), which the cartoon takes and makes better. It’s the scene I was waiting for all season, that I could easily here Yuen and Simmons deliver in my head based on how great their performances were. And they did not disapoint.
It starts with Nolan psyotically and savagely beating his son, giving up on breaking him and settling for killing him “What’s another 17 years”. The show then goes into a flashabck of Mark getting his first homerun.. and of Debbie teaching Nolan to be invested in her son and his job.
His facade of not carring abotu earth, or debbie or his son cracking, Nolan screams the rant above, taken exactly from the comics and performed as well as you’d expect from JK motherfucking Simmons... and with the gutpunch of a response that utterly destroys Nolan and the audeince emotinally “You dad, i’d still have you” Even after EVERYTHING, Mark still loves his dad.
We get one final improvment as the animation shows every emotin on NOlans face, from his pain, to his relization of what he truly is, to his decison to leave, crying as he leaves atmosphere. If you haven’t seen the scene.. well here’s yoru chance go do it now.
The rest of the episode is great, dealing with the faloout and mark taking ab reak from the trauma. Granted Season 2′s coming so he’ll be back and the final scene is great: Mark talks with Alan, an alien who showed up earlier in the season, fill shim in on wha thappened, and we get an awesome montage preparing us for season 2 set to “Hate to say I told you so”. The button gag is also great.
But let’s face it, that scene above? Everything before it. It’s instnatly iconic. And I don’t throw that around. This is the scene that MAKES a show and makes me excited to see what’s next and really.. I can’t think of antyhing that could top this. It’s #1 and I have a feeling next year Invincible might just take it again.
And that’s really this year in a nutshell: what we have here is fantastic.. and with the vast majority of these shows either having at least one act left for us or in most cases only having just begun, it gives me hope for animation. At the end of last year, I was worried this golden age was ending, that with so many classics going away the roof was about to cave in. And maybe it will some day. But for now.. we have some damn fine programs holding it up.
If you enjoyed this look back at the year, please follow this blog for more reviews every week. I’ve got some stacked plans this year: an ongoing venture bros retrospective, wrapping up some ongoing retrospectives.. and launching some new. We’ve got a watchmen retrospective starting next week, a sonic month in april, and more I have up my sleeve I’m trying not to announce till i’m sure it’s happening. But stick around kids, we’ve only just begun. And i’d like to thank you all, new, old, and what have you for reading this and for reading this blog. I never thought i’d make it to another year. but now i’m confident i’ll be here again next year. If you’d like to help me kepe it going consider joining my patreon., link’s bellow. See ya real soon.
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