May we have a recap, please? :)
**spoilers for panic at the art show and home for the holidays**
OK people. I actually don’t have a ton of commentary on these two so I’m gonna try and keep it (relatively) short and sweet [Edit from Future Me: Failed Step 1].
Also, iirc, this is the week Dropout starts streaming new Fantasy High eps on Wednesdays which is very dope and I am very excited for. I probably won’t do full on recaps like I do for normal eps because, lbr, I don’t strictly have the time to be recapping these eps at all and it’s pure stubbornness that keeps me from making wiser time management decisions. But, rest assured, if I have an Opinion, you will hear it whether you want to or not.
Anyway, on with the show.
Last recap, I mentioned that this ep was giving me Aelwen house party vibes and now it reminds me of that ep in another way: Everyone rolled like TRASH almost the entire ep. It was so frustrating! They barely got any hits in until like halfway through the ep.
(Aw man, I just realized I’m gonna have to remember which spelling of Aelwen is correct again now that FH is coming back.)
I love how Murph is immediately like, “I need to make sure my wife doesn’t die during this fight avenging her fictional husband.”
Isabella also has Aelwen’s trick of poofing around the battlefield which is annoying as hell (ha) for the group.
Siobhan hilariously casts fear on Priya just to be spiteful. I thought she was doing it to help the evac process but no. It was a purely spiteful action. Bless.
When Kug turns into an ape he, of course, turns into *the* NY ape, King Kong.
“I roll a nat 20 on an epic shit.”
When Brennan was describing Kingston’s spectral New Yorker Guardians I was already thinking about that one part of Spiderman 2 (the OG Toby Mac version) and then he straight up said, “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us,” and I lost it.
“Deny the stairs the pleasure of my feet.” Emily is a poet.
I want to know what makes a pigeon spicy more than anything.
The fact that Brennan killed Ox AGAIN and then immediately looked into the camera and let the audience know the dog was fine because he clearly Oracle stared into the future between eps and saw the entire internet sharpening their pitchforks was so funny.
About midway through the ep, Pete tries and fails to send Isabella back to hell and Isabella starts monologing about her plans and connection with Robert Moses (she stole the list from Santa and is/was gonna marry Moses apparently). I wonder if Brennan was like, “These players are for sure gonna murder her without getting any useful info out of her unless she goes full Bond Villain right now.”
And, proving my point, Emily immediately does 56 points of damage, royally f-ing Isabella up.
This is a really civilian heavy fight which feels weird in a way the FH fights never did. Like, these aren’t even civilians who live in an adventuring town in a fantasy world. These are just normal ass civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Pete fails a wild magic roll after failing to teleport into the building and then gets a choice of getting really strong (which prob would have let him bust down the door) or to teleport in (which is what he does and exactly what he wanted). Very clutch when the dice rolls play into the story like that.
Kingston lightning bolts Isabella’s hair off which is just malicious but also totally called for.
On her next turn, Sophie gets hurt on purpose to get low enough to activate her ring, lets her hair burn for long enough to shorten it to a cute bob, insults Isabella, then knocks her tf out.
I love that Emily took one of her teeth (a seemingly crazy move) and when called out by Lou was like, “It’s a link to Robert Moses” (a completely reasonable answer). That’s the Axford one-two punch.
I didn’t mention it before but, Willie the golem is here, first immobile but then brought back by Misty. Post fight, he says he was somehow brought here by one of the evil factions of the city and says they’ll talk about it later. Also, Misty makes out with him (DON’T KINKSHAME HER).
With a high insight roll, Kingston is able to deduce that the group was ambushed (though not by Priya) and that their victory was a really important one for the fate of the city.
(Sidenote: The amount that Pete is Over Priya in this ep is so funny.)
Back at Wally’s (which is where Kug is now staying) Wally has gotten Kug a dog bed to sleep in and fancy charcuterie cheese because he and Ricky are the only pure-hearted people in NYC.
At the same time, Pete and Kingston have a very sweet heart to heart and then settle down at Kingston’s place to chill and listen to jazz. Idk how else we expected this to resolve, considering this is a Brennan Lee Mulligan DM’d show where the sacred pillars are Teamwork, Friendship, Communication, and Making up an NPC on the Fly Because One of Your PC’s Decided to do an Insane Thing.
Next up is the Christmas ep and Brennan, Emily, and Zac are in sweaters for the occasion.
Well,actually it’s the 21st and Emily immediately clocks that that’s the solstice.
Are cookies the good carb?/Absolutely not. But have fun with your life. (I love Ricky’s soft jock energy.)
“I run deliveries,” Pete says to Kingston’s parents, not technically lying but also not being completely truthful. Misty would be proud.
Going over to Misty, it seems pretty clear at this point (and it’s confirmed in the promo for next ep) that Misty’s fairy business is some kind of de-aging/reincarnation for herself. I wonder how many of these she’s done so far. She said she’s been around for, what? 200, 300 years? Assuming she’s been doing then reincarnations at about 65-70 years old and she reincarnates to around 25? Maybe 6 times? Idk. Just spitballing.
Saucer of milk to keep the faeries from stealing her (non-existing) children. Faerie lore is wild y'all.
Did you take another level of warlock?/Yeah bitch.
The fact that since Sophie has joined a monastery, she’s only taken Warlock levels and no Monk levels is very funny from a story perspective. It’s like, she finally comes to this sacred place to be trained to her full potential and she’s just spending what should be her sparring time playing with her cat in exchange for spells. Wild.
Emily’s cat-like, self-satisfied grin when Brennan is like, “So you just jerry-rigged yourself clairvoyance powers, huh?” is so good.
And she did it on the fly because Emily Axford is winning D&D. There are no points but she’s winning.
So, uh, Emily does, two things, very in character right after the other:
Thing number one: She send her unseen servant to spy on her family. Her dad seems hardline, “F, Dale. Whatever. Family first. She needs to get over it.” On the other side of the spectrum is her mom who is very upset about the whole affair with her siblings falling in the middle.
The second thing she does, very casually I might add, is have her unseen servant BURN DOWN HER HOUSE SO SHE CAN COMMIT INSURANCE FRAUD.
Everyone loses their minds and rightfully so. What a wild-ass swing that no one could have seen coming. I love it.
“I look in my backpack which is now my home[…]"
I almost forgot that Ricky was a fire fighter who would not abide that nonsense until Brennan decided to cut to him.
Ricky just dolphin swims across the Hudson in 2.5 mins to go put out the fire that Sophie set. Amazing.
Ally mocking Emily/Sophie: Truthfully, I don’t know what happened.
"I love John McClane, because he loves his wife.” WALLY
Wally: Oh we’re gonna tell a lie on Christmas.
“This is what winning looks like.”
I would really like to know what trace stuff what on the drugs Pete got from 7 but Ally rolled too low to figure it out.
Well it took him a long ass time but glad to have Pete on the selling drugs to kids is bad train. Choo-choo, dude.
7 saying you can hack in real life in reference to his AK-47 has the same energy as Hardison using the word hack in literally any semi-weird episode of Leverage.
SOCIAL MEDIA IS VOLUNTARY PANOPTICON
So Kug goes with Wally to David’s house disguised as a dog and, despite that, blurts out that he’s his dad immediately. Well, he tries to. The Umbral Arcana stops him, unfortunately.
"I lick my son’s face.” KUUUUG.
Sophie showing up with a raw goose and hellish rebuking it is so metal and it’s a shame no one got to appreciate it.
Me when Sophie’s Mom changes into black top in solidarity for Sophie’s mourning: F EVERY OTHER NON-SOPHIE BICICLETA. I RESPECT YOU.
Kingston is hustling very hard to get his man Pete a job which is a very Kingston move. That’s how guys like that show affection.
Didn’t mention it before but Kingston’s parents and Mom specifically adopting Pete is very cute.
Sidenote: Idk what 7 was talking about Pete trying to stay low profile. He wears a cowboy hat (now a ZEBRA STRIPED one, courtesy of Kingston). I think the subtlety train has sailed my guy.
Esther shows up at the firehouse, carrying presents for her mom and grandma and looking for Ricky. The says that she’s kinda dealing with something and it feels good to be around him (beat) magically speaking. Sure. I’m gonna keep my Hercules soundtrack on hand just in case anyway.
I think Ricky is the only person who, with no pretense, could give his crush a sexy calendar featuring him.
Anyway, turns out Esther’s mom and grandma are the furies of Tompkins Square and she’s fated to join them or something.
Esther causally: I defy you, I defy the prophecy.
The fury thing would explain why Esther’s mom would have cursed Kug. They are famously magical punishers.
Ricky is a magically certified Good Boy but we been knew.
Zac’s restraint to respect Esther’s personal boundaries in lieu of getting a lore drop to stay true to Ricky’s character is amazing. Mad props.
So we slide over to Misty’s Christmas party which Stephen Sondhein is attending and him having a character card kinda killed me.
There’s a post on tumblr somewhere about playing faerie incapability for impoliteness against a vampires need to be invited in and that’s what I thought about when Moses and his vamp friends showed up at Misty’s house.
Robert tries to talk Misty into striking a deal with him for protection from Titania. She’s very much not having it.
“You know Robert, I love a comedy and I love a farce. I’d like to remind you of who it is that started this and it’s not me and it’s not my friends but I can assure you Robert Moses that we will be the ones to end it if you do not. Do you understand me?” Damn. That’s a mic drop from Misty.
[As I’m editing this, I’m realizing I somehow lost a BIG chunk of text. I’m not gonna write it all up again but the Cliffnotes are as follows:
Between the Solstice and Christmas, the gang goes Grand Central Station to see the clockwork gnomes that live there because trouble is apparently afoot. Some size changing nonsense happens and Pete shoots a dog (with mini bullets, the dog is fine). Lou is enchanted even though Kingston is not (a common theme with him). Ally and Emily are on the same nonsense wavelength (as usual).
There are dope magical dragon trains under Grand Central Station that go to the shadow realm which is a place I’d like to know about. Kingston has never seen these trains before even though you’d really think he would have.
Murph says Gnome Rights which is wild if you know what Naddpod is like.
Anyway, the high priestess of the gnomes passed out the other day and they figure out it was due to pixie magic which is suspicious. They also know they pixies have access to a “time stone” which leads me to believe that it’s Brennan and not Aguefort who thinks that Chronomancy is the most powerful magic of all.
Sophie and Jackson go to Dale’s grave on Christmas. Jackson explains that the Order of the Concrete Fist is basically a literal school of hard knocks. A counterbalance to all the reach for the stars dreaminess that comes with NYC.
Dale was their chosen one who was supposed to stop the monastery from falling when some unspecified badness crossed over to this side, but when he went to the place where he was supposed to get guidance, there was no one there (clearly tying in to what Dale said to Sophie last time they talked. I wonder what she needs to get to the top of? Empire State maybe?).
Watching Murph watching Emily, his real life spouse, play at grief for her fictional husband and do some truly insane things is so funny because you can clearly see him thinking, “I am married to this woman,” which, in fairness, is probably the main thing he’s thinking when he’s playing D&D with Emily.
I’m probably missing something but that’s all I remember. Back to post-Christmas!]
So it’s opening night at Misty’s show and, somehow, Ricky’s first show ever.
I love that Don Confetti is there because of Siobhan’s offhanded comment for a handful of eps ago about him being a supporter of the arts.
Anyway, everything is going great until the second act when Titania busts in through the mirror which is *not* is storage as Misty requested but on stage. It’s a theater fight, y'all! And not the West Side Story kind although if that doesn’t come up I will be very surprised.
“Let’s kill Titania!” –Misty in the promo
Just going straight to 11, huh Misty?
