MGADD Lunella and Adria’s relationship season 2B analysis
Around an year ago i made an analysis posts talking about Lunella struggling to hide her hero identity from her family and finally coming around to tell them the truth near the end of season 2 A.
In this post i want to talk about the consequences of that event, mainly how this has an impact on Adria and Lunella's relationship in season 2B and the arc that follows it.
One of the main conflicts from MGADD Season 2B is Adria disapproving of Lunella being Moon Girl that comes from the episode ¨The Molecular Level¨.
After seeing Lunella face such a dangerous enemy like Molecular Man, Adria forbids Lunella from being a superhero for a while. She makes Lunella get rid and save all the stuff that has to do with Moon Girl, like her gadgets and inventions, believing it is for her own safety.
In meantime Devil is left on his own to deal with the new crime wave that comes from Moon Girl not longer stopping the villains and allowing them to get away. Devil struggles a lot of his own, having a really hard time stopping all the villains by himself.
Adria’s reasoning behind not allowing Lunella to be Moon Girl is reasonable since she is trying to protect Lunella from danger, she worries about her safety as other parents would do in this type of situation. Through the episode it is observable through her expressions, body language and some dialogue that she doesn’t exactly like doing any of this to her daughter but she is doing what she thinks is best for her, even if it causes a rift in her relationship with Lunella.
The problem comes from how this leaves the LES unprotected from criminals and supervillains that Moon Girl would usually take care of. Because of this mess, a group of villains ends up taking the opportunity to team up and do a wave of crimes in the city, not being anyone aside from Devil to stop them.
Adria also becomes overprotective, if not overwhelming, since she is seen invading Lunella’s private space constantly just for the sake of keeping an eye on Lunella and making sure that she isn’t planning on doing anything she doesn’t know about. She wants to check that Lunella isn’t trying to sneak out nor coming up with some new invention for her superhero stuff.
As a personal opinion, I’m not fond of Adria doing this. It’s done in a comedic exaggerated manner but it still feels like she is overstepping certain lines for what would be understandable actions from her perspective. She even becomes a school assistant to keep an eye on Lunella, following her everywhere around school, making her uncomfortable and again not respecting her privacy.
Lunella finds a loophole to her problem by building a Moon Girl bot that she can control with a remote from her own home. This means she doesn’t have to get out of the house and she can fight crime at the same time. This idea seems to work for a moment until Adria invites Lunella to hang out because she feels like they have been distant lately. One thing takes to the other and Adria finds out about the Moon Girl bot after accidentally taking one of its arms off in front of the public.
After this Lunella and Adria have a conversation about the situation and, instead of getting too angry, Adria explains that she is so worried about Lunella being hurt as Moon Girl that she struggles sleeping and eating. She tells Lunella that she is deeply stressed about this whole thing and just wants her to be safe. Lunella understands this and promises Adria that she won’t go behind her back like that again.
Another point is that in part Lunella feels forced to hide or not be a part of who she is. As she told her parents in ¨The Molecular Level¨ Moon Girl is part of her identity. It is something she wants to be. So when Adria tells her that she can’t be Moon Girl, she feels like she has to suppress a part of herself.
This aspect is brought up by Grandpa Pops at seeing that the villains are taking over the city and had trapped Casey, Devil and the mayor of the city as their prisoners and Lunella crying about not knowing what to do. Pops says to Lunella that sometimes you have to do things or be a part of who you are even if it makes others uncomfortable. As much as it hurts Adria, Lunella gets reminded she has to do the right thing and stand up for it.
Lunella tries going to the lab but she is stopped by Adria who happens to show up in the room at that moment. Lunella tells her that she ¨hears and understands¨ but ¨she has to do the right¨ and reminds Adria that she learned that from watching her. Adria breaks down at seeing how Lunella takes so much from her and moves out of the way, allowing Lunella to look for her Moon Girl stuff.
Lunella returns home after defeating the villains and Adria approaches her, checking on her for any injuries. As she tries talking to her about the fight she had, Adria changes topic and acts distant- she is very uncomfortable talking about Moon Girl stuff and would rather avoid it, still struggling to accept Lunella being a superhero.
The two episodes that follow (Ride Along and Lava Actually) show Lunella and Adria having a strained complicated relationship with Lunella feeling like she has to walk on eggshells everytime something about Moon Girl is brought up because this makes her mother upset.
¨Ride Along¨ explores Lunella feeling stressed out about her relationship with Adria and fears that her dad will too if she can’t have an ¨Moon Girl moment¨ with him- this episode ends up being more about Lunella and James but her interactions with Adria had an overall impact on her action during it.
The episode ¨Full Moon¨ explores this conflict deeper. Lunella gets her first period and, as a way to celebrate it, Adria asks Lunella if she wants to go on a ¨mother-daughter day¨ to which Lunella accepts happily. She talks about how it has been months ever since they hung out like this to Casey and Devil and how she would like this day to be ¨Moon Girl free¨ as long as she is hanging out with her mom.
Both Lunella and Adria have a great time spending time together. They go to different places and they take lots of photos together. Lunella is happy that they are doing this again since she missed doing things with her mom like this. However, this time suddenly starts to get interrupted by some mutant roots that keep attacking Devil and they keep regenerating each time Lunella cuts them. This makes her have to juggle between being with Adria and being Moon Girl while she tries to avoid Adria finding out about it because she doesn’t want their special day to be ruined.
This leads Adria to realize that having to hide this from her is really affecting Lunella and she talks to her about how she is growing up and she should try to accept these changes better. Adria tells Lunella that she should accept Moon Girl, since she is part of who she is, and she loves Lunella for all that she is. The episode ends with their relationship being repaired, as now Adria realizes she was wrong for trying to suppress something that was part of Lunella’s identity and it is better for her to be allowed to be who she is.
In the episodes that follow Lunella is seen more willing to share stuff from her Moon Girl side to Adria and Adria is shown to be supportive in return. Their relationship is back to being open and not strained, like it used to be pre superhero identity reveal, except now it is different because of that.
One good example of this development is during ¨Party Girl¨ that Lunella goes to Adria for a piece of advice regarding Moon Girl. Adria offers her some words about what she could do about her situation and is glad that Lunella is sharing these things with her.
In ¨Guess Who is Coming to Dinner¨ has Lunella introducing Beyonder to Adria when she had to hide him from him in previous instances he would show up. Adria is confused and shocked at first by the Beyonder but quickly warms up to him and even considers part of the family near the end of the episode, asking for a toast in his name.
Last point, Adria is seen supporting Lunella in her decision to go on a mission for SHIELD in the series finale. She is with the rest of the family when Lunella is saying goodbye to everyone in LES as Moon Girl, showing that she has come a long way from where she started at the start of this part of the season.
In all, in season 2B Lunella and Adria’s relationship becomes strained for a while because of Adria not fully approving of Moon Girl- and it is something that takes her time to come around.
But in the end Adria is able to understand that Lunella is growing up and some things are changing for her, Moon Girl being part of that. Once she realizes this, their relationship becomes open and friendly again, with Adria being proud and supportive of Lunella being a superhero.
One of the themes of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is community; or rather, standing up for your community. It comes as early as the very first episode; where Lunella's mother, Aidria, tells her that "one girl can make a difference", and Lunella keeps that advice with her throughout the episode at least until the obligatory 2rd act break-up.
The threat in the episode wasn't some big supervillain wanting to take over the world or some shit, rather, the main villain was taking the LES's electricity which caused blackouts in the town. While it's not a typical world-ending threat or anything, this conflict is personal to Lunella, because now businesses are closing down because of the power shortages, and the LES is her home, she's not going to let people take away its power.
So, in the climax of the first episode - Lunella exposes Aftershock as the one taking away the LES's electricity and defeats her by grounding her using a pole, which manages to get the LES's power back. Lunella stood up for her home and community here, again, while it wasn't a threat that was world-ending or anything, the threat was personal to Lunella, because the LES is her home, and she's going to stand up for it. Especially when other heroes can't do that, since the episode drills into your head that "nobody cares about the LES", so they never had a hero to protect them...until Moon Girl came in. Moon Girl is the LES's hero, and she'll do anything to stand up for her community, even if it isn't a world-ending threat or anything.
This theme pops up again in episode 11, "Like Mother, Like Moon Girl'', which introduces the idea of Lunella being a "community hero", she's not just a superhero, but someone with a prominent voice for the community, a community hero, so her voice matters over all else. Lunella ends up using her voice wrong, letting the muzzlers gentrify the LES, removing its heart and soul. Again, this isn't a super world-ending threat or anything, but this is something that's personal to Lunella, because again, the LES is her home, and while its not going to be destroyed, the muzzlers are removing the culture and identity of the area, turning it into their own vision of what they think the LES should be.
Gentrification is actually something that happens in real life, which makes the climax of the episode all the better; Lunella learns to use her voice as the community hero more wisely, and finds a way to make sure that not just her voice is heard, but everyone else's. She's able to defeat the muzzlers and restore the LES to its original glory. Once again, Lunella stood up for her home and community, not letting some assholes rip the soul straight out of it; she made her voice heard and made everyone else's heard too.
She was not going to let her home be gentrified, she stood up for her community, her home, and all of the people in it.
Moon Girl is a typical superhero, she doesn't just save the city from bad guys, she stands up for her community and home, she's not just a hero, she's the LES's hero. If she hadn't stepped in, things would have looked far darker; the LES would have kept on losing its electricity and businesses would have continued to shut down, and the LES would have been completely gentrified if she hadn't done anything.
That "one girl can make a difference" line hits a lot harder because in these cases, Lunella did make a difference; she stood up for her community & home. It resembles what a lot of figures in real life did, especially black figures since Lunella is a black girl, and how they made a difference through their actions. Lunella's a black girl who stands up for her community and home, no matter what.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
Analysis of Beyonder and Lunella’s relationship Season 2-B
Around a year ago I made a character analysis regarding Beyonder and his characterization until the Season 2 A episode Wish-Tar. In that post I talked about his mentality and how he started to change his ways around the episode ¨The Great Beyond-er¨ where he was forced to team up with Lunella after he got them stranded on the Molecular Man’s planet.
In Season 2-B the arcs that were established in Season 2 A get follow up and conclusion in this part. One of these arcs being the cliffhanger that ¨Wish-Tar¨ had involving Lunella and Beyonder having a fight and ending their friendship, with Beyonder not showing up for the rest of Season 2-A as consequence of that.
In this post I'm going to analyse how Lunella and Beyonder’s relationship continues to get explored and developed in the newest episodes. It can be considered a general analysis of Beyonder’s arc in Season 2-B as well since it is tied to his relationship with Lunella.
The episode that explores their overall conflict until this point and the characters get to meet each other again is ¨To Intervention and Beyond-er¨. As the title of the episode says, the premise is about other characters helping Lunella and Beyonder to work through their issues since the tension between them is causing Beyonder’s powers to glitch out.
The plot starts with Lunella and Casey talking about Lunella has been able to find resolution to most of family problems in her life that came from the events from ¨The Molecular Level¨ episode. Casey talks about how Lunella doesn’t have any issues to be fixed and brings up how she thinks that Lunella has moved on from her conflict with Beyonder, only for Lunella to get very upset at the mention of him and realize that she still hasn’t moved on yet.
Beyonder didn’t get brought up in the first half from Season 2-B, so it is easy to assume that is a topic that Lunella and Casey didn’t discuss much after The Molecular Level aside from Lunella telling her what happened. Lunella was more busy on her relationship with her mother, Adria, and her family adapting to the reveal that she is Moon Girl. It isn’t surprising to see why Casey assumed that Lunella had moved on from this when she didn’t.
Another thing worth of noting is that Lunella felt really hurt for Beyonder not coming to help her when Molecular Man showed up to attack her and her family. It was a very low moment for her when she thought she was about to lose her family and she felt betrayed for Beyonder not giving her some need when she really need it.
To distract herself for a while, Lunella and Casey go to have a breakfast sammie and Lunella asks Casey to avoid bringing up the topic again.
The POV then moves to Devil Girl- a Moon Girl version from another dimension- that is extremely irritated of having Beyonder having being hanging out in her place and annoying her ever since he found him sulking in Molecular Man’s planet after the events of ¨Wish-Tar¨.
Beyonder took his fall out with Lunella really hard from the way he is shown to be in a depressive state in Molecular’s planet and how he is seen constantly venting about Lunella/Moon Girl in Devil Girl’s lab.
It is clear that Beyonder isn’t used to deal with these type of situations before from the way he reacts to it. It is normal for a person to miss and still be upset over a fight they had with someone they consider a friend but Beyonder takes it to an extreme, probably because he hasn’t had a real friendship before and thus he never had to go through having a nasty argument with someone and he doesn’t know how to cope with it.
He has been hanging out in Devil Girl’s place a lot, probably because it reminds her a lot of Moon Girl. He keeps bringing up how a lot of things in the lab remind her of Lunella, much to Devil Girl’s annoyance. She tries everything to get rid of Beyonder like blowing him up and having Moon Dinosaur ate him but Beyonder keeps coming back thanks to his cosmic powers.
Devil Girl then comes up with a plan to trick the Beyonder into going to Lunella’s dimension for a breakfast sammie in the LES so he can meet Lunella again and Devil Girl can be left at peace.
Beyonder goes along with this, thinking that Lunella won’t be there since it isn’t her usual routine and he teleports himself bringing Devil Girl and Moon Dinosaur with him.
The two groups meet each other and Lunella and Beyonder yell at each other, asking what the other is doing in here. Beyonder quickly realizes that this was a set up. Sastified with her plan, Devil Girl asks Beyonder to take her back to her home only for Beyonder’s powers to glitch when he tries using them.
They go outside and see the street and sky turning into chaos. Lunella thinks Beyonder is behind it only that he didn’t intended to do that. He tries using his powers again and it leads to rain hotdogs all over LES. The group decide to take shelter inside Lunella’s lab until they are able to figure out what is going on.
While Devil and Moon Dinosaurs are eating hot dogs outside, Beyonder tries using his powers again when Devil Girl asks him, this makes the them and their enviroment glitch for a minute before it goes back to normal. Casey comes to the conclusion that Beyonder’s powers aren’t working because they are tied to his emotional state and he needs to be balanced to be able to use them. When he met Lunella again, this lead to a lot tension inside him and for him to lose control of his powers. Casey proposes to help them work through their issues so Beyonder is able to be in a balance emotional state again.
Casey’s theory further proves the point that ever since coming to Earth, or more specifically meeting Lunella and trying to become her friend, Beyonder has been developing new emotions that it is implied his species usually wouldn’t experience normally. Casey says that most of the time Beyonder doesn’t ¨experience emotions¨, which is a weird wording because Beyonder has been seen shown to react to certain events in a emotional way. Perhaps what this means is that he hasn’t had to go through the complications that come from having a friendship or relationship with someone else. He didn’t fully ever get to feel more intense feelings of betrayal, being hurt and missing a person before.
Again, this gives the idea that Beyonder didn’t have a real friendship before getting to know Lunella. He seemed to lack understanding of how they work in his dialogue from ¨Wish-Tar¨.
It is easy to assume he had some aquantacies but not a close friend and he started to see and care about Lunella that as a friend around and after the events the episode ¨The Great Beyond-er¨.
And because of this, after ¨Wish-Tar¨ his emotions of feeling hurt and betrayed developed in such a way that they threw him off from his normal state that allow him to be in control of his powers.
Casey tries applying some of methods to help Lunella and Beyonder to work on their issues while Devil Girl builds a memory eraser to ¨forget all that happened¨ once she gets back to her dimension. All these methods end up backfiring as Lunella and Beyonder are way too stubborn to admit they did wrong from their part and talk about what happened.
Tired of her ideas not working and the two not cooperating, Casey allows for Devil Girl to use some of her methods, which involve letting one’s frustration and anger out. She suggests to Lunella and Beyonder to yell at each other, which they both try and go for a moment before they find themselves talking about what happened.
From Lunella’s side, she brings up her frustrations at Beyonder not properly apologizing nor taking accountability for his actions, something that she is proven right since Beyonder is shocked and confused when he listens the mention of this past events. Lunella brings up every instance that he has brought chaos to her life, giving an extra emphasis of when she called for his help during the Molecular Man battle in ¨The Molecular Level¨ but Beyonder never showed up.
Lunella takes the last point as the one that seemed to hurt her the most, feeling like Beyonder abandoned her in a moment that was very low for her. The way she talks about it gives a whole feeling of betrayal from her part, probably because she genuinely thought that Beyonder cared about her and was really hurt when she believed it wasn’t the case in her fight against Molecular.
All this is tied to how Beyonder, being a cosmic entity, doesn't see how his actions and pranks can affect mortals as he rarely has to be held accountable. A lot of his dialogue during this scene shows that it is something that he didn't consider before because he didn't exactly have people he cared about to be able to see that. For him all this pranks where just ¨fun and games¨ that didn’t have a serious impact on others. He didn’t have a serious connection to other beings before, meaning he didn’t fully have to consider how this things could hurt others.
It is possible that before Lunella, he didn’t see the weight and consequences of his actions since he was always way above others to be able to see it from their point of view.
From Beyonder's side, he brings up how he felt used for Lunella in episode ¨Wish Tar¨ and how Lunella only seems to want him around because when she needs him for his powers. He really thought that Lunella was being genuine in ¨Wish-tar¨ and didn’t fully see that Lunella was using his powers to become more popular between her peers at school. For once he was trying to be good to her and not bring any trouble only for Lunella to take advantage of that.
This hurt Beyonder on an extra level since Lunella told him that he could be more than his powers in ¨The Great Beyonder¨ and Beyonder was deeply touched by this as it was a difficult low momento for him. So for Lunella to see the value in her relationship with Beyonder only for his cosmic powers made Beyonder feel betrayed by Lunella’s words.
Lunella admits that she was wrong for treating him they way she did in ¨Wish-Tar¨ but that doesn't erase that Beyonder has done a lot to her in the past and, while Beyonder had good intentions and wanted to try to be Lunella's friend, Lunella says that friendships don't work that way and it is more complicated that Beyonder thinks it is.
This is connected to Beyonder’s lack of awareness of how his actions can hurt others- he also has a lack of understanding of how friendships work in general since it is a new concept for him. He doesn’t know how to make friends and it isn’t something that you can get by just granting them any wish they want like he did in ¨Wish-Tar¨.
While in part comes from Lunella not being honest from the start about how maybe she wanted more space before trying to be friends, Beyonder didn’t see how much she hurt Lunella and her family in previous encounters and didn’t fully awknowledged this to Lunella.
He didn’t consider how she would feel about the whole idea and thought she was going to be okay with it.
Beyonder admits that he didn’t consider how his past pranks hurt Lunella and he can see it better now after Lunella told him. He shows that he was wrong about the way he approached Lunella in ¨Wish-Tar¨ without thinking how she really felt about it and that his pranks hurt her more than he assumed.
Lunella still clarifies that she was still in the wrong for how she treated Beyonder when he was trying to be nice for once and apologizes for doing that. Beyonder returns the same feeling by apologizing for the way he acted in the past, finally showing proper regret of his actions.
By the end of the conversation they reach common ground by admiting and apologizing for what they did to each other.
Casey asks Beyonder if he is feeling better now to use his powers. Beyonder thinks it is the case, he says goodbye to Lunella and tries going back to Devil Girl’s dimension only for a giant crack to open the sky and tons of giant robot bugs creatures to come through and invade the city. Beyonder’s powers are still glitching somehow in spite of having worked things through with Lunella.
As they are fighting the bug creatures outside, Beyonder remembers that Devil Girl made a memory wipe in her scanner and suggest that the other option they could try is him erasing his memories from Lunella so his powers can go back to normal.
Lunella and Casey think that the idea is kind of drastic and they don’t have to take it that far. Beyonder says that it is probably the only way because the planet would be put in danger if they don't- and he knows he can't let that happen because it is Lunella's home. He is willing to risk erasing part of his memories because he cares about Lunella and he doesn’t want to see something that Lunella cares about getting destroyed because of his own powers.
Seeing Beyonder being okay with doing this, makes Lunella realize that Beyonder does care about her enough to sacrifice something he considers personal for him. She believed this wasn’t the case for what happened when Molecular showed up, so she is surprised and (probably relieved) to see that it isn’t the case.
When they finally reach the scanner, Beyonder he is reminded of the moments he had with Lunella and hestitates in pushing the button. He then gets stopped by Lunella a second before activating the gadget. He is shocked by this, not understanding why she doesn’t want him to carry out the plan.
Lunella tells him that there has to be another way to fix this issue that doesn’t have to involve Beyonder having to erase his memories of her, confessing that she doesn’t want to lose Beyonder. She is able to see now that she cares about him and doesn’t want to lose the relationship they have. Lunella believes that their memories are worth of preserving, both the good and the bad. She proposes to Beyonder that they could try starting over their friendship without having to erase what happened.
Beyonder is touched by this, Lunella is willing to take the risk for him, proving to him that she does in fact cares about him and not just for his powers as he previously thought. He likes Lunella’s plan and both decide to ¨start over¨.
This causes Beyonder’s powers go back to normal and the glitches to disappear. Beyonder thanks Lunella for taking the risk and willing to try to be friends again.
After Devil Girl and Moon Dinosaur are zapped back to their dimension, Beyonder brings up that he has nothing to do, hinting at Lunella if they could hang out. Lunella then invites him to join them in movie night, showing that she is keeping her word in trying to be friends with him again.
Beyonder’s next appearance is in the episode ¨Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?¨. He shows up to Lunella while she and her mother Adria are checking for music disks in a store. They are a lot friendlier with each other in contrast to ¨To Intervention and Beyond-er¨ as Lunella greets Beyonder in a friendly manner and they have a short conversation about music. It hard to guess how much time has passed between ¨To Intervention and Beyond-er¨ and this episode. They seem to be in way better terms now, implying that maybe they have seen each a few times in between the two episodes.
Another aspect is that Lunella doesn’t have any issues with introducing Beyonder to Adria. In previous Beyonder’s appearances she would try to hide Beyonder from the Lafayette family, probably because she didn’t want them to find out about Moon Girl. In here she tells Adria that Beyonder is her friend and explains his origins. This a good development from Lunella’s part, as she shows to be able to be more open about other things with her family now.
Adria is a bit taken back by the Beyonder at first. However, she quickly realizes that she could use his all knowing powers to learn what Lunella is keeping secret from the rest of the family, so she invites Beyonder to come to dinner later that same day.
When Beyonder shows up at Lafayette’s residence, Lunella is okay with Beyonder having dinner with them if Adria invited him. Although there are some moments she expresses being partially worried since her family isn’t used to Beyonder’s unpredictable nature she doesn’t think there is going to be a real issue with him.
Adria tries asking Beyonder questions about Lunella’s secret only to get interrumpted constantly by Beyonder asking her about human family stuff. Considering that Beyonder is aware what Adria is planning to do, it wouldn’t be out of place to assume he does this to mess with her and to respect Lunella’s privacy. It is a nice gesture that he takes into consideration not to tell certain things about Lunella to the Lafayettes unless Lunella is okay with it.
Later on the Beyonder catches the Lafayette talking about these plans and shows curiosity about what they are doing. The family explains to him that ¨there shouldn’t be any secrets in a family¨ and that they believe that they are helping Lunella by making her telling them what she is trying to hide from them
From their perspective, it is understandable why they are trying to push Lunella to tell them what is going on because she has hid secrets from them in the past and they don’t want the same thing to repeat all over. They don’t like the idea of having to hide secrets between them after the events of ¨The Molecular Level¨ and in their own way they want to insist to Lunella that she doesn’t have to hide things from them like she used to. The issue is the way they approach the situation by pushing her too much and not respecting well her boundaries.
Beyonder believes the Lafayattes and decides to use his powers since he thinks he would be helping Lunella by doing this. He has good intentions and he is trying his best to understand how human relationships work, so he goes along with their plan as he believes what they are talking about. If they say that keeping secrets in a family is bad, then they have to be right about it.
During dinner time the Lafayettes find themselves spilling out private things from silly ideas to secrets from things they did years ago. They can’t stop themselves from being too honest and too open with each other, without understanding why that is happening.
Lunella asks Beyonder what did he do and he explains that he used his powers to make the family ¨to open up¨ just like they asked. The Lafayette then confess that it was part of their plan to make Lunella tell them what is happening to her and they keeping pushing Lunella more and more, making her feeling uncomfortable.
Beyonder quickly notices this and stands up for Lunella, seeing that she doesn’t like being forced to say certain things if she doesn’t want to. He went along with this plan because he was lead to believe that he was helping Lunella by doing this but it is doing the exact opposite of that.
To fix the problem, Beyonder teleports Lunella and her family to separate dimensions. Lunella ends up in an empty space void where she feels like has space on her own to think, thanking Beyonder for doing that for her. The rest of family gets sent to dimensions that have to do with their secrets, keeping them distracted while Lunella has some time alone for herself.
This gesture from Beyonder shows that he tries to pay attention better to how using his powers affect Lunella, even if he was trying to help her. He sees that Lunella’s family was overstepping her boundaries and did something to change that. There is also a sense of protectiveness coming from him for the way he separated Lunella from the rest of the Lafayettes until they understood that what they were doing was wrong.
He has been protective of Lunella in the past, saving her a few times. The difference in here is that he goes an extra level in making others respect Lunella’s privacy and the way they make her feel.
He calls out the Lafayettes for pushing Lunella too far and trying to force to spill her secrets without giving her the space she needed. They admit that they were in the wrong for trying to do that since they themselves didn’t like when they were forced to spill out their own secrets under Beyonder’s powers.
Beyonder allows them to see Lunella and they apologize to her for scheming behind her back and they are going to give her the time she needs to tell them what she doesn’t feel ready yet.
Lunella goes to them and hugs them, making up with her family. In a surprising moment, Lunella later runs to Beyonder and gives him a hug, thanking him for helping her. Beyonder is a bit taken back by this and eventually hugs Lunella back.
Back on dinner, Adria proposes a toast for the family and points to Beyonder. The rest of the family does the same by raising their glasses to Beyonder too. Beyonder is left emotional about it, making them feel like he is part of the family.
In ¨Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?¨ has Lunella and Beyonder having a friendler relationship with each other and getting along. In spite of not interacting as much as they did in ¨To Intervention and Beyond-er¨ since Beyonder spends most of the episode interacting with the Lafayettes, the episode gives a good idea of where their relationship is now and how Beyonder is trying to be better by helping Lunella.
In all, this part of the season serves as resolution to the problems that came from episode ¨Wish-Tar¨ and Lunella and Beyonder trying to start their relationship over as they care about each other enough to be friends again. The last Beyonder episode has them being friends and Beyonder getting to know the rest of the Lafayette family better, with them considering him part of their family after he helps them with their issues.
Although they started as enemies and went through some rough moments, the series ends with Lunella and Beyonder being friends, choosing to start again all over but with accepting what they did wrong in their first time trying it.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur S2-A: Trying to live a double life- Lunella’s character arc analysis
In Season 2-A, one of the main character arcs of Lunella is her trying to balance his normal and superhero life and her being conflicted about telling her family that she is Moon Girl and the reactions she could get from them.
Along with this, Lunella’s life as superhero is becoming harder as she is having to deal with tougher enemies and it is taking a mental toll on her. She tries to hide things that are affecting her negatively, mentally speaking, and even doesn’t want Mimi to know about.
In this post i’m going to discuss this part of Lunella’s arc on this season and the different problems that trying to keep her identity as supehero from her family brings to her. I’m going to go by episode that explores and develops the conflict in some way.
Let's start:
The conflict is brought up for the first time in ¨Suit Up!¨ by Mimi to Lunella. Mimi asks Lunella if she wants to talk to the rest of the family about her being Moon Girl, Lunella says that she isn’t sure but mentions that then they would have to explain that Mimi was the Original Moon Girl too. Mimi understands that it could take a while before they explain the situation. Instead she decides to take Lunella to a friends’ house from her days as scientist to help her with building a new suit.
The episode on itself doesn’t explore the struggles that come with keeping a super identity secret. However, it explores Lunella’s mental state after the battle she had with Molecular Man. We are beginning to see that she tries to keep all these issues to herself, struggling with opening up about her traumatic experiences. This gives a good idea of why she needs her family support in these situations and not deal with this issues on her own.
The episodes that follow are more about Lunella learning that some people she fights against may have their own reasons of why they end up doing bad things. The conflict about Lunella’s superhero identity is dropped for a while until what would be more or less the later half of season 2 A.
It could be argued that there is some parallel between Marvin standing up to his father about what the type of person he wants to be in ¨Kid Kree¨ and Lunella struggling to tell her family about her being Moon Girl. Both characters have parallels to each other, so, it wouldn’t be out of place to say that this could be intentional from the writers’ part.
¨The Devil You Know¨ brings up this conflict again, exploring the stress that is bringing to Lunella and Devil’s relationship. Lunella explains that she has to keep his superhero and family life separated, accidentally making Devil feel that he isn’t part of Lunella’s family. This leads to the two of them having an argument and being angry with each other, with Lunella leaving for her family road trip.
This episode is mainly from Devil’s perspective and how he feels treated as a sidekick by Lunella at times. I discussed more about this in detail on this post.
On B plot, it explores Lunella feeling bad about dismissing Devil’s feelings and having a fight with him. She tries her best to have fun in her road trip but she can’t help missing Devil and thinking about how much fun he would have if he had come with them.
At the end of the episode, Lunella and Devil have a talk, Lunella apologizes to Devil for making him feel like he isn’t important. She tells Devil that she understands that he wants to be part of Lafayettes family and she promises that she is going to work harder on trying to bring both of her lives together.
The episode ¨Dog Day Mid-afternoon¨ brings up this idea of Lunella living a double life with ¨Franklin¨ hiding that he is an alien from Pops as a parallel to Lunella hiding about being Moon Girl. Franklin gets found by Pops at the start of the episode. Believing that he is a dog, the Lafayette family takes him in and allows him to stay.
Over the course of the episode Lunella sees that Franklin acts strange and finds out clues that he may be an alien. Pops insists that even if Franklin does weird things, it doesn’t mean he is evil. Later in the story Franklin reveals to Pop and Lunella that he is, in fact, an alien that was going undercover to trap a human criminal that was exploiting and controlling dogs using a special whistle.
Lunella (as Moon Girl) teams up with Franklin and Pops to stop the antagonist and get her arrested. Franklin says goodbye to Pops and Lunella, taking off with his ship. Lunella brings up to Pops that he is taking the reveal of Franklin being an alien quite well, to which he answers with saying that ¨when you care about someone, you want to love them for what all they are¨, indicating that he would prefer someone to be honest about who they are than having to keep secrets from him.
Pops’s relationship with Lunella is explored again in ¨Roller Jam!¨. While the episode is more about the friendship and rivalry that Pops has with another character, it leaves a clear point that he is a huge fan of Moon Girl. He admires what Moon Girl does for her community and helps Lunella with fighting against Brian Glory.
It could be assumed that seeing her grandfather being supportive of Moon Girl is another thing that influences Lunella to convince herself to reveal to her family that she is a superhero. It helps by knowing there is another person in her family that probably wouldn’t get angry at her for keeping this a secret from them.
It is worth of discussing that Season 1 has been building towards this arc as well.
In the episode ¨Skip Ad-olescence¨ James almost seems to find about Lunella being Moon Girl with Lunella using the time jumps.
In ¨Like Mother, Like Moon Girl¨ Adria tells to Lunella that Moon Girl reminds her a lot of her, pointing out the similarities between them. She says that she admires Moon Girl but adds that ¨her mother must be crazy letting fight all those supervillains¨, giving some perspective of how she would react to Lunella being Moon Girl reveal.
Lunella mostly keeps her identity a secret out of fear of how her family would react to it, she fears that they would freak out or get angry at her for having lying to them for so long. She is scared that they wouldn’t allow her to be Moon Girl anymore. She tries working with it but this fear always stops her from doing so.
Another reason that likely motivates Lunella to keep her identity a secret from her family is that one of her biggest fears is not being able to protect someone she loves or losing someone.
This was explored in the episode ¨Coney Island, Baby!¨ when the Beyonder is testing Lunella’s fears. He is able to figure out that this is Lunella’s greatest fear based on thinking she almost lost Mimi when she was a little girl.
Lunella likely keeps her identity a secret as a way to protect her family, from the way she sees it. She doesn’t want them to get worried nor get hurt because of her fights against supervillains and criminals. She may believe she would put them on risk if she reveals her secret to them and they could get hurt because of that.
She has also the habit of thinking that she has to take the burden all herself. She thinks that she to tackle these issues mostly on her own, that it would make it worse if her parents/family knew about it. She often has the habit of struggling to ask for help or telling others what is happening to her.
This idea of keeping things hidden seems to work for a while until the events of Season 1 finale involving Mordak, then being stuck on a wild planet for days and having a brutal fight against Molecular Man. All this leaves an impact on her, making her question how much she can deal with this on her own since it is being too much for her.
¨Family Matters¨ is when Lunella keeping a double identity secret really catches up to her. Her family is beginning to pick up how she gets really late and is absent from family activities. At the start of the episode Adria asks Lunella where she has been and she tries getting away from the conversation. Adria says that she is just worried about her and would like to spend time with her more often. She gaves Lunella a teddy bear she made for her.
Some minutes later Mimi goes down to Lunella’s secret hideout and finds Lunella making a mess, trying to change her schedule. Mimi brings up that it would be a good idea for her to tell the rest of the family the truth as she is seeing that having to keep all this hidden is leaving Lunella exhausted. Lunella says that she would think about it and leaves to do supehero stuff.
She, Devil and Casey (who sent a drone) find out that the alarm came from supehero Turbo fighting the villain Silvermane. Turbo is someone that Lunella is a huge fan of, getting distracted in the battle by telling Turbo how much she admires her. Silvermane runs away in the middle of the fight.
Turbo explains that Silvermane has been trying to steal her special suit that is powered by unique technology. She explains to Lunella that she is in New York for personal business and Lunella offers (more like begs) if she can help her with fighting Silvermane, to which Turbo accepts.
Lunella comes up with a tracker that can help them with looking for Silvermane. As the team along with Turbo try finding the villain, Lunella gets multiple calls from her family asking her to hang out. Lunella turns down or skips most of these activities, making the family worried that she isn’t spending any time with them.
The team takes a break after not being able to find Silver. Turbo tells to Lunella where she got her special suit and the two have a moment talking about their struggles of being superheroes and their mistakes when they were starting. Turbo says that she usually doesn’t get to talk to other people about these things and is happy to see someone else who gets it.
Lunella later comes up with a new plan to get Silvermane to come to them by using Turbo’s suit as bait. She gets interrumpted by Adria, who asks her if she wants to join family game night since they found free time in her schedule for her to play. Lunella plays with them for while, knowing that she has been missing spending time with them recently.
While they are having a fun time, Lunella gets an alert about Silvermane. She tries getting out from the game only for Adria and the rest to ask her why she is constanly skipping and barely around. Adria gets specially suspicious and demands to Lunella to explain what is going on. In a moment of stress, Lunella accidenatlly yells at her family and realizes what she said, running away to met with Turbo.
The team and Turbo manage to trick and capture Silvermane. To celebrate, Turbo takes them to spot on top of a building she knows. From the roof Lunella notices that Turbo is looking at someone through a window: It is a woman with a birthday cake.
Turbo explains to Lunella that the woman is her mother and that she comes to her like this every year during the day of her birthday. Her relationship with her mother went rock bottom after the constant lying with Turbo having to keep up her super hero identity a secret from her. She talks about she hasn’t seen her ever since then and that there are some things she can’t change about what happened between them.
Turbo acts as a parallel to what Lunella’s relationship with her family could turn into if she keeps up constanly lying to them. For Turbo, hiding her super person for too long meant her accidentally ruining her relationship with her own mother permantely. Lunella sees that she is falling in a similar pattern away, with lately not spending time with her own family and breaking into ugly arguments with them.
This is what finally pushes Lunella to come out with the truth about her being Moon Girl to the rest of the Lafayettes, as she would prefer taking the risk than ruining her relationship with them just like it happened with Turbo and her own mother. The episode ends with Lunella saying to her family that she has something to tell them.
In the next episode, ¨The Molecular Level¨, when Adria, James and Pops listen to Lunella reveal that she is Moon Girl at first they think it is a joke until Devil appears, leaving them shocked. Devil gives them some gifts, saying that he is happy to meet them.
Pops takes the reveal quite well, expressing that he is proud of Lunella and asking her if he could be her sidekick some time. James panicks but still seems to take it well in spite of the shock. However, Adria shows to be mixed about the situation, as she is happy that her daughter is a superhero yet she feels bad that she didn’t know that all this time Lunella was fighting crime.
Lunella gives them a detailed explanation of how she has been trying to balance her schedule and how she has a lot of good equipment to protect herself and others. She wants to convince her parents that there shouldn’t be any serious problem. James and Adria still feel very shocked about everything but Lunella assures them that nobody else knows about her being Moon Girl aside from Devil, Casey and Marvin.
However, Molecular Man suddently breaks into the Lafayette’s deparment, destroying a good part of the house. He managed to track Lunella down and he wants to get revenge on her since he wasn’t able to find the Beyonder nowhere. He attacks them, chasing them down around the house and breaking everything in his path. Lunella tries to fight Molecular Man, only to be pulled back by the adults, trying to keep her safe.
In the middle of the struggle, Adria, James and Pops learn about how Lunella went through an interdimensional portal and ended stranded on a planet. They later learn that Mimi used to be the Original Moon Girl too, leaving Pops specially angry at Mimi for not telling him about that.
The battle gets more intense, with Lunella ending up trapped inside her own room and her family on the other side of it, being attacked by Molecular Man. Fortunately, Devil is to get Lunella her superhero suit using the drone that Casey controlled the previous episode. She puts it on and order the rest of the Lafayettes to escape, as she is going to fight Molecular Man.
After Lunella defeats Molecular Man, she realizes that he went through a lot and understands how painful it must have been for him getting his own planet destroyed. Molecular Man admits that he took his revenge too far and apologizes for his actions. Lunella gaves him part of her suit, which has self repairing abilities. Molecular gets healed and decides to use his powers to rebuild, first repairing the damage he causes in the house and then leaving to rebuild his own planet.
Once Molecular Man leaves, Pops, Mimi and James congratulate Lunella for winning and James comments that they already consider Devil part of the family. On the other hand, Adria doesn’t look so happy, she tells Lunella that she is proud of her and she growing into a mature person… but she says that she ¨is never doing this again¨, forbidding her for being Moon Girl. The episode ends with the frame of the Lafayette photo breaking, mainly where Lunella and Adria are, symbolizing how their relationship has become ¨broken¨ after the ending of The Molecular Level.
I would argue that Adria’s reaction is understandable. She was shocked when Lunella revealed her super identity at the start of episode but she seemed to be going along with it. It was after seeing the chaos that Molecular Man brought to the house and attacking them that she decided to not allow Lunella to be Moon Girl any further, worrying for her safety. As her mother, it is reasonable from her perspective since she is looking after Lunella.
Season 2 B would explore the consequences of these decisions and how Lunella finds a way to persuade Adria to let her do superhero stuff again.
In all, one big part of Lunella’s arc in this season is her choosing to tell or not tell her family about her being Moon Girl. She sees if the risks in doing so are worth it, afraid that they won’t talk to her for being lying to them for so long. Eventually she sees that trying to do this double life and having to be always lying about her superhero persona is bringing too much trouble in her life and her relationships with her family. It is when she sees what happened to superhero Turbo that finally pushes her to tell the Lafayettes the truth about it.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Season 2 B explores these changes in dynamics and how the Lafayettes are going to see Lunella knowing that she is Moon Girl. I’m also interested in watching the relationships that Devil is going to have with Pops, James and Adria too. It is certainly something that is going to bring a lot of changes to the status quo of the show from now on.
Casey is one of the recurrent characters from Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. She could be described as a main character in some ways considering she appears in every other episode. She is Lunella’s best friend and serves the role of sidekick and social media manager of Moon Girl.
She gets introduced in the first episode of the show ¨Moon Girl Landing¨ as someone who is a bit eccentric and didn’t have any friends at school. One of the first characteristics shown is that she is very into social media, having a good grasp of how things operate and how to get information quickly.
After Lunella and Devil save her from almost getting crashed, Casey goes to Lunella’s home to personally thank Lunella for saving her earlier. Casey tells her that she would like her to become a superhero, since her actions inspired her to do similar things. She helps with designing Moon Girl’s suit for Lunella and proposes to be her assistant by doing things like recording her in videos for her to get recognition in social media.
Casey becomes Lunella’s best (very likely first) human friend after the episode and she is frequently shown helping her with having to deal with the villain of the week or some issue that Lunella is going through.
At the core of her personality, Casey in some ways is the opposite of Lunella: She lives in the moment, is spontaneous, easy going and extroverted. She can be emotionally intelligent and considerate in multiple ways, being a contrast to Lunella’s more logical and scientific mind.
In some episodes she plays the role of giving personal advice to Lunella that has to do with the theme of the episode at hand.
She has been described by some people who watch the show as a subversion of the mean bully/ influencer girl¨ that you would normally expect them to be superficial and be antagonistic towards the main character, but in Casey’s case she is very nice and helpful towards Lunella. She could be compared to Rarity from MLP FIM in a way, with the main difference that Casey is more down to earth.
Casey, however, isn’t without her flaws as she is a still teenager who has things to learn.
Her main fatal flaw is letting her plans go over her head and getting too caught up in being popular and chasing trends. Both flaws are quite tied to each other, as she can come up with ideas to get better accepted in her social circles but then taking it too far at the same time that she gets too invested in trying to chase that popularity.
This comes quite a lot because of how she lacked friends before meeting Lunella at the start of the show. It was implied that she was rather lonely and she didn’t fit in so well with her peers.
While she doesn’t have the same issues of getting paralyzed in social interactions as Lunella does, she still has this desire to be one of the popular kids as it happens in some episodes in the series.
In the episode ¨I Am a Woman Today¨ that explores Casey getting her Bat Mitzvah (Casey is jewish) has Casey feeling jealous of how her cousins have a lot of money and they were able to organize a huge Bat Mitzvah party for them last month. A social media influencer that Casey really looks up to also commented about her cousin's party, making Casey wish she had that level of popularity.
Seeing that Casey is feeling down, she proposes to help her Bat Mitzvah get attention by telling people that Moon Girl is going to be there. The plan works, as a lot of people get interested in going to the party after hearing about the news, with the social media influencer Odessa included. Casey is very happy to get the party that she wished for, thanking Lunella for helping her.
However, the problem comes when Casey gets too caught up in getting more and more likes and ignoring Lunella. She lets the fame take her over, only caring about how big and glamorous her party is that she doesn’t see that Lunella wants to spend time with her (as her normal self and not as Moon Girl).
This makes Lunella feel hurt about how Casey is using her superhero status as Moon Girl to get popular and gets upset by the way Casey was ignoring her, making her leave the party after she calls out Casey for her behaviour.
Eventually she realizes that she messed up and that her Bat Mitzvah should be more about spending it with the people she considers family and friends than how big and popular it is.
She apologizes to Lunella for how she treated her and the two make up by the end.
There has been other episodes where these flaws are explored like ¨Wish Tar¨ when she convinces Lunella into using Beyonder’s powers to get the latest new trending clothes to fit in with other kids at school. This episode ends up being more about Lunella and her relationship with Beyonder but Casey ends up being part of the problem as well.
In one of the earlier episodes, "Run the Rink¨, she gets so caught up in trying to get a lot of attention for the Lunella family’s rink night that it ends up attracting some minor villains who want to take Lunella out. Everything gets taken out of control once Gravitas arrives and almost defeats Moon Girl.
As helpful as Casey could be to Lunella, earlier in the show she didn’t seem to consider how the schedule that she organized was too overwhelming to her friend. In "Moon Girl Day Off¨ Lunella pretends to have her ankle injured so she can have a break from her Moon Girl activities while Casey takes over for her. She lied about getting hurt because she didn’t want to let Casey down. In meantime, while being Moon Girl, Casey sees how busy and demanding can be Lunella’s life as superhero.
By the end of the episode Lunella comes clean with her lie and Casey admits that she needs to not satúrate the schedule too much so they are able to have more breaks in between.
Another thing that is worth talking about is after the events of Season 1 finale and Season 2 premiere, Casey thought that Lunella had disappeared or even died. This made her become rather clingy of Lunella for some of the episodes that followed. In "Belly of the Beast" it gets explored how she is scared of the same thing happening again and she should give Lunella more space and not be so overbearing with her.
In a minor aspect, Casey has two fathers and she appears to have a healthy relationship with them. In ¨I Am a Woman Today" their relationship gets explored some, by reminding Casey that her Bat Mitzvah should be a time to spend with her family and friends. It is implied that they are aware of how Casey can get too invested in status and social media likes based on some of their lines. Not much is known about her relationship with them but in some scenes they do appear it is shown she likes spending time with them and helps them with organizing stuff.
In all Casey is a character who serves as Lunella/Moon Girl sidekick and often emotional support. A lot of her personality contrasts Lunella, balancing each other out. Overall she is a loyal and nice friend who can have her own moments getting too much into becoming popular but still tries to do the right thing in the end.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
Kid Kree/Mel-Varr character analysis
Kid Kree/Mel-Varr is a character that gets introduced in the Season 2 episode ¨Kid Kree¨ as a semi antagonist to Lunella and later becomes an ally and friend on the long run. He is a character that is original from the comics, having some differences in the way he is characterized in the series.
In this post i’m going to talk about his character, how he develops in this part of the season and his relationship with Lunella, which is important for his character growth.
Let’s start:
As i previously mentioned, Mel-Varr/Kid Kree gets introduced in the episode ¨Kid Kree¨. In this episode Lunella and Casey first meet Marvin scanning and acting strange with other people on the street. All this time Marvin is seen wearing his human disguise, which makes him pass off as a regular teenager.
Later Lunella is asked by LOS to show Mel-Varr the school around. Since Mel-Varr is an alien there are many earthly traditions he doesn’t understand yet. He laughes too loudly when trying to imitate Lunella and mixes up words. He is pretty awkward when it comes to human interactions, still trying to get used to them.
During gym class, he approaches Lunella, who is working on some formulas she has, and brings up a small correction she should change in her math. Lunella quickly realizes that Mel-Varr is into science and math like she is and asks him if he would like to hang out later. Mel-Varr agrees but says that he has to receive a call from his father first.
It gets revealed that Mel-Varr is on a secret mission to capture Moon Girl, explaining why he is passing off as a student at school. He got sent to Earth by his own father,Pad-Var, to prove his worth as kree soldier and as punishment for having failed at the military academy. He explains to his father that he assumed Lunella was Moon Girl but the tests he ran didn’t match the results. He doesn’t know that Lunella is Moon Girl and visversa.
The reality is that Mel-Varr doesn’t enjoy being a warrior. It is something that was forced by his father, who sets very high expectations on him. Kree’s society puts emphasis on its people to be soldiers, or at least the social circles Mel-Varr finds himself in his species. He mainly follows what his father tells him because that’s what is expected of him and he really wants his approval.
Mel-Varr is into science and math, something that Pad-Var heavily disapproves of when they interact. Their relationship is very strained because of this, as Mel-Varr feels like he can’t be himself around his father and he is forced to be someone he doesn’t want to. Pad-Var acts pretty distant towards his own son, more often refering to him as a soldier rather than his own family.
There are implications that Mel-Varr didn’t have any friends before coming to Earth as he mentions that he was bullied in his previous school by his peers for being a ¨nerd¨. So not only he has a complicated relationship with his father, there is the chance that he is rejected by other people from around his age as well.
This is why Mel-Varr doesn’t take time in befriending Lunella: She is someone he feels like can be his own self around. He doesn’t have to hide who he is. They both bond over having similar interests and ways of thinking, something that Lunella herself appreciates since she was interested in finding someone she could talk about science as well.
As Mel-Varr helps Lunella with her inventions, the two become closer and hang out very often.
On the other hand, Moon Girl and Kid Kree develop a sort of rivalry between the two, trying to Outsmart the other on each encounter they have. During this time Mel-Varr and Lunella are unaware that Mel-Varr is fact helping Lunella to come up with weapons to defeat ¨Kid Kree¨.
During the same day Lunella invites Mel-Varr for dinner and to meet her family, Moon Girl and Kid Kree have another encounter in which Mel-Varr loses his communicator-phone that he uses to contact his father. Lunella grabs it and takes it to her lab to examine it.
Along with Casey, they both learn that Kid Kree is Mel-Varr by checking a visual-audio recording saved on his communicator. This makes Lunella very upset, jumping to conclusions about Mel-Varr instead of talking to him and calls Pad-Var to provoke him.
During dinner Lunella reveals to Mel-Varr that he knows his secret identity as Kid Kree by giving him his communicator back. This leads to Mel-Varr to realize that Lunella is Moon Girl too. Lunella also tells him that she called his father, making Mel-Varr get very nervous at the mention of it.
When asked by Mimi about it, Mel-Var explains to the Lafayette family that his father is forcing him to do things he doesn’t want to and be someone he isn’t. He was happy to meet Lunella because he could be himself around her. For the language and expression Mel-Varr has when talking about Pad-Var, it gives the impression that their relationship is abusive to an extent. He gets scared by the idea of having to talk to him and the mere mention of him.
He leaves the department, not before clarifying to Lunella that he didn’t know that she was Moon Girl.
Realizing her mistake, Lunella goes after Mel-Varr as Moon Girl and followed by Devil behind.
They find him on top of a buiding, where Pad-Var’s ships arrives to pick up Mel-Varr. Pad-Var sees Moon Girl and Devil and fights them to capture them. While the fight is happening, Lunella apologizes to Mel-Varr for jumping to conclusions and causing trouble for him. She wants for the two of them to be friends and asks him to tell his father how he truly feels about him.
Mel-Varr decides to help Lunella fighting against Pad-Var and gains the courage to tell him that he can’t be what his is expected to be and that in reality he prefers to study science, even if Pad-Var doesn’t approve of it. Instead of being dissapointed, the commander shows interest in Mel-Varr’s inventions, seeing that they could be useful in battle. He asks Mel-Varr to come back so they could put his science skills on use.
After the fight, Lunella and Mel-Varr still remain friends and Marvin gives Lunella a communicator, so they can keep in contact with each other. Mel-Varr goes inside the spaceship, saying goodbye to Lunella.
Kid Kree retuns in the episode ¨In The Heist¨. He is first seen when Lunella calls him using the comunicator to ask him about the crystal that she and the kids are shown to in the museum. Mel-Varr is doing what resembles a military obstacle course while talking to Lunella, indicating he was able to rejoin his previous school, mentioned in ¨Kid Kree¨. This means he is still trying to be a soldier or that kids in his planet are trained to be soldiers from a young age.
He shows to be deeply concerned about the crystal being inside the museum. He tells to Lunella to take out of there since it has special powers that, when exposed under direct sunlight, it generates horrible weather conditions, which in Kree society are used for a tradition called ¨Bloodvember¨. This demostrates that while he wasn’t on Earth for a long time, he cares about it enough for people to not get hurt by the crystal’s powers.
Mel-Varr shows up near the end of the episode to retrieve the crystal that Lunella and the STEAM kids took from the museum. He hangs out with Lunella and laughs at her retelling of the heist she and others carried out to get the crystal. They both act a bit awkward with each other, making Mel-Varr almost forget taking the crystal with him in the process. He gives a side hug to Lunella and says goodbye, going back to his home planet.
Mel-Varr shows up one last time in Season 2 A in the episode ¨Dancing With Myself¨. When Lunella is talking to Devil about how she doesn’t have anyone that could be her date for the school dance, Mel-Varr drops from the sky near them and explains to Lunella that the Zargarian (an moth like alien race) are after him because they are sworn enemies to the Pad-Var and they are trying to capture him (again). He asks to Lunella if she knows any place to hide, specially if it is dark to not attract the Zargarian.
Instead of taking Mel-Varr to a more secure place to hide, Lunella asks him if he could try hiding inside the school dance. She persuades him into believing that it is safe and could help him with ¨fitting in¨ with other teenagers to go unnoticed. Lunella’s true motive is that she is the only one at the dance she doesn’t have a date and takes the opportunity that Mel-Varr is here to have someone to ¨date¨ and that way fit in with the others.
Mel-Varr quickly goes along with it, probably because he believes that he is going to be safe from the Moth men while hiding in the school. He is still unaware of human culture as a whole, so he trusts that whatever Lunella is telling him is safe.
Another point that could be made is that Mel-Varr was in part interested in being Lunella’s date considering he really likes her romantically speaking. Perhaps he wanted to know how dating worked for humans and wanted to try it out.
In the school dance, they both try imitating what other couples do but it ends up with both of them feeling very awkward and uncomfortable while doing so. It isn’t a situation they enjoy, they feel pressured to do it just to fit in with their peers (mainly from Lunella’s side). In a moment they start talking about science and Lunella stops Mel-Varr, telling him that they should ¨act¨ more like the other couples.
Some time passes when Mel-Varr asks Lunella if they could go elsewhere to hide from the Moth men. Lunella promises they’ll go after a slow dance and Mel-Varr agrees to it if they leave the place after that. They both seem to be having fun dancing until the spotlight light turns on and Lunella asks them to stay a bit longer.
Finally Mel-Varr snaps at Lunella, telling her to stop. He then explains that the whole dating thing makes him feel uncomfortable and that he ¨is still a kid¨. He doesn’t feel ready to get involved in romantic things even though he admits he really likes Lunella. The spotlight light falls on them, attracting the Moth men who take Mel-Varr.
In the middle of the chaos, Lunella learns that the rest of her friends were dating other people because they thought that that’s what they were supposed to do for a school dance and in reality they feel the same as her when it comes to dating. This make her realize her mistake and goes to look for Mel-varr. Lunella apologizes for pressuring him into being her date, admiting that she was also uncomfortable and if they could stay as friends instead. Mel-Varr happily agrees to the idea.
Lunella frees Mel-Varr and they both take their identities as Moon Girl and Kid Kree to fight against the Zargarian. Eventually Devil and the rest of the school join the fight, helping with chasing the Moth men away. Mel-Varr and Lunella go back their non-superhero identities and return to inside the school.
The episode ends with Lunella and Mel-Varr having fun dancing in the school dance, not as a couple but as friends.
Another aspect that is worth of bringing up from this episode is that Mel-Varr still struggles with standing up for himself. While what Lunella taking him to the school dance was wrong, he admits that he could have said something sooner about it. He could have been more clear with Lunella that they had to leave the school earlier. It seems to be an issue that he is trying to work through ever since the episode ¨Kid Kree¨.
As for what direction his character arc could take next, it is possible he starts living on Earth since he that’s where Lunella is and he seems enjoy being more on Earth than his own planet overall. It could also be that he moves in out of safety reasons, having in mind that he seems to be the target of plenty of his father’s enemies.
In all, Mel-Varr/Kid Kree is someone who starts as a somewhat enemy of Moon Girl until he realizes that he has a lot of common with her and they become friends. He becomes someone close to Lunella as well as an ally. Thanks to her, Mel-Varr gets inspired to stand up for himself and stay true to who his is as a person.
Devil's conflict in ¨The Devil You Know¨ analysis (MGADD Season 2)
One of the main conflicts in Season 2 A is Lunella struggling to tell her family that she is Moon Girl and trying to balance out his family life with superhero life. Through out the arc Lunella´s relationships with others often become a bit strained because of this, leading to arguments.
In one of those occasions she has a fight with Devil, leaving the two angry with each other for a few days in the episode ¨The Devil You Know¨
In this post i'm going to talk about Devil's charaterization and development in this episode and how he feels affected by Lunella keeping his superhero identity a secret.
The episode starts with Lunella about to go on a road trip with her family. She is talking to Devil and he asks if he can come. Lunella answers to that that she wants some ¨family time¨ since she has been so busy being Moon Girl lately. This leads to Devil misunderstand that he isn't part of Lunella's family but Lunella insists that isn't the case. The issue is that she can't introduce Devil to the Lafayette without having to talk about Moon Girl.
Devil feels frustrated with how is usually left out of the Lafayettes' family time and he wants to be included in it. He feels treated more as a ¨sidekick¨ than as friend or part of Lunella's family. There are some flashbacks that show some examples of this, with him having to hide and having to keep his distance away from the Lafayettes, not being able to be part of the moment.
This ends with Lunella and him getting angry with each other and Lunella leaving for her family trip.
These scenes give some insight to previous Devil episodes from Season 1. In ¨Devil On Her Shoulder¨ one of the reasons of why Devil wanted to be smaller in size is because he wanted to do the same activities Lunella and Casey did but he can't because of how huge he is. He in general doesn't like being left out and would like to spend more time with Lunella, Casey and the Lafayettes.
It can be said that in contrast to Lunella, Devil enjoys being around people. He is very extroverted and friendly and likes spending time with others. He feels bad when he isn't able to do this as much as he would like to or is limited to these social interactions.
Another point that could be made is that Devil, in spite of having an intelligence similar to a human and having complex emotions, he is still an animal, and, much like a dog or cat, he wants to be around Lunella or her family. Spending too much time apart causes him to be stressed.
After the Lafayette leave for their family trip, Devil goes for a walk. He sees some families passing the time together and wishes he could be part of something like that. Suddenly he finds a poster that talks about a group called the ABC that is for sidekicks who feel underappreciated by their supers. Devil buys into the idea and decides to check for this group.
He goes inside the entrance where the ABC usually reunite and moments later he meets the members: Aragorn, Toothgnasher, Redwing and Pebble (who is the leader and founder). Everyone presents themselves to Devil and tell their story with their superheroes. Devil does the same and the ABC don't take time in making him feel welcome to the group.
Devil feels himself happy in ABC as he sees himself being part of a family like he wished. He gets along with the members and spend the rest of the day together.
However, as much fun he is having with these new friends he made. Devil begins to notice that some things are off from the ABC. First they don't pay for the food when they go to eat in a restaurant, leaving Devil being the one who has to pay for the tip.
When they are back in the HQ, they play a game night called ¨How bad were day?¨ that is about telling stories about how terrible were their supers. Devil sees that the only thing they seem to talk about is their supers instead of playing something that is fun. He starts to remember the times he usually spent with Lunella, realizing that he can't bring himself to hate her like the ABC do with their owners.
Devil pretends to be tired to leave early, not being a fan of this ¨game night¨. Pebble then suggest that they are going on a ¨family trip¨ as last activity, something that Devil wants to take part in. They go to a cave that is covered with a huge boulder. Pebble asks Devil to use his tail to destroy it and they go inside.
They are having fun inside of what it looks like a lair. Devil then notices that they are inside Granite's (Pebble's super) lair and the ABC start to destroy the place as sort of ¨revenge¨. This is when Devil realizes that he joined with the wrong type of people and their support group doesn't look for a healthy way to deal their issues and instead they bring the worse of them.
In addition to this, they act in some ways like a cult. Pebbles yells at Devil destroy the furniture from Granite's cave like the rest of them. They have their own mantras and routines that usually involve talking about how terrible their supers are.
Devil sees it was a bad idea to join this group and that in reality Lunella loves her. He can't bring himself to hate her. He undertstands that part of Lunella wants to introduce him to the rest of her family but she still struggling with revealing her identity as Moon Girl. He expresses that he shouldn't have joined the ABC, this escalates to a fight between Devil vs the ABC, in which Devil wins.
A few moments after the fight Granite shows up and shows to be very happy to see Pebble. Pebble reminds to Granite that he was going to move to Florida without her, to which Granite explains that paper that she read was to move his actions figures to her mother's department. He was heartbroken when Pebble left and had been looking for her ever since.
Granite adds that Aragon and Redwing's supers have been looking for them and that they both realize their problems were caused by misunderstandings. Everyone (except for Toothgnasher, whose issue with his super remains a mystery) goes back to their super, seeing that their resentment was mainly result of lack of communication.
Back in Moon Girl's HQ, Devil meets Lunella who has returned from her road trip. They both make up and Lunella apologizes to Devil for dismissing his feelings before she left for the trip. She promises to him that she is going to work harder to bring both her superhero and normal life together soon, so Devil gets to be part of all Lunella's life.
Devil's character growth in this episode is learning to trust Lunella a bit more and understand that she is still working on telling to her family that she is Moon Girl. He realizes that he was wrong about Lunella only seeing him as a ¨sidekick¨ and that she does in fact see him as part of her family. She is trying to figure things out and in the end she admits to Devil that she gets why he wanted to be included.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
The Beyonder analysis (Season 2-A)
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Season 2 A brought a lot of interesting changes for the series, one of them being the development that the Beyonder gets as character in some episodes from this part of the season, where we get to see a new side of him and his dynamic with Lunella changing as result.
In this post i'm going to talk about this development and where i think it his arc it is going to go from there:
The Beyonder made his character debut in Season 1 Episode 6 ¨The Beyonder¨. He introduces himself by shapeshifting into Lunella's family members and other people she knows, making Lunella believe for a moment that her secret identity as Moon Girl was found out. Then he changes into his normal form while laughing about how he scared off Lunella.
Beyonder's introduction scene leaves clear that, at his core, he is a troll. Someone who enjoys pulling pranks up on others and laugh at them. He uses his divine like powers to do this, usually altering reality or shapeshifting himself.
His divine powers also allow him to avoid having to face the consequences of his actions most of the time since he is an immortal being thanks to them. He can simply snap his fingers to make himself disappear. In general he seems to be untouchable for his enemies.
Unlike other villains in the show, The Beyonder doesn't have desire to commit crimes, get more power or get revenge on someone. It is easy to assume he isn't interested in these things since he already is ¨all powerful and all knowing¨.
He is on Earth because he was casted away from his own planet/species and he was sent to study humanity as species and see how they operate. While it is his ¨job¨, he shows certain interest in learning about human culture and psyche, which usually involves getting Lunella dragged to take part in his ¨experiments¨.
Lunella's relationship with Beyonder is quite unique since the Beyonder, when not trying to put Lunella into some form of trial, seems to be amicable to her. The way he interacts with Lunella at times gives off the impression that he sees her as a sort of friend, in his own way.
The Beyonder is, in plenty of ways, amoral. He doesn't seem to care about principles nor morals when it comes to messing with other people. Being an immortal semi-god, his moral code is very different from the mortals', seeing the universe as his own playground to do whatever he pleases. For example, he didn't care about making Lunella believe that he erased humanity for a minute just to reveal that he was faking it.
¨The Great Beyonder¨ (Season 2 Episode 1) explores deeper how Lunella isn't the only person he likes pulling up heavy pranks on since many aliens come to the planet Lunella and him find themselves stranded in to get revenge on the things that Beyonder did to them.
He fully admits in one point of the episode he likes going to other universes just to mess with different versions of Lunella, such as it is the case of Devil Girl.
It wouldn't be out of place to assume that the reason he got casted from his own planet was because of the way he abused his powers on mortal beings, if not his own people. He doesn't seem to take his job that seriously and prefers to go around starting chaos.
In ¨The Great Beyonder¨ he sees Lunella going through an interdimensional vortex and takes her to planet that it used to be a sort of vacation-relax spot instead of her own home. When Lunella demands to Beyonder to take her back to Earth, he tries using his powers, only to realize he that they aren't working and they are both stuck on this planet.
Lunella proposes the Beyonder to work together to get out from the planet by using a black hole: She builds the spaceship for them to travel while Beyonder shows her the way to where the black hole is since he has been in this planet before. Beyonder says that he doesn't need the help from someone like Lunella and he can find his own way out.
Suddenly he gets attacked by an alien he trolled time ago by changing her spaceship into a polo stick. Since he doesn't have his divine powers, he gets beaten down by this alien. Lunella offers getting rid of his enemy if in exchange he helps her with finding the black hole. Beyonder is forced to accept the offer and Lunella sends the alien flying, followed by taking Beyonder with her.
Unfortunately, without them knowing, the same alien sends a message to many people throughout the galaxy telling tjem about how the Beyonder is without his powers and vunerable to attack.
For around half of the episode (what would be a day for the characters), the Beyonder is reduced to someone who is pretty much helpless. He isn't used to having to walk for hours. He doesn't know why he gets thirsty nor why he yawns, because with his powers he doesn't have to worry about these things. For the first time he gets to experience what is to be a mortal, or a ¨human¨ as Lunella puts it. He has to rely on Lunella to hide and defend himself from people who are searching for him to get back at him for pranks he pulled up.
It could be said that he gets to experience what it is to be like to be the people he often messes with, not being to fight back or defend himself. Not only that but having to deal with the consequences of his chaotic actions, which he doesn't have to face when he has his powers.
During their battle against Devil Girl and Moon Dinosaur Devil Girl makes fun of Beyonder by telling him how he is useless without his god-like powers, something that hurts Beyonder's pride and self esteem. Lunella manages to get them away by causing a distraction to Devil Girl and Moon Dinosaur.
At night, while they are resting and Lunella is trying to build a spaceship using the remains of a bigger one, Beyonder asks to Lunella about how she is able to fight and ¨do all this stuff¨ without any powers. Then he starts to break down about how he can't do anything and that Devil was right about him being useless. He doesn't know who he is supposed to be without his own powers, having a bit of an identity crisis.
Lunella feels sorry for Beyonder and tells him that he can do great things without any special powers. She shows him how to braid his own hair, something that he tries doing by himself and is able do one braid. He gets happy that he can do something for himself. Then he goes to sleep, being tired of having to walk all day.
Next morning, Beyonder wakes up Lunella to show her that he made more braids in his hair and grabbed some vines and tied them around the spaceship so they would have a way to take it with them to the black hole. Beyonder is back to his confident self, indicating that he learned from what Lunella taught to him last night.
There is a montage of Lunella and Beyonder working together to take the spaceship to the black hole ride. In these scenes they are in better terms with each other, even laughing together at one part. They take several days until they are able to reach their destination.
They are finally able to finish their journey when they arrive at the black hole ride. They both get inside the spaceship and Lunella checks that all things are working, ready to take off. Lunella tells to Beyonder that she is proud of him by how much he helped, to which Beyonder replies that he is proud of being able to do things without his powers and thanks to Lunella for teaching him that.
However, before they are able to take off, they are stopped by Molecular Man. It turns out that he has been waiting to get revenge on the Beyonder all this time since he was the one that caused the planet, the one Molecular Man spent years building, to become a wasteland by him playing a golf space game and accidentally throwing asteroids to the planet.
This is a good metaphor of the way Beyonder usually abuses his own powers, not considering how he can hurt other people. He didn't consider that he was the reason this planet got destroyed. Since he is a god like cosmic entity, he sees himself above others, in the sense that makes him hard to empathize with mortals.
Lunella tries taking on Molecular Man and gets a terrible beat down, to the point it is traumatic for her. However, while Molecular Man is distracted by giving a speech to Lunella, Beyonder tip-toes and takes the opportunity to take the wand from Molecular Man. He gets his powers back by breaking the wand, transforms Molecular Man into a baby and saves Lunella.
He makes the ship appear near them and asks Lunella to test it out to see if it works. The spaceship goes through the black hole without any problems and Beyonder takes Lunella to Morlak's lair, where the portal opened in Season 1 finale.
In this episode Beyonder goes through an important change in character, as he is forced to experience what is like to be without powers and face the consequences of his own actions. He learns that he is capable of doing things on his own in spite of being powerless. His relationship with Lunella ends on better terms in some ways, having a new found respect for her.
While Beyonder appears a few times to narrate the episodes that followed, it isn't until episode ¨Wish-Tar¨ that he truly shows up again by popping out of a wishtar machine and scaring Lunella and Casey. Although he still has his troll tendencies, He expresses regretting the way he brought chaos to Lunella's life in the past and that he wants to make things right. He admits he sees Lunella as his friend after the events of ¨The Great Beyonder¨ but she doesn't totally feel the same way because of the times he antagonized her.
When walking down the street, Lunella and Casey notice how the wish that Lunella asked for the wishtar became true. They decide to go back to Roll With It and see that Beyonder is the one behind the wish becoming reality. Beyonder wants to grant Lunella's wishes to prove that he can be a ¨good friend¨. After getting the shoes she wanted so much, Lunella agrees to Beyonder's idea.
In the sequence ¨Switch it up¨ Lunella and Casey try to constanly keep up with new trendings in social media by asking the Beyonder to give them all the things they want. Beyonder doesn't seem to have any problem with this, as he assumes he is being a good friend by giving them anything they ask.
The problem is that the Beyonder doesn't a clear understanding of how human friendships work because he believes that giving a person anything they want is enough make them his friend. He doesn't realize that in reality Lunella and Casey are taking advantage of his powers.
Around half of the episode Lunella wishes for Bobby the Myth singer to show up in Roll With It so she is able to get all the attention from her school. Bobby accepts Lunella's offer of hosting his concert on Roll With It but he says that he needs a cooler piano than his competition. Lunella goes again to Beyonder to wish for the ¨baddest¨ piano in the world and he grants her wish.
When the concert starts all seems to be going well... until Bobby plays the piano that Lunella wished for him. He gets posessed by an evil energy that comes from it and endangers the audience. Lunella changes into Moon Girl and people are lead to the exit of the skate rink.
Then Beyonder appears on the rink, observing what it is happening. Lunella calls him out for summoning an evil piano. Beyonder explains to her that he made the "baddest piano" (as in evil) just like she asked and they shouldn't let a mistake get away in the middle of their friendship.
Lunella snaps at Beyonder by telling him that they "aren't friends", indirectly revealing that she had been taken advantage of his powers during the events of this episode and she didn't see him as a friend. In her moment of anger she says some awful things to the Beyonder and wishes that he was gone.
Because he isn't sure what he did wrong, Beyonder is left confused by Lunella's words. He is heartbroken upon learning that Lunella didn't see him as a friend in return like he assumed she did and sadly disappears, calling Moon Girl "former friend".
At the end of the episode Lunella realizes that she was really mean to Beyonder, regretting the way she lashed out at him for something that was her own fault.
In the rest of the episodes from Season 2 A that followed Beyonder isn't seen narrating the villains backstories like he used to before Wish-Tar, leaving clear that he is truly gone, at least for the moment.
In this episode Beyonder's development involves him trying to be a "good friend" to Lunella and make amends for his previous misheeds. The problem is that he still has quite a lot to learn on how to be a friend and that he can't just buy friendships from others by using his powers. He is forced to learn this lesson the hard way after learning that Lunella took advantage of him to get what she wanted.
It's a bit hard to guess Beyonder's whereabouts for the rest of Season 2 A. Nevertheless, it's worth of pointing that it has been confirmed by the crew that there is going to be a resolution for this fallout between Beyonder and Lunella, meaning that Beyonder won't probably go back to his old ways of causing problems for others.
Source: https://twitter.com/e1n/status/1754972244206665910
(The Op account who posted the tweet got deleted but Ben's response is still there)
My speculation is that in Season 2-B there is going to be an episode about Lunella finding out where Beyonder is and she apologizes to him for the way she treated him and lashed out at him in ¨Wish-Tar¨. They are likely going to make up but it isn't possible to tell if they are immediately going to become friends again or just start over.
Another thing i think it is going to happen is that Beyonder is going to learn better how friendships and human relationships work, gaining a better understanding of them. Maybe he would learn from the mistakes he commited in the past and try not repeating it again in case he wants to form new connections with people in the future.
I don't necessary believe that that he is going to become an antagonist again or trying to get revenge on Lunella for what happened. If anything, his expression in ¨Wish-Tar¨ after Lunella yelled at him was a heartbroken one. His body language before leaving read as he was going to left Lunella alone, just like she wished in her outburst.
It is going to be interesting to see what happened to his character after the events of ¨Wish-Tar¨ and how he is going to change in Season 2 B. This part of the season already did some really good things for Beyonder in terms of character evolution and i'm intrigued to see where it goes from here.
