This might be more of a controversial take, but I absolutely HATED episode 17 of Mermaid Tales S2, at least, from an overarching story perspective. Overall, I believe Mermaid Tales S2 has some fundamental issues in terms of writing and set up, but NONE of the episodes piss me off as much as "Don't Let Them Drown."
The thing I probably hate about the episode the most is the fact that it completely forgets SEVERAL major plot points from MULTIPLE episodes prior! Most specifically, Aph trying to retrieve the Merianna map from Caspian and Layla, and our aforementioned villains attempting to capture Aphmau!
But NO. Zena, your family drama is the only reason we should still be going after our villains! Not because Aph's home is still in potential trouble or anything. And OBVIOUSLY they would attack Aph on their ship and literally throw her off! ...Not like they've been trying to possess her or anything for MOST OF THE SEASON. Oh! And Zena meeting with her sister at the end of episode 16!? NEVER HAPPENED! We need to show a fucking unnecessarily dramatic sequence of Caspian dragging her into the ship and have them spout off some fucking nonsense that DOESN'T NEED TO BE HERE.
And then there's The Wolf. I'm genuinely getting so fatigued by their existence. I can already tell that they aren't actually here to kill Aaron; ALMOST EVERYONE CAN. And yet, we STILL just have scenes dedicated to feigning this motherfucker being an enemy! It's not seeing The Wolf that pissed me off, it was the scene just being there to be a very obvious red herring without giving us ANY new info about them in the process!
Oh yeah. And we also COMPLETELY FORGET about the fucking Soul Echo throughout this entire episode, despite the fact Zena threw it into the ocean last episode!
Really, the main thing that pisses me off about this episode, when we have the foresight of the episode after, is the fact that these (plot point) issues really only show up in THIS EPISODE. The immediate episode after remembers the plot and continues it in a natural way! Episode 17 DOES NOT.
Honestly, I think it might just be more beneficial for me to pretend like this episode never happened.