Welcome back all you still mourning people to Prince of Wishful Thinking, my Tom Lucitor Retrospective... or at least a detour from it as I need to cover the Meteora arc to cover Divide/Conquer properly. When we last left off with Star she and Tom were going closer, but both are taking a break this time. Weāll get back to them in April... oh will we get back to them in april.Ā For now weāre back to Meteora who I forgot was ABSENT for a while. not forever, but while her parantege, the cover up related to her and all of that has been vitally important, Meteora herself vanished after Monster Party and hasnāt been seen till now. But iāts a good storytelling engine.. it ratchets up tension for her inevitable return, and gives us time to find out what happened with her and let that sink in.. granted iātd also be the last time it sunk in but I can dunk on the series decline later... I still have season 4 episodes to cover after all. So join me under the cut as we get the welcomed Return of Henious, an unexpected hero.. and Ponyhead because this series clearly hasnāt hurt me enough. And as usual for my Star Vs Reviews, iād like to thank one of my Best Friends @jess-the-vampire for her insight on this episode. Itās always welcome and she always manages to find something I didnāt think of .Ā
So we open at Saint Oās with Ponyhead returning to the school, having previously run it post rebellion before leaving because.. I donāt know. She probably got tired of being a leader, and out of universe they needed her to be around star more. Look the series has far more important things it never explained and never will, not explaining why a recklessly irresponsible asshole left a position of authority and responsibility I can let slide.Ā
Sheās come for brunch but things have changed... the school is still a warm, free environment for princesses to better themselves and party hardy, no longer an oppressive brainwashing gulag run by someone who as it turned out was horribly brainwashed herself.. itās just now it actually has rules and structure.Ā
It now also has an actual leader, Princess Patty Arms who showed up in the schoolās previous appearance this season here and.. thatās it. I think she showed up in the background of the original st oās episode. And itās a shame because sheās a really fascinating character. No really sheās calm, dosenāt take Ponyās shit, and while a brunch exam SEEMS like a waste of time... it really isnāt. A good meal can loosen up a dignitary and some rulers have sticks up their keisters about things like this, so being able to do it just right can win them over. Itās still a touch ridiculous but given the world of star is a touch ridiculous to start with, it works.Ā
Pony naturally leaves in a rage over this especially when no one backs her up.. but soon the School has bigger issues and we get to why weāre actually here: Meteora is back. And while she has changed, now having grown larger and stronger, easily scaling the wall, she still wants payback and we get a damn fine battle sequence as the princesses all unite against their former tormentor. Itās also sad in hindsight.. because as Jess pointed out to me almost NONE of these characters show up again. And I only added the almost because Penelope is in there. They all seem interesting, the setting of ST Oās itself is interesting, and the idea of a school for princesses of various types is a cool idea. Iāts something the show couldāve come back to to see how they bounce back from this attack.. but like most cool background elements in the show they forget about it. It was intresting to see the schools slow evolution from horrible nightmare to princess ran utopia and like many things coming up it feels like a lost opportunity.Ā
That being said the fight is awesome, with Meteora proving to be a juggernaut in strength and outplanning her enimies, having brought an overide switch for the robots (Patty reprogrammed them to work for the school) and having them throw their hearts/ power sources as bombs. Itās a damn fine sequence as she finds way after way to keep going, with a now restored rasticore helping them simply portal in.
Pony meanwhile.. is hiding , as Patty find sout when she finds her, and Pony assumes this is about her... though for once iāts not JUST ego.. but because she was one of the two who started the uprising at the school in the first place and THE person who tossed her out. We also get a nice character moment as while Pony tells patti she still hates her.. she puts the princess behind her when Meteora approaches. She may be a selfish twit whose massively unlikeable.. but she has a good heart.. and not just the one she keeps in a jar she got from one of her boyfriends.Ā
But Meteora has more important buisness and finds her way to the depths of St. Oās.. where we meet the Schools namesake and her adopted mother a robot played by tress macneile.. another thing the series never bothered to care about as where did these robots come from and why?Ā
Turns out Meteora came to find out her own personal history, with the remote from before used to find the real dirt.. and what we find .. is heartbreaking as we slowly journey back through Meteoraās childhoods as Henious.. and itās fucking heart breaking with Tress voicing her younger versions, hence why I didnāt use this as the jessica tribute as while walterās good in the episode, she isnāt given much.Ā
We see her as a teen, forced to hide her tail and insulted over it by her mother.. and it only gets worse as when her cheeks glow as a kid St. O tries to wash them off and we get the poor child desperately begging thatĀ āshe can be betterā
We do finally get the answers Meteora saught as we see Shastacan dropping off the baby meteora, calling herĀ āHeniousā.. which St. O took as her name. Proving the spiderbites minus penelopeās dickishness is indeed genetic and why I have no sympathy for the prick getting eaten later... and hopefully globgor will do an encor with penepopleās parents. Hereās hoping.Ā
So Meteora now knows sheās the rightful queen, and decides to go take it back.. though Pony does try to stand up for her friends... and while we donāt see it hte next episode confirms she got her horn ripped the fuck off. And this horribly traumatic injury.. is magically fixed via 3d printing next time we see her after an episode grappling iwth it instead of having pony deal with not having a horn, or her prostetic not giving her magic powers again. Because this show again really likes to leave good ideas out to rot in the sun like thatĀ package of hamburger I left out in the sun yesterday. And I actually had a reason there: I need a lot of Racoons for an elaborate scheme involving a map to tex cruzās house, a used apache helicopter and a bulk order of tiny parachutes.Ā
We do get some payoff to things though, as Henious comes on to rasticore who not so politely rejects her for being nuts.. before itās revealed Gemini, her loyal servant is also a robot and she uses his heart to blow up rasticore and take the arm with her... which is ALSO never brought up again. Seriously this episode is so full of loose ends iām suprised it just dosenāt end with Zuko asking his dad about his mother. Geminiās death is genuinely tragic as his last words areĀ āIf you wanted my heart.. all you had to do.. was assssskkkkkā. God damn. So with that Meteora heads out to reclaim her birthright.. no matter the cost.Ā
Final Thoughts on Skooled!:
This one is decent.. but like the last episode I covered, the lack of payoff off for almost anything here, excluding the Meteora plotline and the Pony thing which instead got a BAD payoff, is really starting to rear itās ugly head as the series greatest weakness. Yes bigger than the romance plot. And given that romance plot after this season can be best discribed as...
The show just.. forgets a good chunk of things happened to keeep things chugging along. It sets UP plots, what happens to st oās from here, buff frog and a small caravan of monsters leaving forever, the message from shastacan, who built the st oās robots, and on and on.. but it never PAYS them off. It dosenāt care to. It just does things so the plot can move but never bothers to think about the fucking consequences. It just gets more and more irrtating to think about as other shows throughly DO: Amphibia has the fact the characters get into shenanigans become a commented on running gag and something they grow past, and everything that happens matters. Every episode of Owl House builds on the foundation of the previous episodes. OK Ko dosenāt forget one episode had the characters not be able to turn back into humans and implies their wearing human costumes for the rest of the series. Which is fucking weird, but it was their memory. My point is other shows around the same time or right after didnāt magically forget things happened for convience sake. While itās OKAY to loose some things in the shuffle, it happens to the best of us, itās not okay to do it SO fucking often and with no clear care for the audiences desire for payoff. The show just ignores what plot points, like the huge cliffhanger of Star telling marco how she felt at the end of season 2, it dosenāt care about till it needs them and ignores the ones it never does. You canāt just.. bring shit up like itās important and then try and forget it ever happened. People remember stuff, we are NOT stupid. KIDS are not stupid. When I was younger I REMEMBERED things that happened on KND, Danny Phantom, Xiaolin Showdown, TMNT 2003, because those shows, which are from decades ago, knew I would and trusted even if I missed something and was thrown off iād tune in for the quality.Ā
And in an age of streaming and more story based tv you canāt just.. ask kids to act like something they saw didnāt happen because your fucking lazy and frankly YOU never should have. Kids deserve better, my niblings deserve better and frankly the adults your clearly also writing for.. deserve better. This episode is eh, but the problems it represents are so fucking worse.Ā
Next time on tom. If you thought I got angry towards the end of this one, just you wait. Next time iāts Booth Buddies. Yeah.. yeah that one. Stay tuned.
I donāt talk about my childhood much on this blog, and itās because itās not very interesting. I always knew that I was loved by my parents. I always knew that I could talk to them if I had a problem. I never had to worry that they would disown me because of my life choices.
But itās because of that normal loving upbringing that stuff like this hits me so hard.
What Meteora went through is wrong.Ā
And itās wrong in such a fundamental way that I have a hard time verbalizing just how furious it makes me. No child should have to grow up like this, and yet they do. Everyday and everywhere, there are real children who grow up hiding who they are because itās the only way to - not even get approval - just stop the disapproval.
Iām not sure what word describes this feeling. Itās not empathy, exactly. The fact that I canāt imagine growing up like that is exactly the source of my anger. But when I see how St Olga treated Meteora, how the Diamonds treated Pink, how Martin treated Finn, my overwhelming reaction is always a grim seething,Ā āHow dare you?ā
My perspective on Skooled and why this one moment sucked
Taken from TV Tropes Dethroning Moments: I like to give my two cents on one episode of this series called, "Skooled". I may be the only one who sees this, but rewatching this episode so many times, especially the first time, I have to say this: Just because Heinous/Meteora had a tragic backstory does not mean what she did during the episode at the end should be sympathized. I know people believe she wants Rasticore to be with her, but let me clear on some things up. First of all, in the small details in the end of the episode, it showed that Meteora has clearly lost whatever sanity she had when she ripped Ponyhead's horn off. Secondly, she looked like she would try and hurt Rasticore anyway, even if he DID wanted to stay with her. I must be the only one who saw that Rasticore was in the right, because he clearly needed to get away without getting in trouble or worse, being likely forced to be with her in that state. But what she did, after Gemini said it was just them is what I cannot forgive and was the moment her sympathy was lost to me: In fury and in many ways in the style of what a Yandere does, Meteora rips Gemini's heart out, then blows Rasticore up, killing her robotic servant and causing Rasticore to be an arm again. I would've sympathize with her more had she not done that. It felt like forced drama just to keep the last minute going. And to be fair, this moment is the moment I knew that this hybrid mewman/monster became Unintentionally Unsympathetic in my view.
