Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Star vs. The Forces of Evil Review 2: Episode 11 -- "Into the Wand / Pizza Thing"



Hello. Welcome back.

Wow, this episode sent me both chills...and pissed-ivity.

Let’s start this Review with the one that gave me so many chills and more questions than answers…

Episode 11a - "Into the Wand"
This episode starts off with Star’s wand suffering from a power drainage; her Narwhal Blasts are weak with disgusting narwhals. Glossaryck reveals that Star’s wand is an extension of her memory, and the plan to fix the wand is to go inside it and remove what doesn’t belong. This kicks off a very tense, drama-filled and awesome plot.

We sat and watched our heroine travel into her wand--and memory-- to find item that doesn’t belong. After many clues tied to Marco and her parents--the King and Queen, Star finds the item in the “Grandma room”, which also revealed some information about Star’s
The plot also gets complex as past versions of Star appear with the reveal that her stay in the wand would overwrite her memories and existence.

The dark animation and haunting music made things perfectly tense and made the build up to the big moment was organic and well-done. The reveal itself almost took my breath away. To see the rest of Toffee (his finger) along with a quilted animation of him in a tapestry left me shook. I knew I’d see him again (to my constant excitement), but they way they brought him back still stunned me.

This half-episode left me with so many questions and feels.
One of them: Since Ludo has half of Star’s wand’s power (and his wand [aka Skelbowtor {to me}] is based from Toffee’s arm...and talks to him, could Toffee be corrupting both wands and influencing both characters in different ways? Probably.

It was also revealed that one of Star’s grandmothers had a romantic relationship with a monster. This proves that her family lineage from her mom (name revealed to be Moon) is part monster. Wow. And since Toffee seems to be involved, this gets even more shocking.
I’m both excited AND afraid to see where it all goes from here.

Fave Moments:
--Star going on the journey.
--When Star learns that the thing that doesn’t belong...is Toffee’s severed finger (her and the later versions of her’s reactions too)
--Star Narwhal Blast-ing Marco (only because her wand works again).
--Glossaryck revealing a tapestry in the making for Star. (Yep, Star will be joining her mom and grandmas in the Grandma Room with her own tapestry.
--When Star throws Toffee's finger in her closet. (I don't know yet what will happen from there, but I have a feeling that either Toffee will return with a vengeance with the finger coming to him, or the finger will be the place to start a new Toffee. Either way, I'm teething.

I love this episode, and definitely one of my favorites this season.


This last half-episode on the other hand kinda pissed me off.

Marco and Pony Head were supposed to go to Emilio's Pizza to pick up a pie so they--and Star--can watch a telenovela. But the easy task gets sidelined for other stuff.

Where do I begin??
This plot served to explore the vitiolic relationship of of Marco and Pony Head. The problem is they weren’t like this before. Marco was way too harsh and Pony Head just takes it. They argue--well Marco yells while Pony Head responds;
they end up wearing skinny jeans--actually one of them had a pair tied to her neck;
they had a $650 ride from a ;
they watch a car get compacted (well, it does go back to its fat owner later, so not all a loss).
All of this was just pointless.
And when they finally reached Emilio’s Pizza, I was about close to breaking stuff. They had their pizza, but Marco’s perfectionist nature ruined it by (somehow) counting 99 mushrooms, instead of the 100 he wanted. Because of this, Emilio himself lost all confidence in making pizza and quits the business. (Why did you speak up??)
It took for a little boy to tell them how pizza brings people together (one of the few favorite moments of the halfer) for them to make their own people (which if he didn’t pay already, they just stole) and this one ended with a bad taste in my mouth like the bad taste of the pizza in Star’s.

There are some ways to explore Marco and Pony Head’s relationship and get them to be friends, but this shouldn’t be one of them.

The first time they met made more sense, because Pony Head was jealous of Starco’s new friendship, and wanted to stop it. It made sense because they just met then.

Random Thoughts:
--Wait, $650 sounds like the same amount Marco blew on merchandise at Goblin Dogs, and didn’t want it back on principle. Idiot. There’s no way he’d spend it on a ride in a dump--

Idiot.
--If you can’t make your own pizza, just TAKE THE OLD ONE OUT THE TRASH AND PUT IN ONE MORE MUSHROOM!!! (Yes, gross, and Marco is something of a clean freak; but what would you have done??)
--After that pizza speech, I think that little boy could make a great motivational speaker.
--I’m starting to miss Star being a focus in these episodes. Here I am thinking the less Star the better.But that’s so unfair, as she has gotten some better plots and has improved as a character. So I think I’ll cut off on being annoyed at her (sure, you don’t notice it, but it's there).

--This is how I act when I'm out of cereal.

Fave Moments:
When the little boy gave his speech about pizza.

This halfer was all over the place, but it did get Marco and Pony Head on a better understanding. Eeuch.
"Into the Wand" was much better than "Pizza Thing", and that's where I'm ending it.

That's it foe--for this edition of Star vs. The Forces of Evil Review.

I'll be back tomorrow to review Episode 12,
"Page Turner" and "Naysaya".

I'm Andrew...and thank God you're not.
"Reach for the Star, and Keep Looking Up! ...at your [TV] screen."

No comments:

Post a Comment