Star vs. The Forces of Evil Review: Monster Arm / The Other Exchange Student

Hi, fellow Stargazers!
I hope you’ve enjoyed last week’s Star vs. The Forces of Evil Review. Because there’s gonna be a lot more where that came from. But this week, in this case, I came close from stopping. Why? Well, let’s just say I won’t watch one of the halfers for a long time. And if I do, I will not be happy. This episode started off very good--the plot setup was really good, and the plot itself was very good. I enjoyed the gags, dialogue, jokes and such, and this would would’ve been a very good episode. But then, the scene that ended it all came up...and I ended up very frustrated, very creeped out and very sad. And I don’t plan on watching it very soon.

Here is that episode...

In it, when Marco hurts his arm before a big karate tournament, Star tries to fix it with magic.

One day at the Diaz Family Home, Marco is practicing his Karate skills for a local tournament. He’s hoping to beat Jeremy Birnbaum, a student in his class who is rich, spoiled and entitled. Star comes in and marvels at Marco’s skills. He then places three boards of wood on his cinder blocks and attempts to break them. Unfortunately, when he does so, he breaks his arm.
Later on, with his arm now in a cast, Marco is saddened that he’ll no longer compete in the tournament against Birnbaum. He asks Star (who, of course, is a magical princess from another dimension) to help heal his arm and turn it back to normal. She complies and pulls out a magic spell book from her trunk. In it are spells written in another language. After trying to interpret it, Star tries out the spell on Marco’s injured arm. But he doesn’t get his arm healed. He doesn’t even keep his broken arm. He instead gets an arm shaped like a tentacle.
Marco naturally freaks out.
--You can only imagine what it would feel like to have a monster arm. It would be awesome! ...Well, if you actually wished for one, but then away from those circumstances, that would suck. And another thing, where’s his parents? Oh yeah, they weren’t drawn and voiced for this one, so movin’ on...
The next morning, Marco is suffering the effects of having a monster arm magically attached:
--Having gunk all over your face while in bed
--Having the arm mess with the controls while taking a shower, and
--Throwing your breakfast all over the floor.
Star comes in and tells Marco that she stayed up last night trying to find a reversal spell. Marco doesn’t say a thing, clearly knowing that this will take a while.
--What I love about this scene is that Marco doesn’t react to the arm or anything it does like anyone else would. He just does nothing. Like he’s in for some crap later on. And since he knows someone he’s dealing with at the moment, you can’t blame him. And since it’s so early into the series, that’s impressive.

At school (where everyone just doesn’t notice the arm or ), a bully student, who doesn’t look out of place at a courtroom for steroids charges, bullies a nerd student with a corny (and intentionally stupid, yet unintentionally funny) joke about breakfast. The arm slaps him. When the bully student comes close to pummeling Marco, it slaps him again, sending the bully running away crying. It then picks up the nerd student, wipes away the messy meal from his face and puts him down. The nerd thanks Marco for saving him and gives his honor--only to be knocked away by Ferguson, calling Marco a hero. Everyone cheers, with Marc getting all the ladies marveling at the arm, including his crush Jackie Lynn.
The nerd breathes in exasperation.
--About the nerd breathing thing, I though it felt like a shout-out of something, but it’s a thing that happened.
--Seriously, the joke the bully student said really was funny...somehow.

Later on at Star’s bedroom/expansion pack loft, she and Marco talk about the arm a little more. Then Star reveals a spell that could turn his arm back to normal (Keyword: COULD). With Marco’s genius suggestion, she practices on a plant. It doesn’t work. Marc runs to his room and Star tries again on another plant. It doesn’t work. (--I was getting a major "I Love Lucy" vibe at the end with the "Ewww" squeal, and that was hilarious.)
Throughout the night, Star tries again...and again...and again...and again to find to the correct enunciation of the spell, obviously failing every time. The next morning, Star finally gets it right, growing an arm and reaches success.
--As funny as it was, the arm in the pot looks really creepy. As in something you wouldn’t mind seeing on The Walking Dead or The Munsters or The Addams Family.
When she runs to Marco, who is doing push-ups...with the arm, and tells him about it. Marc changes his mind about it, and wants to use it against Birnbaum at the tournament. When Star says that this would be unfair, Marco calls her out on this, saying that it’s fair for her magic to benefit her, but not if it benefits him, she should leave. He kicks her out and sits on his bed.
The Monster Arm has made its influence on Marco. And it talks to him. It lays out it’s (and now Marco’s) dirty plan:
-Destroy Jeremy Birnbaum,
-Make Jackie Lynn like him,
-and destroy the human race and eat their bowels--I mean, win the tournament.
Marco agrees with all of the plan, giving in to a major dissipation into a certain type of madness under the Monster Arm
--Umm...I can only imagine what eating the part of the human body where poop comes from would be like. Even if it was just a talking squid appendage.

It’s the day of the tournament. Star is seated with Ferguson, Alfonzo along with everyone else, and reveals what she been up to for the past two days. (--Even when she’s worse for wear, Star is still hilarious.) At the first part, we finally meet Jeremy, who is...a child, who could not look more than 8-years-old. (God, Marco’s standards can be very low) When Marco comes out, he begins his match slinging Jeremy around the room like a rag doll. (--Yeeeah. Now I can see why this is airing on Disney XD) It’s at this point where the Monster Arm starts talking again and wants Marc to “FINISH HIM”. Marc replies that he wants to win the tournament just so Jeremy would stop making fun of him. (--Dude...you got problems. At least your parents still love you; that’s what matters) When he refuses, the Arm wants to do it himself. (Jesus, it's like Gravity Falls on sugar) At this point, the Arm finds Marco pathetic and faces him. Marc calls Star to change back his arm, but she has fallen asleep. Fonzy and Fergy try to wake her up by screaming her name, but find a better option in a drink. Ferguson first takes a sip to relieve the stress, but Alfonzo tells him it’s for Star. Ferg then throws the drink at Star, waking her up. She realized the Monster Arm is about to take out her best friend, so she tries the reversal spell, but is repeatedly thwarted by the Arm thanks to its lightning speed, instead laying arm all over the dojo.
--I gotta give it to the Arm for holding it’s own throughout the fight. Nothing could get more.

After the fight, the Arm curses Starco, yells out that it's a part of Marc now and vows to have his revenge before disappearing away, turning back to Marco’s regular human arm. Marc is delighted to have his arm back in it's here-since-birth state. That is until it's back in its broken state. Jeremy is happy that the broken arm forfeit causes his win. But something stops the match from continuing as something falls from his hand--brass knuckles. It’s revealed that Jeremy Birnbaum uses them to help him cheat and win his matches (just like Marco used the Monster Arm to help him cheat and with the match). The Master is disgusted by both boys’ actions and declares them disqualified from the tournament. Jeremy is angry and snaps at his parents, who only try to help cheer him up.

"Kids; you have them, and then you wish they weren't around"
--King Pony Head

Marco apologizes to Star for not taking in her warnings earlier, and asks her what the Monster Arm’s final warning means. Star replies that it's “probably nothing to worry about”. As the episode ends, we treated a flipped-out Marco and his still-broken(until-the-next-episode) arm.

Okay...I’m going to be very honest about this. I will get flack for it, but I don’t care.
I DON’T LIKE THIS EPISODE THIS MUCH. I really don’t.
I get it’s purpose, I get the jokes and plot, and I find most of it really good, but I still don’t like it. And here are my reasons. At first, I thought Marco was going to face a dude his age. And it looks like I (and all the other viewers) would cheer him on, and be happy he’d win. And I’d probably like Jeremy Birnbaum a little, too. But then, come the day of the fight, we learn he’s a child, or as Ferguson puts it “no older than 8”. So, Marco wants to face off against a roughly 8-year-old boy to win a tournament. I’ve seen this plot before, and I have laughed at it when I was a kid, but now I don’t find it that funny, and here it’s taken to extremely creepy levels. Just take away the Monster Arm, and it’s still weird. This is probably the only time I didn’t like Marco as much in an episode, and I hope this is the only one.
And speaking of the Monster Arm, I so get the purpose of it, and I found the “Feast on Their Bowels” joke out-of-nowhere hilarious, but the scene where it swung Jeremy around like a rag doll across the Dojo and threw him through the ceiling was appalling. It would have been different if he was Marco’s age, and I might even laughed at that a bit, but here I just couldn’t. It was just terrifying. I know it’s just what it wants to do, but that makes it even more horrifying.
And let’s talk about Jeremy Birnbaum for a second. I know he’s a spoiled, entitled rich kid, but my God, his behavior is borderline insane. He’s a demon to his parents, he threatened his mom with violence, and he’s an outright jerk to everyone (including his parents). I didn’t find most of his dialogue funny and I would’ve been happy he got taken down a peg by the Arm, had the little scene where it ripped open his Gi, showing his stomach, not been so creepy.
I did find the episode funny up until the moment Little Lord FauntBirnRoy appeared; the moment the Arm appeared, Marco’s first day with it, the joke the bully student made, the moment the Arm began to talk and “Feast on Their Bowels” line are all hilarious moments. But honestly, I can’t stand this episode from that point on, and the next time I watch it, I’ll stop when the karate master says “Jeremy Birnbaum”.

Fortunately, Marco (and I by extension) won’t have much to worry about in the next short

In it, the Diaz family’s charming former exchange student, Gustav, comes to visit and Star is convinced that he has an evil motive for returning.

The episode begins as Star wakes up and goes downstairs, with the Diaz family greeting her with a nice party, celebrating Star’s 47th day on Earth and with the family. Star is delighted. Mr. Diaz gives her a cake to celebrate and Mrs. Diaz writes a poem for her (which Marco clearly doesn’t like). Someone is at the door, which Marco answers. At the door is Gustav, a Scandinavian exchange student whom stayed with the Diazes before Star. Marco is ecstatic to his old Scandinavian pal once again, as they initiate an elaborate handshake. Marco excitedly tells his parents, whom are also ecstatic to see Gustav. Star is confused at this sight and greets Gustav, who introduces himself and informs her that he was the family’s previous exchange student. Star is shocked by this, saying that she thought she was their one and only exchange student. Marco shoots this down as she point to a large group of pictures of other children, which leas Star temporarily puzzled. Gustav gives the family presents: Ms. D. a pair of clogs, Marco a handheld game, and Mr. D. a genuine Viking helmet. The family is ecstatic to reunite with Gustav, and forget about Star, who is now saddened. And...whatever you call this.

--In this part, it is revealed that the Diaz family has hosted many children from different countries. It’s really sweet and heartwarming that this family as a kind, caring and charitable family who will open their home and spend their lives to other children and help take care of them. I already like Marco and his parents, but after this, I’m gonna like them even more.
--At first, I really liked Gustav. He seems like a cool, nice, wonderful kind of guy. And I maybe still like him after this episode.
--Oh and that extended handshake Marco and Gustav do is very cool.
--And I love the reactions Marco and his dad make when they couldn’t wait to receive their gifts. It’s like they couldn’t wait to open their presents on Christmas morning; it’s so funny, yet so adorable.
--Also, the part where Mr. Diaz slams his new-genuine-Viking-helmet-adorned head against a wall came out of nowhere, and was absolutely funny.

Later on, Gustav’s in the kitchen whipping up some meatballs for the Diaz family, which they are excited to eat. Star comes in and is not impressed at the little spherical delights. Gustav then tells the family a story of his days back in Scandinavia: a polar bear cub is stuck on a sinking iceberg, so he comes to the rescue by stripping his sweater and diving in. He save the cute cub by holding it in his mouth and reunites it with its happy and grateful mother. The Diaz fam is flabbergasted and amazed, while Star is still not impressed. Gustav then asks the trio if they want more meatballs, which they’re excited for like fans wanting a foul ball at a Dodgers game. Star is just...creeped out.
--At this point, I noticed something’s going on. At first, I thought those meatballs were used to brainwash the family, and that Gustav was using this to his advantage by making the Diaz trio do his bidding. (And as the episode [and by extension, this review] continues, I was right...sort of)
--Also, at first, I thought that Gustav was saying those fake facts about Scandinavia to make Star believe them, making him think she’s really not from Earth. But then I realized he made them up because he really doesn’t know a lot about Scandinavia. And as we continue, my latter theory makes a lot more sense.

The next morning, Star wakes up and comes down to another surprise party...but it’s not for her. It’s for Gustav, as the Diazes celebrate the second day of his visit with them. Star is even more saddened by this and sits on the couch with a slice of cake. She accidentally knocks over Gustav’s bag and finds some interesting items inside, including the book “Scandinavian for Doofuses”, a language tape called “Customs of Scandinavia” and a map of Europe. Star gets very suspicious, but Gustav stops her from going further, and in an ominous tone, tells her to eat her cake mind her own business. Star tells Marco about Gustav’s stunning secrets, but he doesn’t believe her, saying she’s jealous. She then watches Gustav stuff a slice into Mrs. Diaz’s mouth and creepily look back.
Star has a plan.
--If you didn’t find this face

and this face

creepy, you have no soul...or have watched every other horror film ever.
--Also creepy, this.

Jeez.
Later that night, Star begins her own internal investigation on Gustav, and finds some more interesting tidbits, like him sneaking into a closet with a phone making a call, him in the garage with an axe and giving off a Jason Voorhees vibe, him putting something into his famous meatballs, and him watching the Diaz parents sleep and measures them. All throughout the night, Star pieces the evidence together and works the case until the morning dawn.
--If you haven’t noticed by now, this is the second episode in a row that Star has stayed up through the night to get what she needs to fix a problem. But here, it's for her own gain and she goes mental. And as we continue, it’s best to assume that Star Butterfly is not a person to be around when she doesn’t get her 8 hours and goes Olivia Benson mode. PMS has nothing on her!
--Also, Buff Frog makes a brief cameo in this scene.

I love that, especially part where they look at each other, which should seem to take a hint to Star that this dude keeps spying on her. She sets off some...things.

The next day, Marco is about to tell Star something, but before he does so, She drags him into her and talks about Gustav’s secret life, like she’s off the deep end (but don’t worry; she has). She believes that Gustav is using his residency with the Diazes to commit murder and eat the family. Marco says she’s lost her mind, and informs her that Gustav is meeting him and his parents at Isolation Point…”where no one can hear you scream...of excitement”. He leaves, and she’s scared for them. Star imagines the past few days of nothing but Gustav, his secrets, the Daizes’ love for him, his plan to fatten them up, her “jealousy” and meatballs. At the end, she freaks out and runs after them. No, not run--blast; more like Bunny Rabbit Blast.

She reaches the family van and lands on the roof (with a rainbow belt for safety first), and tries to warn the family about Gustav’s true intentions, but they can’t hear her, as they’re too busy singing their excitement.
The family and Star finally reach Isolation Point; but first Star turns a sign around to divert the Diaz trio from the real directions, and she runs to where Gustav is waiting.
--This line "WHAT THE HECK IS A POLAR BEAR?!?!” was hilarious, and it works because Star isn’t from Earth, so she doesn’t much of anything, like the water fountain, or exact food or School Spirit--and you get the point.
--Also, I love that there’s a brief appearance of Princess Pony Head here. I don’t know why she’s there, since it doesn’t seem to fit with the investigation. But I don’t care; I loved it and I still miss her.
--And, of course, the “no one can hear you scream” line is from Alien.

Star finds Gustav ready for his “plan”, axe out and shining. She jumps out and confronts him, but he bolts, with Star going after Gustav. They both reach a bridge, but Gustav cuts it loose. Too bad he doesn’t know about her magic wand and her magic, which she uses to amazing effect. Here, she summons a flying, fire-breathing dragon and still gives chase. He finally gives up and faces Star. Star finally makes Gustav reveal himself, and although he doesn’t want to eat the Diaz family, he’s not really a Scandinavian named Gustav.
His real name is Charlie Booth, and is from called Bakersfield...ville, a boring city that no one has heard of, where all citizens (human and animal) live dreary, depressing lives. Since he couldn’t take all of this anymore, Charlie runs away and assumes a new identity as a Scandinavian exchange student living with the Diazes. Under this long-term plan, he hopes to start a business as a chef and own a restaurant in Bakersfieldville and make all the citizens happy. As for the phone call, he was just calling his meat supplier for more, but his cell signal is weak, so he went to ; and as for the axe, he was using it to chop firewood for the picnic. (No word about why he was measuring the Diaz parents, or the creepy leers as those were used to trail us off.) Star now has the ammo to blow the whistle to the family, but when they finally make it to Isolation Point, she decides not to tell and lie that Gustav has made more meatballs. Gustav thanks Star for not blowing his cover and returns the favor by letting her do whatever she wishes. Star gladly complies...and that favor is kicking Gustav out of the Diaz home and, along with the family. wishes him goodbye.
The episode ends with another family meeting with someone at their door.

It’s Charlie, whom has assumed another identity as a Frenchman name Francois. The family is happy to Franc and celebrate his return. They go inside, but Charlie peeks out and looks around, then goes inside.
(Could this be the end of Charlie Booth? Well, according to the Wiki, nope, not really. At least it seems so, as he is listed, under his identity as Gustav, as a main character. I don't know why, as he felt like a one-shot character to me. Oh well. Stay tuned.)
--Here’s a bit of irony: a guy who wants to be a chef is from Bakersfield...ville.
--Second, how awesome was it to see Star use her wand correctly by reaching up the Diaz family van, making the dragon and all the detective work. All it took was for her to turn Norman Bates psycho and lose almost all control and boom, instant magic expert. Good work, Star.

So yeah, this was the better halfer for the week. The story was interesting and perfect and the execution was magnifique. All the characters had funny, endearing, and/or engaging dialogue; the gags were on the same level with those I loved with Monster Arm; and Star showed why she showed love and care for her second family. In fact, almost immediately. I actually thought she had genuine concern and love for the Diazes a little too early. Usually, in a TV show, a relationship grows and then reaches the part of genuine concern and worry, and that takes to at least the middle or end of a season for this to reach its apex. Here, this feels a little rushed. But it does work, because of Star’s sweet, kind, warm heart, increasing responsibility and confidence, and repertoire for learning her mistakes and building from them, it’s clear that wants to help her new family any way she can; and this is absolutely it, even if it’s still early in the show.

Another thing about this episode, even though Star clearly loves and cares about the Diaz family, it’s very clear she’s jealous about Gustav and just did her investigation and confronting him because she wants the family to herself, being the only exchange student in their lives. On the other hand, Gustav kinda did take them away and used them for his own gain (start up his chef career and open a restaurant) along with being a jerk to Star, so this does even out and might even favor slightly in Star’s case. So yeah, this may have some negative traits about Star, but (again) this was still the better episode overall. It’s slightly more positive than Monster Arm.

Well, Stargazers, another review in the books. Thanks again for joining me and reliving another very solid episode. Once again, I thank the Star vs. Forces of Evil page on Wikia for giving me all the help and information on this and the other reviews. Couldn’t have done it without you.
See you next week when I review
-“Cheer Up Star”, which I assume is about how much Heck will be risen when Star isn’t her cheery, enthusiastic self, and
-”Quest Buy”, which may or may not be a physical or online rip-off of BEST Buy. ...or some new addicting game about buying colorful armor and weapons for a quest to credit card debt.
See you then! Until next week, I’m Andrew saying
Reach for the Star and Keep Looking Up! ...at your TV screen.