PLOT A: Alvin’s coming to town!
Alvin, fed up with the vicious dragon on his
island, wants to come back to Berk and find the person rumored to have “conquered”
dragons. But he’s not going about it politely…
Finally we get a real villain! And he’s
got a “mysterious back story” to boot! We all know from Comic Con that Alvin
and his Outcasts were banished from Berk and swore to take it back for their
own one day, but other than that we don’t really know what they’re all about. Why
were they banished? What are they really going to do with the dragons? Who
knows…?
This episode definitely did Alvin
justice in making him a threatening villain, providing little back story to
make him intriguing, and still allowed him to have his own human/comical
moments. Humanizing a villain is always good, because there are too many “silly”
villains and there are too many “downright evil for no reason” villains on TV
nowadays. Alvin seems to be at the happy medium. I know he’s not always going
to be brooding around in the shadows every episode he’s in, but then I have no
doubts he’d kill or hurt someone who got in his way. The air of mystery makes
me wonder what Alvin’s gonna have up his sleeve next (short of capturing Hiccup
again, of course).
Alvin seems to have a legit reason as
to why he wants the “dragon conqueror” for his own. Because basically his
island is just like Berk was in the first movie: dragon raids galore! And he’s
sick of…I would be too. Of course, we can all tell he’s got a grudge against
Berk, so he won’t just go there and be like “can we borrow your dragon
conqueror for a few weeks?”…and at the end him seeing Hiccup ride Toothless
definitely gave him a lot more “evil” intentions as to what he wants to capture
Hiccup for.
Great villain! He’s funny, he’s human,
but most importantly he’s a real threat to Hiccup and anyone else who gets in
his way.
And I wanna know what he “took” of
Stoick’s. This is heavily implied in their ending fight, but of course they’re
not gonna tell us until later.
PLOT B: Hiccup the “Dragon Conqueror”
Alvin’s looking for the “Dragon Conqueror” of
Berk, and Hiccup must step up to the plate and defend his home when he realizes
he’s the reason it’s being invaded.
Hiccup really shined in this episode
on a whole lot of levels. He was protective, brave, selfless, and yes…sassy!
Hiccup willingly gave himself up when he realized that he was the one Alvin was
looking for, and I’m sure he had every intention of handling the situation
alone with Toothless, but finally he accepted help from his father and friends.
This would’ve been a step up for his character, but I think once he asks for help himself is when I’ll
really believe that Hiccup feels he doesn’t have to do everything alone.
We did see a whole lot of sides to
Hiccup in this episode. One, of course, being protective. Mainly of Astrid
cause she kept getting captured, which his protectiveness over Astrid was
introduced in episode 3 and apparently has stuck even three episodes later.
Nice continuity there.
But, we also see Hiccup’s almost
fearlessness in the face of adversity. Alvin is, indeed, a scary guy who will
at the least hurt you badly if you don’t play your cards right. And yet Hiccup
was mainly mocking him instead of being threatened. I loved Hiccup’s sarcasm in
the moment, but I feel like he doesn’t exactly understand the risks he puts
himself in. He seemed more aware of them in the movie, but post-movie Hiccup is
pretty fearless…probably because he escaped death and serious injury a lot in
the movie. Still, I’d like to see Hiccup take these sorts of situations a bit
more seriously, which he’ll probably be forced to learn when the situation gets
more serious later on in the season (whether he wants it to or not).
It’s all fun and games until someone
gets hurt….
That being said, I loved Hiccup’s “It’s
not dragon conqueror, it’s dragon trainer” line. Perfect for him, and
definitely an “epic hero” moment.
PLOT C: Dragons to the Rescue
After the dragons are banished in the previous
episode, they’re finally back in action to help their riders fight off Alvin.
I do wish they had given a bit more
time for a cute reunion between the riders and their dragons, but it’s easy to
see they simply ran out of time…still, that made the impact suffer a bit.
Judging from the previous episode, you’d
think the dragons coming back would be the main part of the episode, but
really, it was just a reoccurring point more so then a plot.
The dragons helped fight off Alvin,
Berk was safe because they helped out, so now the Vikings are all “yay dragons!”
again. Though this time the “yay dragons!” moment felt a bit more…finished.
Like this was (hopefully) the last plotline of cohabitation problems between
the Vikings and the dragons.
And, in contrast to how most people
feel, I do find a sense of realism in the reoccurring plots of cohabitation
issues. In essence we all want a one episode and the dragons are accepted kind
of deal, but that just doesn’t seem too realistic. There are many assets the
dragons are disturbing in the Viking’s lives by just moving in, and of course
after 300 years of fighting I don’t think anyone could just stop and
immediately have no more issues even if they are trying to get along. Granted,
some parts were more…unnecessary than others, but there is a sense of realism
behind having the Vikings and dragons have multiple problems in living
together.
I still liked this utilization of the
dragons gaining trust back more so then the others, because they learn that dragons
can be used as good defense as well….which will come in handy in later
episodes, I’m sure.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This is a great episode, and it had a
significance to it that hasn’t been present in the other episodes. I feel like
this episode ends and starts an arc. The “pesky dragons” plot finally feels
closed but now this “Alvin wants to capture Hiccup” plot is opening.
This episode also shows the great but
often unnoticed different between an episode being “rushed” and an episode
being “fast paced”. This episode was indeed fast paced, it kept the plot going
and the final battle between the Vikings, the Outcasts, and the dragons didn’t
feel rushed. In fact…act three didn’t feel rushed at all. It took it’s time,
everyone battled, strategized, and battled some more.
I do wonder, though what’s going to
happen with Mildew. I thought Mildew was going to somehow be tied to Alvin, but
apparently he’s not (for now). I still do feel like Alvin showing up days after
Berk’s armory burnt down is a tad too convenient to not be suspicious. But
Hiccup’s “I’ll never forget what you did” line obviously means this isn’t the
last conflict Mildew’s going to be in during the show.
And, lastly, I applaud this episode
for having Astrid be put in danger/captured twice in this episode, yet didn’t
make her a helpless damsel in distress waiting for Hiccup to rescue her because
she has no means to handle herself. Astrid was still her usual awesome self
with killer fighter instincts, and if anything Hiccup assisted her then
straight out “rescued” her. Well played.
All and all, this episode was fast
paced, compelling, and opened up a whole new tone to the show as well as our
first wave of unanswered questions, back stories, action scenes, and a great
new villain!
Another A+ episode to round off the
two part plot with episode 5!
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