PLOT A: Mother Dearest
Trader Johann is delivering something to
Stoick, but when he doesn’t show up on time Hiccup tracks him down himself,
only to find that the “something” wasn’t for Stoick at all, it was a gift to
Hiccup…from his mother. Now Hiccup is willing to do anything to retrieve that
gift.
Okay so, I’m sure everyone is still a
puddle of “feels” after this plotline in particular cause I know I was!
Everyone has been biting their nails in anticipation waiting for this franchise
to finally mention a well known book character—but one that has been
intentionally absent from this franchise—Hiccup’s mother: Valhallarama (who
still wasn’t named, but…close enough).
It’s been hinted all over the place
that she passed, and every time she’s mentioned Stoick’s shown that he’s still
very much in love with her. But Hiccup’s reactions have been very hard to read.
They’re subtle, but it was assumed he was young when she died due to his
non-responsive response to her.
Either way, the way Hiccup was
portrayed this entire episode has to be one of my favorite Hiccup performances
in the show, and maybe the whole franchise. It would’ve been very easy to
portray him as overly excited to see something from his mother, but I’m glad
they went the way they did…the non-easy actually human way. I’m not sure if
Hiccup’s mother was different from her book counterpart, but in the books
Valhallarama is mostly off questing instead of being with her family. If this
is how the movieverse Val is…Hiccup might carry a bit of resentment for her,
and that might make him feel guilty.
His reaction in this episode to
finding Val’s gift is raw determination and a demand for answers. He didn’t
care what he had to do, he was going to get that chest even if he had to go
alone (though I’m sure Astrid would’ve gone with him). And Stoick’s role was,
of course, being that loving father that we all expect, but ironically always
contradicts his “tough guy” exterior. I’m always applauding this show for
successfully carrying over Stoick’s character of a perfect balance between a
powerful and respected chief and a loving father, and this episode was no
different. The love and growing father/son bond between Hiccup and Stoick just
keeps getting better with each passing episode.
I think the moment that really stood
out for me—and probably everyone else—was the ending when Hiccup finally saw
that the present was an old dragon doll his mother had made for him when he was
a baby. No one saw that one coming (I thought it was gonna be a weapon or
something). Hiccup’s face before he opened the chest, has got to be one of my favorite Hiccup faces. I don’t usually
post pictures from the episodes in the reviews, but just look at that face!
That’s got so much emotion in it, fear, resentment, guilt, worry, sadness,
determination, geez. Just perfection. Absolute perfection! All the A+’s on this
plotline. It was utterly FLAWLESS.
PLOT B: To the Bog and Back
In his heist to get the present from his
mother, Hiccup and the gang retrace Trader Johann’s steps to where he lost his
ship on the mysterious Breackneck Bog. An island known to be “haunted by a
mysterious fog monster”.
Ironically, we all thought that this
“creepy episode” was going to be the bulk of the plot while the present was
going to be a cool side note when it was the other way around. The Bog
definitely played a B plot role to the present plotline, and rightfully so. But
I did like that excitement putting the present on a “haunted bog” did so that
it wasn’t too much of an emotionally gooey episode. And it provided moments for
some more beyond great—and now expected from the second half of the
season—character moments.
I really feel like everyone’s settled
into their characters for the season, which is good because it was a little
tough sailing for a moment. But on a more emotional level, of course Astrid
took the supportive cake there. Hiccstrid shipping aside, it’s nice that Hiccup
does have someone who stands up for him emotionally when it might be a little
hard for him to explain such things. And the fact that everyone else was just
going to leave and Astrid convinced them all to stay was pretty powerful to me.
And even if they had all left…Astrid would’ve stayed there for him.
Now, after last week’s episode we were
all wondering how different the Hiccup/Snotlout relationship was going to be.
I’m not going to be surprised if some of you argue that “nothing’s changed” but
I’m thinking quite the contrary.
Episode 116 didn’t exactly end in a
manner that alluded to them suddenly being nice to each other, they can just
tolerate each other more and understands where the other is coming from, which
on its own shows through. Hiccup is still “smug” and Snotlout is still a jerk,
but they tolerate each other, and more so than not during this episode their
bickering felt more like sibling bickering than anything else. And of course
Snotlout had to rub in “like you could handle anything without us there to bail
you out”…definitely a call back to Hiccup needing Snotlout’s help in the
previous episode.
Ruffnut and Tuffnut had their usual
comedy…nothing new there but still always funny to listen to and watch. And
Fishlegs continued to be scared. Since next week is a Fishlegs episode, I’m
hoping—and expecting—it to tackle Fishleg’s main “problem” which is finding his
bravery. I feel like that’ll round out his character a little more for the
season.
Still it was great to have Trader
Johann return—we all knew he’d be coming back but I didn’t expect it to be in
this episode—he was rather funny himself, I was cracking up when he was stranded
on the little island Snotlout put him on.
And lastly, the new dragon. The
Smothering Smokebreath. This episode reminds me a lot of episode 109 in its
approach to bring in a new dragon. The dragons aren’t really the main focus of
the episode, and it’s not even about training them…it’s about getting something
from them and getting out as quickly as possible. But they were cute little
dragons with interesting quirks and habits, and I did hold in a breath when
they went after Hiccup’s metal leg at the end.
Though I do wonder why they wanted
Hiccup’s chest in the first place…was there that much metal on it…? Either way,
nice touch to the otherwise very emotional backbone of this episode.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Where do I even begin to wrap this
review up? It was just perfection. The plotline was perfectly paced out and had
one of the best blends of adventure, comedy, and emotion in the season.
All the characters shined, but
especially Hiccup’s performance in his determination to get the present.
There weren’t really too many
negatives. We can all make faces (even I did the first time I saw the episode)
that Toothless was flying on his own too much. But I think it’s easy to forget
the dynamics of Toothless’s flight. While it’s hard for him to get off the
ground and up high in the air on his own, once he’s actually up in the air, he
does have some level of self control, especially if his prosthetic tail is in
the right position. So…I’ll take it. Though they should probably play that
aspect a little more safely next time.
And….some people were complaining
about the animation quality—what’s up with Trader Johann episodes and the
animation quality?—but…hey, it wasn’t as
bad as episode 109, and since the plot line was so gosh darn perfect I
think that can be overlooked just this once.
But anyways, tons of rich character moments in both comedy and emotion in this
episode. Comedy, adventure, and emotion. That’s always a good formula for a
perfect episode/movie/book/anything and this episode proved that to be correct.
Well done to the Art Brown and Douglas
Sloan who wrote this episode, John Sanford for directing it, and just every
person who worked on this episode. It’s truly one of the best ones this
season!!!! If I could give it an A+++++ I would!
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