Review: Tangled “Challenge of the Brave”

Time to be brave.

Spoilers Below

Tangled: The Series gives Rapunzel plenty of opportunities to explore all the types of relationships she was kept from while in her tower. We’ve already gotten to see this with her parents and Eugene. “Challenge of the Brave” focuses on Rapunzel and Cassandra and the struggles their friendship sometimes causes.

Cassandra is eager to be taken seriously and the Challenge of the Brave is the perfect opportunity. As she’s warming up, competitors are already gossiping about her. Apparently, the only reason she’s there is because she’s the Princess’ lady in waiting. Rapunzel is oblivious to Cassandra’s reputation and makes things worse by entering the competition herself. All she wants is to enjoy more activities with her friend and doesn’t understand why Cassandra isn’t seeing it that way.

Eugene is up in the stands with an old-fashioned vuvuzela and foam finger. He keeps getting removed for being disruptive but thinks he’s just getting VIP treatment for being the best fan. It’s super cute and pretty delightful.

As Cassandra gets more and more frustrated, Rapunzel gets more confused. She thought they were friends, so why aren’t they acting like it? They decide to talk it out during the final battle round, which ends up working much better than you would think. Cassandra explains why the Challenge of the Brave meant so much to her and Rapunzel apologizes for not thinking of her friend first. Then, as Cassandra is finishing off the last competitor, she oversteps the bounds by a toe, making Rapunzel the winner. She gives the trophy and title to Cassandra, and everyone’s happy again.

I appreciate that this show explores real, complex dynamics in all kinds of relationships. Rapunzel is still struggling to communicate with her dad about why being trapped within the kingdom brings up some extreme anxiety. It’s good to see that she has plenty of support and is getting some practice navigating through those tricky situations. These are the kinds of things someone who was isolated all her life would have to deal with, and the show is making good use of what its source material left it with.