Review – Dragons: Defenders of Berk “Race to Fireworm Island”

Someone’s dragon is having a fire malfunction. Poor Hookfang.

Spoilers!

So, Snotlout took the attack on Berk to heart, and is training Hookfang constantly, to make each other stronger, only problem is, Hookfang is visibly exhausted, and Snotlout is ignoring it. This leads into this episode’s training exercise, where Astrid is the Outcast dragon rider, and the gang has to not get caught. Of course, Fishlegs and Meatlug are first to lose, with Ruff and Tuff next to get caught. Hiccup and Toothless manage to outsmart her, leading her right into Snotlout and Hookfang. So, I think that makes Hiccup the winner. They land, and Hookfang looks even worse. He isn’t able to flame up, and is getting worse.

In what can only be described as the biggest case of delusions, ever, Snotlout is still convinced that there is nothing wrong, and Hookfang will come back. Last I checked, Fishlegs is a walking Book of Dragons. When he says it’s bad, it’s bad. It takes a metaphor about replacing the dragon, as well as the whole group to get him to realize things are not going well to realize that in fact, things are not going well. Fishlegs finds that Fireworms can possibly reignite stoker class dragons. That means Hiccup plans to get these, in hopes of figuring out how to get Hookfang back to normal.

A couple of tries in, Hookfang still looks like a great shade of dead. It takes Ruff and Tuff fighting with Fireworms to give Hiccup the plan that works. He sees that the closer Fireworms are to each other, the brighter they get. With Fishlegs letting them know that there is a Fireworm Island, They make haste. Hookfang wills himself to fly there, with Snotlout encouraging him. They make it there with no time to spare. They make it into the cave where the Fireworms. Just as Hiccup says don’t touch the nest, Snotlout the Dumbass breaks a piece off. This gets them face to face with the Fireworm queen.

Snotlout makes a break for it, with the queen on his heels. Hiccup nabs him, and they try to escape the cave. The queen makes it in front of the cave, so Astrid makes the save. Snotlout gets to Hookfang, and tries to get  him to eat the piece of the nest. Hookfang throws the piece aside to protect Snotlout. Just then, the queen seemingly impales Hookfang with her tongue. She goes away just in time to have the gang rush Hookfang. The queen knew what she was doing the entire time, because her venom actually kickstarted Hookfang back up. The show ends with Hookfang back to his old ways, throwing Snotlout all over the place.

Ok, so this episode definitely tugged on the feels. This episode did a lot to drive some development, into both Snotlout, as well as Hookfang. Where Hookfang always seemed disobedient and Snotlout viewed Hookfang as a tool, this drove home that they really do care for each other. Showing Snotlout cry, both when he realizes that Hookfang could very well die, and when Hookfang was cured, showed that there is more to him than this emotionless hardass.

This whole episode drove home the team aspect of these guys. When one is down, the others will do everything possible to help him. This show could end up being a contender for show of the year if this keeps up. The end fight scene with the Fireworm queen was phenomenal. Particle lighting from the different types of fire getting shot, as well as Hookfang doing his Dragon Torch thing, all are at a quality you would expect from it’s movie counterpart. Well done, Dreamworks.