Review: Dragons: Defenders of Berk “The Flight Stuff”

After a decent sized hiatus, Dragons returned with an all new episode last night. Click the jump to see if it was worth the wait!

Spoilers Below

A little kid ventures into the training grounds, only to set a crate on fire with a lamb mounted flamethrower type of shooter. Turns out his name is Gustav, and this isn’t his first go-round in the grounds. Snotlout had let him in his inner circle, and that led Gustav into thinking he was training to be a dragon rider. All of the positions are filled, even with Snotlout going insane because of his own end of the world prediction. Side note: it’s supposed to be an honor to die in battle and go to Valhalla. I just dropped Norse knowledge on you. You can thank me later. Snotlout gets Gustav to volunteer to take his place, but the group isn’t having any of it. After the 4th sign post drops from the sky, in the form of a dead chicken, Snotlout decides to train Gustav, while the rest of the group decide to do real things, like keep an eye on Dagger. They make it to Outcast Island, and spot the Outcasts building something big, and Hiccup has to talk down Ruff and Tuff from blowing it up. Back at the training grounds, Gustav is owning Snotlout with his training. It’s like Hookfang actually likes Gustav. As Hiccup is telling him to nut up and shut up, there is a flock of run-away sheep, and they herd to Snotlout, signalling the 5th signpost of Valhalla.

Snotlout wakes up from a fainting spell, and is still in Berk, much to his dismay. He is still pushing Gustav to train, but Hiccup still isn’t buying the signposts to Valhalla. Gustav leaves, seemingly to find his own dragon. He finds a Monstrous Nightmare, but he gets rocked. He forces himself on, and rides to the training grounds, only to get thrown off. After some terrible riding, Hiccup decides to use Gustav to trick Snotlout into thinking he is easily replaceable, and to stop going on about Valhalla. It works, because Snotlout goes from pushing Gustav, to not wanting him around. He suggests one of the obstacle courses to really test Gustav. Gustav fails miserably, of course. They’re back at the training grounds, and after a few seconds, Hiccup and Snotlout realize that it was just the twins who were screwing with Snotlout. After a brief pity party, Gustav is thrown out. Stoic walks in, telling Hiccup about Dagger getting ready to fire some weapon. He sends the gang on a scouting mission. Gustav overhears, and of course, decides he is going to attack Dagger. I don’t think that’s a really smart idea.

They get back to the island, and Astrid runs a diversion. Dagger seemed very happy at the news, which is disconcerting. Hiccup and Snotlout take the opportunity to fly in and scope out what’s been going on Berserker Island. However, they fly into a trap from Dagger. As soon as shots are fired, Gustav flies in like clockwork. He takes a net shot, drawing no compassion from Snotlout. The Berserkers circle in, as Hiccup and Snotlout rescue him. Hiccup gets captured, but Gustav and Snotlout divert the attention away so Hiccup and Toothless can shed the net. Dagger loses his head at the failed attempt to capture Toothless, while everyone gets to safety. They get back to the training grounds, and Gustav is made into a rider in training, with a lot of titles. Unfortunately, he is forced to let Fanghook go. The group sees him off. Of course, it was only for a second, because Gustav gets him back at the end.

For a hot second, I thought that Gustav was Snotlout’s little brother. This kid was really badass. The recurring gag of the lambs were done enough to get a few chuckles from me without feeling overdone. Here, subtlety is key. And, come on! There was a lamb mounted flamethrower! The story was cool, and I really liked the Gustav. I hope he comes into a more prominent role leading into the second movie. Hiccup played the pessimist pretty well, especially with the 5 signposts of Valhalla.  Fanghook looks awesome with his colorful hues of purple and pink in with the orange and yellow. Snotlout’s stupidity and jealousy knows no bounds, and lets everyone else play him like a game.

Overall, I think that this was one of the more mellow episodes, with only seeing Dagger within the last 5 or so minutes of the episode. That brings me to another minor point with Cartoon Network. Why are you doing two commercial breaks, where the last segment has only four minutes? Would it really make that much difference to do your breaks like the rest of your schedule?  Every other show gets one break. It just seems overly silly to me, but hey, I just want to get to the end of the episode. The show itself was good, with an awesome addition to the character list. Hopefully, the cast gets a bit bigger to introduce into the movie later on in the spring.