Review: Star vs The Forces of Evil – “Lobster Claws” & “Sleep Spells”

 

Spoilers Below

‘‘Lobster Claws”

I swear Disney wants to see how badly they can screw with their audience before people stop watching shows. They gave us a whole two new episodes after their last month-long hiatus before giving us ANOTHER month-long hiatus. I hope that this episode is worth all this time off.

The first episode, “Lobster Claws,” opens with Star and Marco fighting Ludo and his minions. When Deer Beard, one of Ludo’s minions, captures Star, Ludo orders Lobster Claws, another minion, to grab Star’s wand. Unfortunately, Lobster Claws snaps off one of Deer Beard’s antlers instead. As a result, Ludo fires Lobster Claws, leaving him on Earth permanently.

Star and Marco find the lost Lobster Claws. Marco believes that he can teach the monster to be good, while Star thinks all monsters are pure evil. So Marco takes Lobster Claws around town, trying to get him to save kitties from trees (but not eating children) and help little old ladies cross the street (but not setting the town on fire). After a number of failures, Star decides to help Lobster Claws get back into Ludo’s army.

She lures Ludo back onto Earth and allows Lobster Claws to pretend-beat her in a fight. Surprisingly, Lobster Claws manages to actually grab Star’s wand in the fracas. In the monster’s hand, the wand turns evil. Star and Ludo argue about whether Lobster Claws is good or bad. Thankfully, Star steals back her wand and blasts the monsters back to Ludo’s castle. Happy with the simple fact that Lobster Claws held the wand, Ludo welcomes him back into the fold.

The most interesting part of this episode was when Lobster Claws grabbed Star’s wand. Who knew that the wand would turn evil in someone else’s hands? Beyond that, the episode felt very cliche. I wanted to like it but it was just kinda boring.

 

Sleep Spells

“Sleep Spells” wasn’t much better. The episode begins with Star casting spells in her sleep. Marco tries to use psychology to find out why Star is having trouble sleeping properly. A whole three tests later, Marco decides that Star has mother issues. While he isn’t wrong, that isn’t why she is sleep spelling. There is an elephant….goblin…thing attacking her in her sleep. It turns out to be a princess monster trying to steal Star’s face so Star would go to St. Olga’s Reform School for Wayward Princesses in her place. (Not only is the princess monster delusional enough to think she looks exactly like Star, except for the face, she is also annoyingly obsessed with selfies.)

Princess Monster grabs Star, attempting to run off to another dimension to steal her face. Marco stops her and tries to use psychology to teach her the error of her ways. When that doesn’t work, Marco just throws his psychology book at her, knocking her off the roof. Of course, Princess Monster ends up going to St. Olga’s anyway. And Marco is able to say he saved Star Butterfly.

This is another episode that feels like it fell flat. While I can appreciate that this show is all about fighting monsters and not much else, it would be awesome to see a little more inside Star’s head. Instead of fighting an actual monster, they could have had Star and Marco travel into Star’s subconscious to fight her mind demons instead. It feels like this show wants to tell us more about the characters but comes short of actually doing it.