Review: Star vs The Forces of Evil – “Freeze Day” & “Royal Pain”

The first half of this episode is “Freeze Day.” It begins with Marco freaking out about being late for school. Not for any educational reason, even though that seems a little out of character for him. It’s because he nods at Jackie the skateboarding girl every morning. Don’t forget – Marco has a crush on Jackie. This is part of his big plan to woo her. Marco asks Star if she can freeze time and…you see where this is heading.

Star and Marco spend 60 frozen hours goofing off. They put moustaches on random people in the park, they eat other people’s birthday cake, they save a kid from an atomic wedgie, and hold a picnic on top of a frozen car. When they finally finish screwing around and head back to school, Star finds that she can’t unfreeze time. The duo tries to talk to Glossaryck but he, too, is frozen. Reading the book themselves, they find that they have to go to the Plains of Time to restart the clock.

At the Plains of Time, they find Father Time running around all willy-nilly. He’s supposed to be inside the clock, which happens to be shaped like a giant hamster wheel. Unfortunately, Father Time doesn’t want to spend all of eternity running on a wheel. Once Star and Marco do the obligatory chasing around the Plains, they come up with a different solution. They tie the Time Hamsters to the wheel so Father Time can ride the wheel wherever he wants. And Time is, once more, back to normal. Well, except that Marco actually talks to Jackie this time instead of just nodding.

I’m not sure how I really feel about this episode. On one hand, the beginning was funny and interesting. Watching Marco and Star wreak havoc without any real consequences is interesting. (Though it would be more interesting if they actually had to deal with the consequences of their behavior. I’m sure that kid didn’t appreciate them eating his birthday cake.) On the other hand, it got really cliched really quickly. Big surprise, Father Time is the one keeping time in sync. I want this show to be a little more wacky but it just keeps falling into the same old trappings of cartoons.

“Royal Pain” is the second half of the episode. Star’s father, King Butterfly, was kicked out of the castle so he comes to stay with the Diaz family until the Queen cools off. Unfortunately, he decides to act like a college kid. First, he overflows the toilet. (Mostly because he has no idea what it is and Star lets him flush everything he can find.) Then he throws a huge party and invites all of the other dimensional kings. Of course, this means he basically trashes the Diaz house.

Inspired by Marco’s constant complaining about his wet socks, Star manages to throw everyone out of the house. King Butterfly realizes what a dick he has been and heads back to Mewni to apologize to the Queen. Star also apologizes to Marco for her rampant use of magic and promises to warn him in the future.

This was another episode that was a bit of a let-down. While I get that the King doesn’t have magic powers himself, it would have been cooler to see him and Star casting spells and fighting monsters together all over town. Poor Marco was demoted to whining about his socks even though the King was demolishing HIS house! Why wasn’t Marco the one shouting about what was going on? I get that the writers wanted to make Star a bit more responsible and show the contrast between father and daughter. Again, cliche. I want to see something new and magical! They have worlds at their fingers and this is what they do with it? Blargh.