Review: Amphibia “Swamp and Sensibility; Wax Museum”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The Plantars enter Ribbitvale, where they are unexpectedly reunited with One-Eyed Wally, who is apparently a wealthy debutant who hides his wealth in their old town. When Anne outs him to his family, he ends up fighting to defend his preferred way of life, eventually winning and proving to his father that he’s still a worthwhile person.

Next, they reach Stony Gulch, their last stop before Newtopia. Anne’s human features immediately get people’s attention, which allow her to make a bunch of coin for the family. They then go to a wax museum, the Curiosity Hut, where they meet The Curator, a familiar looking guy who has all of his attractions encased in wax. Anne notices an old human CD player that she wants to get, so he tells her that she can have it if she acts as his attraction for a day. What she doesn’t know is that he plans to cover her up in wax too. The rest of the family help her get out and get the rest of the museum free too, which then kill the Curator.

OUR TAKE

We finally make it to the much hyped Gravity Falls homage episode, which naturally has a lot of references to it for fans. There were a lot that I picked up on and some that had to be pointed out to me, though an episode cannot thrive on references alone. I am glad that it does work as a story on its own even if you don’t know Gravity Falls, which helps because it’s actually just as solid an entry as the rest of the season has been. Anne hasn’t gotten a proper focus episode in a few weeks now, but having a human artifact as her motivation is a good way to remind us of what this journey has been about. As we’ve moved across the land in this season, we’ve also seen some of the architecture change ever so slightly to match the region, with Stony Gulch looking close to Newtopia’s building type, which makes sense seeing as it’s the last stop.

Though that’s not to say the first half of the episode isn’t also worth a bit of mentioning. I was a bit sad that we’d be leaving most of the supporting cast behind when the family left their home, so it was a neat surprise to see One-Eyed Wally again. He and Anne did have a pretty strong friendship back in town over other things, so it was cool to see that followed up with here, even if it does kind of add some weird implications to his character being in that town for years and having the money to influence but not doing anything. I know that’s not really what we’re meant to be focusing on there, but my brain can’t help but think about it. And maybe we’ll see other characters from Season 1 along the way, since this season is still so young.

But next week shows us a major milestone for the season as the cast finally reaches Newtopia AND the official reveal of Marcy, the remaining human character, as she reunites with Anne. There’s been some mention of the parallels between the trip to Newtopia with that of Avatar’s trip to Ba-Sing-Se in Season 2 of that show, which hopefully means similar good things to come and not just copying some aspects here or there. I can’t expect that this show will disappoint me NOW after pulling me in for so long, but stranger things have happened. We’ve done alright so far, let’s see what happens when we hit the major points.