Review: Amphibia “The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers”; “A Day at the Aquarium”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The night before King Andrias tells them of what he’s uncovered about the music box, Marcy invites Anne, Sprig, and Polly to sleep over like Anne, Marcy, and Sasha used to do, which of course means doing anything but sleeping. But when they start running out of energy early into the night, the two girls decide to revive the Scare Dare Challenge, in order to keep the party going. They decide to sneak down to the castle basement, where they uncover a creepy crypt of sealed coffins, as well as a bunch of translucent acid-y ghost…jellyfish? Eventually the make it back to Marcy’s room and find out that the creatures can be turned physical by shining a mirror on them. They fight them all back and stay up all night as planned.

They next day, they all meet with King Andrias, who shows them that the music box is thousands of years old and can be used to travel to different worlds, including take Anne and Marcy home. But they first need to recharge the stones by visiting three temples, though only one is listed in the book and either way they’ll need time to prepare. Unfortunately, Hop Pop and the kids need to head back to Wurtwood for the harvest, but Marcy thinks Anne should stay with her while they get ready. Suddenly facing their last day together, the Plantars all go on a trip to the local aquarium, but everything they see just reminds them of their old adventures and makes them sadder. This leads them to feeding an eel, which only reminds Anne and Sprig of their very first time being friends in the first episode. They’re able to get through it by fighting off the eel, but get kicked out of the aquarium. The time comes for the frogs to leave, but Marcy sees how much this is weighing on Anne and decides to let her go, offering to come by once they’re ready to head to the first temple. But once the Planatars are gone, Andrias suggests an ominious offer to her.

OUR TAKE

Amphibia caps off the first half of the second season with an end to the Plantars’ time in Newtopia, setting the stage for the upcoming search for the first temple to recharge the gems in the music box. And the finish to this arc naturally has two charming stories to close out on, one showing more quality time with Marcy (and some not so subtle foreshadowing of things to come) while the other is a heartfelt farewell that…doesn’t actually end up being a farewell, but more a recap episode for the first 1.5 seasons of the show so far? And then it turns out to be a send-off for these last five episodes of the season, which seems…kinda premature, I would say. It’s still both hilarious and tugs at the heartstrings, but I guess the confusion on my part comes from its placement. I doubt this will be the last time we’ll be seeing Newtopia or any of the characters introduced in it, so it seems odd to be putting such a final note on this goodbye, but it does work to show that Anne’s bond with the Plantars has become just as strong, if not more, as her bond with Marcy and Sasha, which makes sense seeing how they’re family dynamic is the core of the show.

The other main topic of conversation would be King Andrias and what he mentions about the music box…and what he doesn’t. He exposits enough for the episode itself to set up the next major plot, but eagle eyed viewers (that Disney has trained its viewers to be since Gravity Falls) will notice key details in the book itself about the nature of the power in the gems in the music box, all of them having a notable connection to what Anne, Marcy, and Sasha represent in the story with their respective strengths, so one should probably look out for more of that in episodes to come. We also see a bit of a darker tinge to Andrias through some of the things he says (and again, isn’t saying) as well as the torn up painting in the basement which is clearly of him and his family, who he says he reveres as peaceful scientists, but I don’t know what they’d say about him using this box to travel to other worlds. And then there’s his offer to Marcy at the end, which we INFURIATINGLY do not get to see and likely won’t until it has already been done. It’s given me some heebee jeebies is all I’m saying. But with that, Amphibia is taking at least a month off and will be back with a Halloween special sometime in October. And boy will it be a long wait.