Review: Camp Camp “The Quarter-Moon Convergence”

When the moon is in the 7th house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then a galactic octopus will judge our planet (and love will steer the stars.)

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Gwen and David are mysteriously ill, so Quartermaster takes the kids on an astronomy night to observe the aligning planets. The kids cast off Quartermaster, while additionally making fun of Harrison’s magic. Feeling like an outcast, Harrison befriends Quartermaster who finds use in his magical ability. Meanwhile, Neil tries to lead the astronomy night (not Space Kid) and spies a falling meteor a mile away.

Quartermaster takes Harrison on his errands through the woods, in order to collect a bird’s nest, a tree root, and an electric eel, before taking him to his secret lair in what was formerly a demon cave. He gives Harrison a spell book which they take to the meteorite. The natural world around them (plants, trees, etc.) all start to come alive and attack them. Quartermaster has Harrison read in tongues from the book as he combines the ingredients with pigs blood on the meteorite. Harrison fends off the trees, finishes the spell, and transports he and Quartermaster to space. There, an octopus greets them over tea and asks them why their planet should be spared from doom. Quartermaster responds that his “stuff is there.” The octopus looks into Harrison’s good soul and tells him not to worry about the perception of others (and that his brother says hi.)

Meanwhile, Neil had gotten the campers lost, causing them to ostracize him the same way they did to Harrison. Harrison realizes that there was never anything wrong with him and that kids push their own insecurities onto everyone else. He also tells Quartermaster he never wants to be involved in anything he does ever again.

Our Take

This was an extraordinarily good Harrison episode, which is extremely welcome because it means we get to hear more of Yotam Perel. Out of all the possible character combinations they could have gone with, no one would have ever been able to guess a Harrison and Quartermaster episode. Did we ask for it? No. Is it one of the best episodes in the season? Yeah.

The visuals were pretty rad — everything from the ritual scene to being thrown into space with a sentient octopus who oversees our universe was unexpected and fun. The animation of the planets aligning while Harrison became entranced by the spell was definitely next-level in comparison to what Camp Camp normally dishes out — not to mention, space/star visuals were really beautiful throughout the whole episode (not just when we were teleported to the talking octopus.)

Writing Quartermaster’s other-worldly efforts is really good for when they want to throw in wacky plots like these. It breaks up the mundane aspects of the show, and most importantly, it still doesn’t leave the viewers exactly wanting to know what Quartermaster’s overall intents are — it’s so absurdly mysterious and surreal that it’s a void that makes sense to leave unfilled/unanswered. The octopus was just incredible, even down to the voice acting. The “Oh, Harrison: Your brother says hi,” twist was simultaneously funny and impactful to Harrison’s story lore. It’s one of the rare instances that humor/seriousness was successfully combined in the show.

It’s been five episodes and it seems that David (Gwen too, but specifically David) has been continuously pushed out of the picture. Are they building up to something big? It just seems a little off that they haven’t even begun to delve into the real meat of Cameron staying at the camp. It almost feels like not even the writers were ready for it — that they backed themselves into a corner and didn’t know how to continuously flesh a plot point like that across the season.

Speculations aside, this was a good episode, even if not everyone was interconnected/involved. Maybe the planets can align for more episodes like these.