Review: GhostForce “Meta & Lix; Cookieflame”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Liv is paired with one of the cheerleader bullies and forms an unlikely friendship while a magnet ghost attacks, then Mike tries to go on a date with Charlie while a cookie ghost attacks.

OUR TAKE

Welcome back to “nice ideas on paper that are poorly executed in practice”, the weekly show that highlights how a story might have had a potential neat concept on their hands but wasted it entirely. This week, we see Liv make friends with Jane, one half of the twin bullies with her sister Stacy, who are normally just part of the one note supporting cast who are better left in the background and are likely to never get that much development. However, this time we get to see that she has some hidden depths beneath her shallowness, mainly in that she finally gets a chance to be away from her sister and realizes she has interests and thoughts that are not dependent on her. And because Liv is such a stark contrast from Stacy, Jane doesn’t think they’ll get along, but they surprisingly do. Plus, in a stroke of accidental creative symmetry, the ghost for that part of the episode is pair of magnet poles, which involves two different forces to be drawn to each other, which pairs nicely with what’s going on between Liv and Jane. Now, I’m not saying they’ll take this in a romantic direction, but it would be a great opportunity to show how the differences between them can help in stopping the ghost.

But no, instead it’s pretty much inconsequential to everything that’s going on and Mike of all people gets to have the final attack to finish the ghost off. It’s almost like the people writing the interpersonal conflict and the fight scenes are in completely different rooms and don’t talk to each other. And considering all the heroes ever fight are different ghosts who don’t talk and then are removed entirely after their one and only fight, it’s not like they can ever feel anything personal during the fights either. At least in Ladybug, the ones the heroes fight are people first and the reason they become bad guys is part of the lesson and can be used to push character growth for those involved, but not in GhostForce apparently. Oh yeah, and the other segment of the episode is Mike trying to woo Charlie but the main lesson is that he should be himself, and then they fight a giant cookie despite the ghost coming from a hot dog cart. Doesn’t look like there’s any new episodes of the show for at least two weeks, but I really hope we start seeing some improvement if this show is going to continue past its first season.