Review: Star vs. the Forces of Evil “Monster Bash”

Was this episode a “Graveyard Smash”?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Star sets up decorations to a unity event at an abandoned temple with all the party stuff funded by Rich Pigeon to bring together the Mewni natives and monsters in a peaceful celebration which for the most part start it starts out ok, that is until Miss Heinous (Voiced by Jessica Walter) is hiding and contemplating something sinister. As Star tries to make sure everything is going smoothly, two minor characters named Princess Spiderbite and “Slime” discover a hidden passage full or forebodingly large monster statues and Spiderbite’s screams get Star’s attention when she tries to make unity speech. As they find her, racial tensions begin to rise when Spiderbite can’t properly describe the creature and the Monsters begin to go missing left and right.

Star decides to take it upon herself to investigate what’s actually going on, and due to Tom’s carefree attitude give a shit about her Star’s princess problems, Marco tags along and they go inside the passage leading them to encounter the violently psychotic Sailor Moon reject, Mina Loveberry who’s imprisoned all the monsters and views them all to be dangerous. When Star Confronts Mina about what she’s doing, it abruptly stops when Heinous shows up vowing her revenge on Marco but out to plot-convenience that comes to a massively abrupt halt when we get to the true meat of the story. When Heinous’s cheeks glow club/clover symbols, it begins to open another hidden passage leading to a series of shocking revelations tied with Heinous’s past including her real name being “Meteora” and an even bigger reveal that she’s Eclipsa’s half-monster daughter which further ties her with the Butterfly family lineage.

As Mina attempts to kill Heinous just for existing, much of the episode’s running time is spent on a well done fight scene between Mina & Star as their diametrically opposing ideologies clash verbally and physically until Tom later attempts to help Star while Marco tries to set the kidnapped monsters free but Rhombulus of the magic high commission shows up and responds and stop the large surge of magic detected by the battle and Mina escapes. In the aftermath, Star feels like her plan to Unite Mewmans & Monsters failed and is now unsure how far her family extends with the revelation that Miss Heinous is actually another family descendant tied with Eclipsa but the episode ends with one hell of a cliffhanger when Heinous while hiding decides to go back to old name “Meteora”.

Our Take

Much like RWBY, Steven Universe and the Harry Potter franchise, the greatest plot-twists have often been character backstories, lore or past events that have taken place long before the main story. So when a protagonist makes a huge unraveling discovery about them, we the audience are along for the ride and easily connect with the character more because we’re just as effectively shocked as they are by the twist.

For a half-hour midseason finale, this is pretty much going to leave anyone who’s followed the series hooked. But now with these unraveling twists, I’m more curious to see how Meteora will react to seeing her Mother Eclipsa again after hundreds of years or If Star will ever confront Mina again for fucking up her Unity party or if equal rights between Mewmans and Monsters will ever happen in the future at all. Jessica Walter’s character is for once humanized after the big reveal giving her a balance of tragedy and villainy, rather than being a despicable rule-enforcer and I always wondered if a half monster/mewman hybrid ever existed within the show’s universe but this big reveal answered those questions very quickly.

Well Played Daron Nefcy, You know how to leave your fans hooked as much as Rebecca Sugar does with her Steven Universe plot twists. Just try to tone down the rabid “shipping” & Marco abuse in later episodes and I’ll keep watching.