Review: Tangled “Cassandra V. Eugene”

Battle of the century.

Some Spoilers Below

The stories that Tangled: The Series tells are much smaller in scale than the feature film. Cassandra continues to play a huge role in moving those stories forward. Last week we saw how Rapunzel dealt with her first fight within her first female friendship. In this episode, the focus is on Cassandra and Eugene. While the incidents with Cassandra don’t affect Eugene quite as much as they did Rapuzel, we do get more of a look past Cassandra’s brazen exterior.

Eugene and Cassandra are fighting, like always. We haven’t gotten much of an explanation of why these two hate each other yet. It seems like they continually clash because they’re both just too headstrong. They also both have hidden insecurities that they’re constantly trying to hide. Eugene got a whole movie to explore his. All we know so far about Cassandra is that her father is the Captain of the Guard and she’s constantly either fighting that image or trying to live up to it.

But for the viewer, their fight is fun. Eugene is just so sassy. It’s fun to see him in any situation, from last week’s unbridled enthusiasm to this week’s sarcasm and range. He’s delightful and it’s all thanks to Zachary Levi’s voice acting. All the dialogue in this show is quality but Levi just elevates it and inflates it. The fact that both he and Mandy Moore agreed to reprise their roles shows that the series is working to high standards (and with a high budget).

Cassandra can be annoying, but being both a lady in waiting and daughter of the Captain of the Guard enforces a lot of expectations and pressures. She’s not always likable, but she does always care.

Still, Rapunzel wants the fighting to stop and thinks they have the potential to be great friends. I think she’s right, since they’re so similar and all. If Cassandra and Eugene won’t spend time together, Rapunzel will make them. She locks them both up in the dungeon and makes them work together on a scavenger hunt to escape.

Of course, they each have differing strengths that help them solve the puzzle. But they fight while they’re doing it. Cassandra gets to the crux of things, the reason why they’re really fighting.

“That’s just like you, isn’t it? Sit back and let things fall right into your lap.”

I love any excuse to lock characters up and make them spill their hearts to each other – it’s a classic. While we don’t get too deep into things, we do get more of Cassandra’s backstory. Her dad is a good guy but he doesn’t encourage any type of dreaming. Also, she’s adopted! She doesn’t remember her real parents, just like Eugene. Rapunzel got a happy ending in that arena, but more realistically, these two didn’t.

Their talk doesn’t last long since they start fighting again, but they manage to make their way out of the dungeon. The progress here was small, but enough to carry viewers’ interest for a few more episodes, at least. I enjoyed last week’s episode, and since the theme was very similar, I enjoyed this week’s too. Tangled has a lot of heart and is pretty successful at letting it show.