Shorts Review: Tangled: Short Cuts “Hare Peace”

Just like the full-length episodes, Tangled: Short Cuts has its ups and downs.

Rapunzel agrees to look after a shopkeeper’s bunny while he steps away, but the bunny escapes. Inspired by Pascal’s struggles with a finger trap, she decides the only solution is to relax. When Rapunzel opens her eyes, the bunny has returned to her. Everything’s great, except the shopkeeper actually wanted her to watch over his prizewinning lettuce, not the bunny.

The moral of the story is a little muddy here. Stopping to take a breath is a good grounding technique, and many problems do sort themselves out, but a missing bunny isn’t usually one of them. Neither of these problems has much to do with going further into the problem to get yourself out of it like a finger trap does. But it turns out none of this matters. Rapunzel was doing more harm than good by letting a bunny roam free around glorified bunny food.

Tangled: Short Cuts have the potential to be beautiful, even moving, as they were in the first two episodes. “Hare Peace” wasn’t bad, just unnecessary. Nothing in the series has been able to dig into Rapunzel’s character quite like the original movie, and she’s made for much more than acting cheerful and doing favors.