*Episode premise spoilers.*
Even though 3Below takes place in the same town as Trollhunters and is full of minor and supporting characters from the mother show, and even though Aja and Krel made their first Tales of Arcadia appearances there, this marks the first “proper” crossover episode with Trollhunters. It takes them not quite half a season to break out those big guns, which I suppose is a decent level of restraint.
Aja is impatient to begin her official warrior training with Varvatos and thoroughly aggravated when he makes her help Krel at the science fair instead. But when a troll wielding a piece of Akiridion space junk crashes the fair, a combination of his magic and the broken tech creates a time loop that only Aja and Jim, the Trollhunter, are aware of.
Okay, so I can’t speak to how well this episode would play to someone who doesn’t watch Trollhunters. My gut says they do a reasonable job in bringing the main humans/trolls from that show over to this one, introducing them broadly but efficiently while still keeping it primarily a story about the Akiridion characters, namely Aja. There some fun jokes as the two camps start to interact over the various loops, such as Aja calling Jim’s Trollhunter amulet “a magic omelet” and Varvatos absolutely living for punching Jim’s enormous troll buddy AAARRRGGHH!!! And as someone who has seen both shows, it’s nice to watch the character trade tips, work together, and offer support in difficult situations.
For our character of the week, I’ll mention Jim’s troll mentor Blinky, voice by Kelsey Grammer. While he only shows up in a couple of 3Below episodes, he’s an important character within the larger Tales of Arcadia franchise. His characterization is entirely “what if Frasier was a four-armed, six-eyed troll?”, which is fun. Here, when Varvatos exclaims about the troll “monsters” on the scene, Blinky theatrically proclaims, “Monstrosity lies only in the humans’ hearts! Do not judge a book by its cover.”
We cover all the classic time loop tropes in this one: trying to use foreknowledge to game the system, trying to avoid the loop by staying out of whole situation, confidently moving in with a “fix” and immediately causing a new loop, realizing you’re better off setting yourself up for success in the next loop rather than trying to break it this time, and so forth. But within that it’s also a nice episode for Aja, exploring why she wants to be a warrior beyond just Butt-Kicking Action Girl archetypes.
With the main focus on Aja, plus the infusion of all the Trollhunters main cast, Krel is a little more on the sidelines, but Diego Luna is still plenty entertaining. Krel’s eagerness about the science fair is cute, insisting, “Aja, I need to obtain the blue ribbon of scientific excellence!” as he struggles to push a heavy box (containing his project) across the floor. But as we’ve seen with Krel before, when he shakes off his cynicism about human things, he often quickly experiences a comedown. In this case, it’s realizing that every other science fair project is a baking-soda volcano and seeing that the judges, who he’d hoped would be Arcadia Oaks’ greatest scientific minds, are in fact a very bored gym teacher and math teacher.
There’s just something about Krel being blunt, bossy, and a little immature that’s just so delightful to me. A couple of my favorite lines include him telling Aja his science fair project is “much more important than face-kicking and all that nonsense” (a.k.a. her warrior training,) and snippily declaring, “I’m going with or without you! …Preferably with you.” Luna hits just the right notes with his line deliveries, and his timing is spot on.
No comments:
Post a Comment