Season 1 of 3Below overlaps with season 3 of Trollhunters, and this episode is a retelling of “In Good Hands,” Aja and Krel’s introduction. We follow the same premise—Señor Uhl tasks Jim with showing the Akiridions around, and he clumsily tries to keep them ignorant of the Trollhunter errands he’s doing on the side—but this time from the perspective of Aja and Krel instead of Jim and co.
Aja is worried when she misplaces her serrator, an Akiridion weapon that, inactivated, looks innocuous, but can produce energy that makes the form of swords, shields, guns, etc. Meanwhile, Krel has unseated Arcadia Oaks High’s reigning math whiz, and the kid’s suspicious (read: bigoted) father has a problem with that. As such, both are dealing with their own stuff when Señor Uhl sends them off with Jim.
Our character of the week is Claire Nuñez, voiced by Lexi Medrano. She’s part of the “major Trollhunters character, minor recurring 3Below character” contingent, one of the central trio on the mothership. By this point in the franchise, she’s Jim’s girlfriend. Smart and pragmatic, she does her best to run interference with Aja and Krel, keeping them from noticing anything amiss about Jim.
First of all, we already had Aja and Krel meet Jim and the rest of his crew in “D’aja Vu,” which we now know takes places before the events of their introductory Trollhunters episode. However, time loop shenanigans there prevent this from being a retcon, and so the main structure of this episode follows the same beats from “In Good Hands.”
I liked that both Aja and Krel have something personal going on here, so it’s not a total retread of scenes we’ve already seen, now from a slightly different angle. That said, if there’s a retcon happening, it’s here. “In Good Hands” gives us a peppy, curious Aja and a bored, standoffish Krel. But in this episode, Aja is both on edge and shifty—she pretends to be sunshiny to avoid suspicion, but she spends the whole time trying to figure out when she can search Jim’s bag, because she glimpses the glow from his Trollhunter amulet and thinks it must be her serrator. While she’s definitely weird and acts blatantly non-human during “In Good Hands,” the Trollhunters episode doesn’t give any inkling that this plot was going on at the same time.
When it comes to Krel, it’s less about what he does than his overall demeanor. Diego Luna’s voice acting is a little more animated here, by turns aggravated at traipsing all over town on weird errands, enthusiastic as he gets caught up in some of the goings-on, and scolding as he warns Aja not to do anything reckless. “In Good Hands” Krel didn’t really care about much that was going on. “Lightning in a Bottle” Krel is kind of invested. Neither characterization is wrong—they’re just different, although I personally have a fondness for the “over it” portrayal from “In Good Hands.”
That said, it’s still a good episode for Krel/Luna. Krel has another overt encounter with racism and xenophobia when math whiz Seamus’s dad barges into school, making noise about how his kid isn’t top of the class anymore. The dude is transparently terrible, insinuating that Krel can’t be Varvatos’s grandson because of their different phenotypes and going so far as to say, “Everyone knows that people like him are terrible at math!” Major props to Señor Uhl for putting his hand on Krel’s shoulder and saying, “What do you mean, Canteloupians?” (the small made-up country Aja and Krel claim to be from.)
One thing that strikes me about this plot is that, while Krel is experiencing racism, he doesn’t know that that’s what’s going on. He’s confused and frustrated, lamenting, “Why is it so difficult for these humans to accept that I have a superior intellect?”, but he doesn’t understand where these attitudes are coming from. He doesn’t even really seem to clock that he’s treated differently than Aja and Varvatos.
But although this doesn’t make sense to him, he does not back down. During the xenophobic rant from Seamus’s dad, Krel coolly points out, “I am new to the country, but I am not new to math. It is a very ancient subject.” Krel has a high opinion of his own intellect anyway, but he’s not about to let anybody doubt his STEM skills.
Given that this stuff is going on at school, it puts one of the “In Good Hands” lines in a new context for Krel. While he and Aja help the Trollhunter trio with the last of their supernatural errands, he overhears Jim’s friend Toby exclaim, “They’re geniuses, Jimbo, weirdo geniuses! That’s the best kind!” Krel’s reaction to this is sweet and lovely.
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