*A few spoilers for the end of season 1, including a major revelation late from late in the season.*
And here we are with season 2! It’s off to a great start, in a strong episode brimming with 3Below’s signature blend of action, comedy, and emotion.
Okay, some housekeeping from the end of season 1 first. Shortly before the finale, Zadra escaped Akiridion-5 and arrived on Earth with urgent news for the royals: prior to the coup, the royal family was secretly betrayed by none other than Varvatos! He deeply regretted his actions and threw everything he had into protecting them in the finale, with a big sacrifice play. And in the episode’s final moments, after all the dust had settled, Eli caught a glimpse of Aja and Krel in their Akiridion forms and snapped a picture.
That’s where we are at the start of the new season. Aja, Krel, and Zadra are trying to clean up after the events of the finale, which left Mother badly damaged. They haven’t seen Varvatos since he risked his life saving them, and they don’t even know if he’s still alive. Aja is anxious to find out what happened to him, while Krel is adamant in refusing to care about the “traitor.” Meanwhile, Eli shows Toby his picture of Aja and Krel, trying to convince him that aliens walk among them.
Toby Domzalski, voiced by Charlie Saxton, is a Trollhunters character I haven’t highlighted yet—while most of that crew is limited to brief guest appearances on 3Below, I knew Toby had a bigger presence in the second season, so there’d be plenty of time for him later. And that time has now come! Jim’s best friend, Toby is a frequently source of comic relief on Trollhunters but is pretty ride-or-die for his buddy. By this point in the franchise, he has his own suit of armor and can wield an enchanted hammer.
When Eli approaches Toby about the “weird things” happening in Arcadia Oaks, Toby’s primed to assume he knows all about it, but Eli’s alien theory throws him for a loop. Even with photographic evidence, it’s very, “Trolls, obviously, wizards, maybe, aliens??? Come on, be serious.” I’m reminded of an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures where Sarah Jane, who encounters aliens on the regular, scoffs at the idea of ghosts. But Eli gets him to agree to investigate, which leads to fun exchanges like the following:
· “That alien has Steve. She kidnapped him. I bet she brainwashed him!” “That wouldn’t be hard.”
· “We have to save Steve!” “Do we, though?”
While Aja and Krel aren’t without allies on Earth, that’s only very recently extended to humans who know their secret, and then only to Steve. At the prospect of more humans finding out, the Tarrons deflect, but 1) they have bigger things going on at the moment and 2) at a certain point, they get a little tired of hiding. Zadra, on the lookout for further bounty hunters, insists, “Your human friends can’t help protect you. I can.” But the resulting cultural collision settles a few questions about what humans are capable of and whether they can get along with aliens.
As with “Last Night on Earth,” we get a good mix of entertaining and emotional material from Krel, which adds up to a great episode for Diego Luna. The eternal engineer, he gripes, “Well, I have my own tradition. It’s called Fixing the Mothership, and it’s starting to get old.” When someone expresses a bit of “don’t you all know each other?” prejudice, Krel flatly answers, “It is completely offensive, and complimentary, that you think we would know all 50 trillion lifeforms in the universe.” And when Aja leaps into a potentially dangerous situation with catlike reflexes, it cracks me up that Krel attempts the same move and falls flat on his face.
Side note: I appreciate that Krel hasn’t taken a level in badass, that he’s not a warrior and has no real desire to be. If it weren’t for the bounty hunters who keep attacking him and Aja, I think he’d be perfectly content not to fight at all.
And again, we have the more emotional moments too. Just as Luna’s matter-of-fact delivery on the comedic lines shines, his earnest performance in the more dramatic scenes adds a lot to the episode. Between his voice acting and the animation, we really dive into the conflicted feelings Krel has about Varvatos, which he attempts to push down behind a mask of indifference. This subplot is really well done and comes together beautifully at the end of the episode.
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