Back to our regularly-scheduled 3Below review! We’ve got a Stuart-centric story today, but it leaves plenty of space for good content from our favorite Akiridions. A fun little yarn featuring goofy humor and entertaining action, plus a few sweet moments.
Stuart is thrown into a panic when his ex-girlfriend Gwen shows up on Earth. He’d left the relationship in a shady way, and her species is notoriously ruthless with exes—like, “devour them” ruthless. Aja offers herself and Steve to help run interference while encouraging Stuart to give Gwen some closure. Meanwhile, Krel is roped into a sci-fi movie Toby and Eli are making for a short film contest.
Our character of the week is Nancy Domzolski, voiced by Laraine Newman. She’s one of Varvatos’ chess friends from the park, and Varvatos has an enormous crush on her that he refuses to admit. In this episode, Aja sets out to give him relationship advice as well, pointing out that “‘fearless warriors’ aren’t afraid of little old ladies, or feelings.” Nancy is also Toby’s nana, a recurring character on both Trollhunters and 3Below.
The main plot hinges on different characters’ perspectives on the main guest character, Gwen. Stuart thinks she’s a manhungry Gorbon who’s waiting for the first opportunity to eat him. Aja thinks she needs to resolve the unsatisfying way their relationship ended, and maybe even wants to reconnect. And for Gwen’s part, you could see it going either way. She’s friendly and lovey-dovey with Stuart—which is potentially dangerous all by itself, since she’s the size of a house—but she also keeps specifically saying that she wants to go out “for a bite” while baring her sharp teeth. You can’t know how the story is going to play out until you know what Gwen is really after.
I appreciate that this storyline with Stuart and Gwen also spurs on plots for Aja/Steve and Varvatos/Nancy. Because Stuart is afraid to face Gwen alone, he takes her on an unspoken triple date with the other four. Like I said, Varvatos has never told Nancy how he feels about her, so his storyline is about debating his next move. And while Steve puts up with a lot on this triple date, he’s getting a bit tired of the fact that their dates always wind up with them getting kidnapped by bounty hunters or drawn into some other alien shenanigans. It comes to a head here between him and Aja.
Krel has zero to do with the romance side of the story, which is just fine with him. As Aja plans the triple date, he gripes, “Ugh, dating. While you all mash your faces together, I’m going to break the laws of physics.” J’adore! And he would’ve been perfectly happy to stay on the Mother Ship, working on his latest tech project, but stardom comes a-calling.
I like Krel’s interactions with Toby and Eli quite a bit. When the two of them bulldoze their way into his work area, with Toby already in full director mode and Eli haphazardly swinging a boom mic around, Krel is equal parts confused and impatient. Eli tries to sell him on the movie, calling it “a science fiction epic!”, and Krel retorts, “I’m more interested in science facts.” They want him for the starring role, in no small part due to the “special effects” value in his natural Akiridion form, but when they ask, “How’d you like to save the world?”, he shrugs and replies, “I did that, last week, for real.” Diego Luna’s deadpan game is so on point.
But of course, it’s no fun if they don’t talk him into it, so we eventually get to see Krel starring in Kleb or Alive—that’s only part of the title, by the way, which features no fewer than three colons. This leads to plenty of amusing amateur-filmmaking gags, such as janky homemade special effects and the director quickly becoming drunk with power. Luna is clearly having fun giving us Krel’s version of acting; he’s ill-prepared for this and not super into it, and yet he is acting his Akiridion butt off, which is fun.
It’s also really nice to see him hanging out with Toby and Eli and eventually enjoying himself. Krel is a character who keeps to himself a lot, and his aloofness can keep others at arm’s length, but we’ve seen that he does want friends, even if he’s not quite sure what having friends looks like. As the filming goes on, it’s sweet to watch him come out of his shell a bit more.
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