*Season arc spoilers.*
And here we are at the start of the two-part finale! Naturally, the stakes have never been higher, and our heroes have to pull together to protect Arcadia Oaks from all manner of nastiness.
It’s all hands on deck to stop Morando. Our heroes have a plan, but at the general’s orders, Col. Kubritz attempts to draw the Akiridions out by staging an attack on the town. Never one to ignore a trap that’s baited with people they care about, Aja, Krel, and their friends fight to protect everyone. It all goes down at the premiere of Toby’s movie.
Briefly, our character of the week is Darci, voiced by Yara Shahidi from Black-ish/Grown-ish. She’s Toby’s girlfriend, a Trollhunters character who pops up every now and then on 3Below. She never gets much to do on this show, but she does have a couple notable scenes in this episode.
Centering the action at the movie premiere was a good choice. It’s a nice backdrop to get the whole town together, filling the crowd with familiar recurring characters that the royals and co. will have to protect. It also provides some entertaining humor before everything kicks off. I love Eli posing on the makeshift red carpet, one of the teachers marveling at Krel’s “costume” in the film (a.k.a. his natural Akiridion form,) and Steve’s sour grapes over not being cast as the lead: “I almost got that part, but they went in a different direction. They wanted someone with four arms. Arm discrimination!”
Morando has never been more self-assured and megalomaniacal—he dramatically intones, “I will be the god the galaxy has lacked”—but Kubritz and the Omen robots take center stage here. Some great moments during the battle, including Varvatos fighting a bunch of Omens in his “senior citizen” human form. We also have Aja attempting to reach the colonel, pushing back at her choice to align herself with Morando in exchange for the tech she needs to maintain “order” (a.k.a. keep all the aliens out.) “You say you’re protecting humans, but look around you.” Aja says, even as they fight. “You call this protecting?”
Normally, in situations like this, Krel would be off engineering a solution to the larger threat while Aja, Varvatos, and the others hold off the baddies on the ground, but this time, the Omens aren’t specifically attacking the Akiridions. They’re attacking Arcadia Oaks, and Krel can’t hang back and let others do the fighting when his friends are in danger. So the tech duties get delegated to Stuart, and he joins the battle.
Not without some of his trademark cynicism, though. In particular, we get some really fun exchanges between Krel and Aja. Here are my favorite line readings from Diego Luna in this episode:
· When Aja reminds Krel of all they’ve accomplished without their parents there to help them, saying, “We can do this without them,” Krel deadpans in reply, “You do know that ‘this’ is defeating a god, right?”
· Classic exchange – As they prepare to make their next move, Aja reasons, “Since diplomacy is out of the question, I guess we’ll improvise.” An aggravated Krel shouts back, “Improvise? Improvising is not a plan!”
· This last one isn’t an exchange with Aja, but I love it because it’s so cute – After hearing some news to their advantage, Krel exclaims, “Finally, some good luck! We have a minnow of opportunity!” Another character confusedly replies, “I think you mean ‘window,’ or I guess a really lucky fish?”
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