*The only way to talk about this miniseries involves spoiling the identities of “the three,” and that starts here. This is your official warning.*
I skipped reviewing episode 3, but you should watch it anyway—while episodes 1 and 2 are entertaining and magnificently animated, episode 3 is the one that first made me sit up and go, “Oh, this is really something special.” Those spectacular qualities only continue in episode 4.
The true prophecy Maya uncovered involves one great warrior from each of the four nearby kingdoms coming together to do battle with the gods. She has claimed the title of the little eagle warrior, representing Teca, and in the last episode she found her rooster wizard of Luna Island, a nervous motormouth named Rico. Traveling to the Jungle Lands in search of the great skull warrior, Maya and Rico are confronted with a broken, untrusting archer named Chimi, who’s exactly what they need.
I need to point out once more that, while Maya and the Three does a fine job of including characters with disabilities, that same inclusion isn’t extended to the actors. Chimi, voiced by Stephanie Beatriz, is certainly the most prominent example of this. Chimi has albinism, and she was thrown out of the kingdom as an infant, as those around her feared the curse of “el monstruo blanco.” (Side note: people with albinism have low vision. There isn’t a single acknowledgement of the fact that the greatest archer in the land is most likely legally blind.) She was raised in the jungle by the animals, and as such, she’s more than a little feral. She’s prone to growling, barking, and howling, she often moves on all fours, and she has a habit of sniffing people when she meets them.
At the same time, while Chimi is a girl of few words, she’s perfectly lingual and can speak with stark intensity about the betrayals she’s suffered. When Maya starts to relate her own tale of woe from the first two episodes, Chimi is quick to note that Maya’s gripes ignore everything she’s been blessed with. It’s one of the first experiences that makes Maya reckon, just a little, with the way she’s centered herself and recognize that her life hasn’t been such a struggle after all. And I really like that.
I should also mention that, while Beatriz is of course best known for Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the first projects of hers that come to my mind are this show and Encanto. And from them, I’ve learned that she can absolutely make me cry. The two characters are very different—Mirabel is an eager open book, and Chimi is a deeply-guarded badass—but both are nakedly vulnerable when they break down. Even in voice acting, these scenes are so intimate to witness.
Meanwhile, we also get Rico. After watching this show for the first time, I looked up Allen Maldonado and realized he played Dre’s assistant Curtis on Black-ish. If he was funny on that show, he’s stellar here. Like Chimi, Rico was badly hurt in his formative years, but his trauma manifests in an entirely different way. He plays the clown, constantly talking and cracking jokes, skirting around the fact that his lack of confidence as a wizard isn’t due to any deficit in his abilities—rather, he’s scared of what he’s capable of. Plus, he just gets great lines. During a tense audience with the leader of the Jungle Lands, Maya refers to him as her “insolent partner,” and he awesomely adds, “See? I’m insolent until proven guilty!”
Not a whole lot of Diego Luna/Zatz today. He’s just in one scene, but it’s a good one. While his opinion on Maya has been evolving pretty much from the moment he met her, she’s still understandably stuck on the whole “let me take you to the underworld so Lord Mictlan can sacrifice you” thing. So even as he starts going rogue from the gods, offering to help her instead of capture her, Maya can’t trust it. And yet, you can feel the love/hate vibe they have going on, and it’s really delightful. Their scene in this episode is a great mix of sharpness and softness.
Oh, and in a string of other insults, Maya calls Zatz a “bat hombre,” which tickles me to no end.
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