Amphibia Review: Contagi-Anne / Family Shrub

"Wow, that's uncharacteristically generous of you."

Amphibia episodes tend to play like extended proverbs and life lessons. No matter how complex the episode, there's a basic sense of lesson-learning crucial to each of them. From the very start with a basic but cleverly-subverted message about not judging books by their cover, to "Breakout Star" teaching you to never forget where you came from, there's a sort of fortune cookie mentality, with each episode dispensing some nugget of uncomplicated wisdom on its way to the finish line. It's never to the expense of the material of the show itself, and it allows for a basic throughline of optimism that connects every episode, but at a certain point, you wonder if there's really any other mode that Amphibia can switch into.

"Contagi-Anne" is, in that respect, as straightforward in its lesson-learning as it can get. Instead of helping out her new family with protecting their crops during the worst rainstorm of the year, Anne decides to fake coming down with a bad case of the Mocha Lattes, but as a result of her refusal to lend a helping hand, all the other Plantars get legitimately sick, and it's her job to take care of them. That's a fine bit of situational irony in and of itself, but there's the extra step taken of having all of them come down with a far worse ailment: a deadly disease called Red Leg, which turns you red from legs up until you croak. (Heh, frog puns.)

Granted, it's somewhat obvious that their condition wasn't life-threatening and the stakes were never too high⁠—the Plantars were always going to be alright by the end, and being a show aimed at kids aside, there's no way Polly, Sprig, or Hop Pop would ever be killed off (let alone this early)⁠—but their journey is a fun one, and Anne's karmic retribution is well-earned without feeling cruel. It's always great to see Anne step it up when she has to fix the results of her mistakes, and watching her increasingly-courageous journey to a mineral pool on top of a mountain literally called the Peak of Health, all while carrying each Plantar on her back, is definitely one of the more admirable things she's done so far.

There's a fun bit of knife-twisting in the fact that, if she'd just done the work outside earlier with the Plantars, she would've put in less work than she is now, but the sincerity of their adventure, across the board, really makes "Contagi-Anne" work. A lot of other show's writers would've had the Plantars know Anne was faking her illness and subsequently feign their disease to get back at her, but the fact that Anne's the only culpable one in the equation, and that she redeems herself, keeps everything peachy keen.

"Would you please stop pulling levers?!" "Levers are for pulling, Anne!"

"Family Shrub" is probably the episode from the bunch that'll probably be getting more attention, though, and for an understandable reason: it's an interesting deep-dive into the Plantars' secret family history, with Anne, Sprig, and Polly discovering a sprawling, secret lair in their house containing long-forgotten secrets about their unassumingly badass ancestors. With that being said, I honestly wasn't super duper enthralled by it; I certainly think that it has a lot of merit, but it's a fairly traditional idea to pursue, and the fact that everything is limited to the Plantar family basement means that we don't get as many inspired background designs and environmental details as usual, which really detracts from the overall mood in subtle but felt ways.

I suppose that's to be expected, though, from an episode more interested in pursuing lore than usual, but there's nothing too remarkable on display. Most interestingly, we get some sense of alignment in what makes each Plantar kid, and Anne, unique. Sprig, like great uncle Skip Plantar, shows an interest in the sciences and yet a strong sense of compassion (even if he uses that to stab a giant gourd monster in the back); Polly, like Polliana, is destructive but determined; and Anne, like the similarly adopted member of the Plantar family shrub Emma the Newt, is an avid traveler and puzzle-solver. With all of that being said, though, there's never a sense of actual legitimacy in their past family members, who serve simply to hold a mirror up to their modern-day contemporaries without jumping out as well-articulated. Perhaps that's something for future episodes to work out; I doubt that the massive labyrinth of cool oddities hiding under the Plantar household won't be mentioned again.

Perhaps most distracting, though, is the episode's attempt at constructing a B-plot. I do appreciate Amphibia taking steps to try to involve Hop Pop, since episodes like this tend to just sideline him until he spontaneously reappears at the end, but the idea of him going shopping for glue, and then clumsily becoming a sticky monstrosity, doesn't have much going for it. It adds a nice splash of humor that the A-plot occasionally lacks, but it's a one-dimensional joke that never escalates in surprising ways. I'm not saying it couldn't have been done, but something about it just doesn't really gel.

Ultimately, "Family Shrub" is trying to set a lot of stuff up, but it just lacks the sort of vibrancy and vitality that other episodes have really come to master. I may be alone in that opinion, but that's just how subjectivity works. Your move, Amphibia.

FINAL GRADES:
"Contagia-Anne": B+.
"Family Shrub": B-.

For the last set of Amphibia reviews for "Dating Season" and "Anne vs. Wild," CLICK HERE.

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