Amphibia Review: Civil Wart / Hop-Popular

"Ah, theater night. The one night a month we come together, watch our stories, and forget all our horrible, horrible troubles."

Okay, I just want to get this out of the way: it's obviously Team Alastair. His eyes sparkle like stars and the dude slays with the panflutes. I'm not falling for some phony Schwarzenegger-ass lumbersexual.

Slightly less importantly, "Civil Wart" was a great episode. While the last set of episodes left me skeptical of the show's sense of ambition when not pursuing more serious parts of its narrative, "Civil Wart" immediately assuaged me of my concerns, leaping into a particularly crazy idea with full force. In this case, after Anne shows "Love Choice," a movie where two dudes compete for the love of a girl named Constance, the town gets split into two aggressive factions rallying behind each male lead, both spearheaded by the Plantar kids—Sprig is on Team Alastair, and Polly is pro-Hunter.

Sure, it's inherently funny to watch how dramatically the feud plays out, with Wartwood devolving into a warzone with a line straight down the middle of town, and the snippets of "Love Choice" we get shown are appreciably weird in how they spoof Twilight-esque movies, but the best part of the episode is just how it illustrates Sprig and Polly's brother-sister relationship. I've consistently struggled with Polly's role in the show because I feel like she never feels genuine as a character (instead dishing out mocking commentary whenever she can), but she tends to do well when she's actually in the spotlight, and "Civil Wart" is no different, allowing her to participate in some pretty nice character work.

A large part of their disagreement is just a projection off of Sprig's refusal to look out for his little sister, allowing things to escalate as they do, and it's something that lay at the heart of the episode: it's all about pride and self-interest. Even if, by the end, Sprig realizes he's in the wrong through dramatically saving Polly from being ambushed by his own troops, there's a lesson for both to take away, and it's nice to see their relationship strengthened, though I doubt that'll really be demonstrated more strongly than before—Sprig and Polly are who they are, after all, and that's what makes them strong foils.

"I'll give it to ya straight: I want you to lose tomorrow's trial." "Well yeah, I figured."

"Hop-Popular" shifts the focus away from them significantly, landing on Hop Pop. He's, in my opinion, the series' strongest character, always delivering in every episode he appears in with a nice tinge of existential angst, and making him the lead is always a surefire formula for success. It's always great, too, to see Amphibia acknowledging its continuity, expanding upon Hop Pop's well-being since losing the family produce stand. The answer? Terribly, but after a job interview, he finds his new calling: he's gonna run for mayor against Toadstool.

I was skeptical of Amphibia indulging in political satire, which is always a really dicey thing for a lot of shows to do, but I liked that "Hop-Popular" sought to subvert expectations almost entirely, having Hop Pop and Mayor Toadstool compete through a series of ridiculous challenges, culminating in a boxing match. That, too, has the additional, well-appreciated side effect of emphasizing how bad of a candidate Toadstool, including some brilliant self-inflicted character assassination in an attempt to calm down some crying baby birds by throwing money at them.

Ultimately, everything is just meaningless pageantry—as the final outcome reveals, Hop Pop never had a chance to succeed from the start, and while he earned every vote in Wartwood, Toadstool won by tens of thousands of votes from the rest of the valley. It's a brutal reveal, but one that was bound to happen, though "Hop-Popular," at the very least, uses this to emphasize how much the town has turned on him as a political figure (which has been very on-and-off since "Toad Tax"). Plus, seeing all of the townsfolk gather around Hop Pop is incredibly sweet, pitching in to rebuild his stand and telling him that even if he didn't win, he gave them hope.

"Civil Wart" and "Hop-Popular" are two simple episodes that focus almost exclusively on the Plantars (Anne plays small, supporting roles in each, while Polly and Sprig take care of the heavy lifting in the former and Hop Pop in the latter), but it's a nice way to shake things up and tell Amphibia's stories through different perspectives.

FINAL GRADES:
-"Civil Wart": A-.
-"Hop-Popular": B+.

For the last set of Amphibia reviews for "Grubhog Day" and "Hop Pop and Lock," CLICK HERE.

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