Amphibia Review: Reunion

"Spranne against the world."

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This the moment we've all been waiting for, and it was worth the journey. More than just being the pinnacle of everything that happened over the past month, "Reunion" is Amphibia showing its dramatic potential, an entry that looks to prove the series' worth amidst its contemporaries, and in that respect, it's a massive success. This is a show demonstrating that it knows what it's doing, and demonstrating that its narrative has been building up to this point while adding new, daring elements that seek to change the game that Amphibia's worked so hard to establish, and that combination of acknowledging the old while compounding the scope and vision of the show ensures that "Reunion" is a milestone.

A lot of its success is indebted to Sasha. We've only seen her in one episode prior, though she made such a strong impression that she feels fully-realized from the start. I made her out to be nothing but an antagonistic force back then keen on manipulating her friends, but "Reunion" reveals her to be a character with a lot more dimensions than simply being exploitative: as its beginning flashback reveals, she actually does value and look after what she perceives as Anne's best interests.

The issue is that, at the same time, Sasha uses that for her own personal gain, lumping in Anne's best interests with her own desires and twisting what Anne wants against her. The moment where Sasha convinces Anne that she doesn't know what she wants, forcing Anne to accompany her and skip her birthday party while maintaining the illusion of giving Anne a choice, is particularly chilling: not only is Sasha a toxic person, but she doesn't know that she's toxic.

It takes Anne a while to actually reach that revelation, too. It makes sense: although Anne's said things that hint at Sasha's horribleness, though without being able to actually realize she's a bad friend, and obviously, seeing Sasha again after such a long time is bound to make her overlook the more problematic elements underpinning their relationship. Luckily, that gets nicely counterbalanced in the narrative by Sprig's mounting suspicions, building up to the reveal that the "banquet" at the Toads' fort that Sasha invites the residents of Wartwood to was actually an effort to hold them prisoner.

That accompanies the equally-shocking reveal that Hop-Pop has become a revolutionary figure in Amphibia, with his effort to become mayor and generally anti-Toadstool behavior framing him as a hero trying to take down the establishment (depicted, naturally, Obama poster-style), and the Toads want him assassinated. It's a brilliantly hilarious reveal, and I'll be excited to see how Hop Pop's reputation serves him in the future, allowing for further explanation of Amphibia's interesting, toad-centered political structure.

The culmination of "Reunion," though, is the moment that Anne finally defies Sasha. The Plantars, let alone all the residents of Wartwood, have taught her what it actually means to care about someone, and she recognizes Sasha's care as but a dim reflection of what Sprig and company have provided her. It cements Anne picking a side, and while she does later attempt to save Sasha's life, that reads to me more as a demonstration of her morals and her standing on a higher ground than Sasha as opposed to falling into bad behavior. In the meantime, though, there's an awesome fight between the two that Anne, unsurprisingly wins, and though Sasha's employer Toad, Grime, fails to uphold his half of the deal surrounding the fight (if Anne wins, she and everyone gets to live; if Sasha wins, Hop Pop is fed to a carnivorous plant), an ill-advised scheme by One-Eyed Wally—whose presence in the show is criminally-underrated, mind you—to detonate the fort saves the day.

That leads to Sasha being knocked off the fort, though Anne tries to save her. It's another powerful scene (set to the song "Lean on Me," which definitely helps jerk those tears), but this time, Sasha's the one growing as a character: she admits that maybe Anne would be better off without her, before Sasha lets go, sending herself plummeting to her untimely demise... though quickly being scooped up by Grime. Sasha's fate is uncertain, and it's unclear how the character will be phased by their interaction, but combined with the fort exploding, Grime's only getting more and more reasons to seek vengeance against Anne.

There's a lot of questions opened up by "Reunion," and it's great for Amphibia to leave us with something to think about as it enters its next stage of development. While it's hard to say what direction Season 2 will be headed in—Season 1's mix of episodic and serialized narratives leads me to believe that there'll be a sort of happy medium, maybe like how Wander Over Yonder's second season was broken up into quarters marked by monumental shifts in the status quo—but I'm excited nonetheless, and I can't wait to see Amphibia cement its name in the pantheon of contemporary cartoons in a few years.

FINAL GRADE: A+.
SEASON GRADE: B+.

There are few other cartoons whose first seasons have left me with so much excitement, and that's no small feat. See you again here when Part 2 commences.

For the Amphibia review round-up, including reviews of "Cursed!," "Fiddle Me This," and "Anne of the Year," CLICK HERE.

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