Summer Camp Island Review: Don't Tell Lucy / The Yum Whisperer (Yeti Confetti Chapters 1 + 2)

"It's better to have loved the yetis and have them ignore you than to have never loved the yetis at all."

--

Since all of this season's arcs were announced, the yeti arc has always been the one I was most excited about. As far as creatures on the island go, they've always had the most fascinating and defined mythology to me, operating by the rules of their own complex society that feels shockingly fleshed-out and spectacularly endearing. It should be telling that despite only featuring prominently in two episodes spearheaded by Saxophone—the early, series-defining "Saxophone Come Home" and Season 2's equally-precious "Catacombs"—they've left such a strong impression.

The fact that the Yeti Confetti chapter also ushers forth five episodes centered around Lucy only serves to sweeten the deal. I've sung my praises of SCI's supporting cast in so many of my reviews, so make no mistake about my enthusiasm: the greatest frustration with the show's characters is just how much they flirt with being underutilized. While Max's dry spell continues, though, it's awesome that someone who got a nice boost from last season wasn't just driven to the forefront, but would be the defining character of a whole leg of Season 3.

She's an interesting character for the show to work with, too. Lucy is, at once, both callous and sincere, and that gives her an interesting bite amid such an otherwise sweet and amiable cast, especially because (unlike her closest snark equivalent, Susie) she's equally defined by her naivete. She'll talk the talk about dense yeti lore, but also fawn clingily over a unicorn in the same breath. "Don't Tell Lucy" and "The Yum Whisperer" do a great job of exploring that duality, setting the Yeti Confetti arc at a promising, if rather slow, start.

Summer Camp Island Review: Honey Moondog / Royally Bored / All the King's Slides (Puddle and the King Chapters 1-3)

"Choo choo! All aboard! Last stop: a heightened understanding of the physics of true love."

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I'm not gonna lie in saying that the prospects of the Alien arc of this season scared me a bit. Puddle and the King have been two characters that I have, perhaps controversially, always struggled with a bit; while I've found them pretty darn delightful in small doses, they can become exhausting for me when they're pushed more towards the forefront, with episodes like "Space Invasion" and "Tortilla Towels" being among the most frustrating entries in the show to me. Every appearance from the aliens risks them becoming a cumbersome presence that exist to weigh on Oscar and Hedgehog.

It came as a surprise to me, then, just how much I enjoyed this week's offerings. Whereas the Susie arc was made up of four deeply interconnected episodes with a focus on telling one story, the alien arc is more in the spirit of how SCI usually conducts itself, though with a sharper focus on the aliens and their kingdom. While there is linearity to the episodes, going from Puddle and the King's departure to their return and focusing in large part on Oscar and Hedgehog assuming the throne temporarily, each installment is interested in exploring vastly different concepts. Some inevitably landed for me more than others, sure, but combined, they come across as a pleasant return to form that, nonetheless, feels distinctly invigorating and special.

"Honey Moondog," especially, quelled a lot of my fears about what I feared the arc could be, kicking off the trilogy with the soundest and most delightful episode of the bunch. While I have a lot of praises to sing for the King and Puddle here (which we'll get to), so much of that is indebted to some classic Osc-Hog shenanigans. For such a winning duo, it's a little unfortunate how much last season de-emphasized their partnership in favor of solo outings, so seeing Oscar and Hedgehog back in their element and playing off of each other as enjoyably as they do here is like the balm that our troubled souls need.

Summer Camp Island Review: Meet Me in Massachusetts / Witches in the City (Susie and Ramona Chapter 3 + 4)

"The sunsets are so pretty in Massachusetts."

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While I certainly enjoyed last week's offerings, I feel like there were a lot of places where they left me with some unfulfilled desires. There's an obvious novelty in their conceit, allowing us to witness the start of Susie and Ramona's friendship, but it felt like it was ultimately insistent on enabling the success of what followed, their greatest qualities being the devil in their details as opposed to the wholeness of their narratives. (One of my greatest issues was just how little it felt like we saw Ramona and Susie bonded by "Ghost Baby Jabberwock's" end.) But the special's second half, "Meet Me in Massachusetts" and "Witches in the City," sort of... make the witch arc work, indebted to their predecessors but nothing short of triumphant as the two pieces of the puzzle that complete the despairing picture.

I feel as if there's a very direct correlation between how much Susie's chapter progresses, and how much stronger it grows; it's fairly clear that the deeper that we get into it, the more we're attending to that which SCI found most exciting to showcase. Each chapter offered something different, of course, and interesting in its own way, but beginning with "Meet Me in Massachusetts," things finally start to fall into the right groove, pushing the arc patiently towards a satisfying, revealing, and emotional close that snaps us back into SCI's present with some new thoughts to process.

"Meet Me in Massachusetts" still comes across as largely set-up, but it's set-up that begins to more closely approach the island as we currently understand it to be, and that makes its offerings more enticing. Its most immediate contribution is the addition of Betsy, the final witch to join Susie and Ramona's coven enabling them to forward their plans to save magic. (Comically enough, she shows up on the island with a badminton racket, believing that she's been sent to reform school for wearing pants rather than about to be indoctrinated into witchcraft.) We also get to see the genesis of her friendship with fellow, soon-to-be-camp counselor Alice, and while it's far from as meaningfully-developed as what it's designed to mirror, it doesn't have to be; it's just pleasant silliness with the side effect of accentuating Susie and Ramona's intimate connection.

Summer Camp Island Review: Susie's Ark / Ghost Baby Jabberwock (Susie and Ramona Chapter 1 + 2)

"You mean she wasn't a sandwich the whole entire time? Plot twist."

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There's something inherently exciting about the fact that, every time Summer Camp Island returns, it seems to have a brand new bag of tricks up its sleeve. Now in its third season, SCI is looking to make its most complex transformation yet, spearheaded by a four-part special about Susie and Ramona's friendship and the history of the island and with future clusters devoted to specific groups of the island's residents (the yetis, the aliens). There is a little bit of dread on my end in terms of that decision; off the heels of a seemingly-truncated Season 2 (only half as long as the first) and with an even smaller episode count (12), I feel nervous for the show's future beyond this point. But with however much time it has left, it's good to see SCI going all in, keen to keep reinvigorating proceedings when they're not even tired yet.

The season kicks off with "Susie's Ark," taking the form of a bedtime story from Jimjams to Pajamas, Oscar, and Hedgehog—an appreciable means of retaining the show's lovable, slice-of-life feel while working the characters into a narrative that they would otherwise be eschewed out of entirely. Much like last season's premiere, "Meeting of the Minds," the episode uses its position as our opener largely for set-up, empowered most strongly by the inherent excitement of seeing the show back. That's not a strike against the episode by any means, but it's sort of the sacrifice that such a plot-intensive episode has to make. You have to set the pins up to be able to knock them down, after all.

Amphibia Review: The Shut-In!

"Nightmares are real!"

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Well, it's that spooky-ass time of year again. Admittedly, spookiness has sort of persisted across the entirety of this year, and perhaps most ironically, October isn't really shaking up to be any more scary than any other month this time around, but escapism! While Halloween in the traditional sense might be cancelled, there's nothing like a good Halloween episode to stir us into that fun, autumn mood, and "The Shut-In!" is pretty much exactly that.

Continuing television's long-held tradition of fictitious-but-eerily-comparable holidays, this isn't technically a Halloween episode. It's all about Amphibia's warped version, the Blue Moon Shut-In, the night where the moon turns blue and everyone locks themselves inside of their homes and tells stories until the sun rises again out of fear that staring at the moon could transform them into horrifying beasts. (There's also jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating for practical supplies, but... it's not a holiday.)

I was initially a little hesitant about how this episode falls into the narrative of the show, to be honest. It feels a little odd considering how elegantly last episode wrapped up this leg of the season, with Anne setting off to Wartwood once more and Marcy being approached with an ominous proposition from the King, for us to suddenly be back home without any indication of time passing. I honestly feel like that plays to the show's benefit, though, in retrospect. A good holiday special should have a relatively timeless quality to it, and there's something of an appreciable coziness to being back home, bereft of narrative complications, for some fun, scary stories.

Amphibia Review: The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers / A Day at the Aquarium

"These will be formative memories."

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Another week, another late, late review. Let's dive in!

It feels a bit weird how little we've seen of Marcy since her debut; even though "Scavenger Hunt" gave her a decent amount of character work, as with "Marcy at the Gates," the focus was still largely on Anne's relationship to her rather than vice versa. "The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers" is a similarly safe take on the characters to some extent, but it manages to find a new energy in putting the two, unequivocally, on the same side, and with no internal conflict between them in sight. Instead, it's just a night for them, Sprig, and Polly to have fun at the castle, uncover some secrets, and reflect on their missing friend.

Even if I've been a little colder on the Newtopia episodes than I'd like to be, I'm very much a fan of how Amphibia has been plotting itself. The show takes advantage of very episodic sensibilities, but tightly wound around a linear timeline, and through that, it's able to dutifully examine every potential shift in the status quo and its characters with a nice amount of care. There can be some weirdness to rise out of it—the pacing might not be everyone's style, and I feel like we've been struggling a bit to plug Marcy into things—but for the most part, it's offered Season 2 a level of variability and freshness that I feel last season lacked. In the case of "Sleepover," the immediate acknowledgement that this is the night before Anne and the Plantars reconvene with King Andrias ensures that the episode can occupy a specific time and place, but its most interesting contribution is how it exists as an opportunity for Anne and Marcy to reflect upon Sasha, the sleepover queen who set forth the rules that their present sleepover abides by.

Amphibia Review: Little Frogtown / Hopping Mall

"Y'know, I've always wondered, can you miss someone you never actually knew?"

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This review is late enough, so let's just get right on into it! This week's episodes: "Little Frogtown" and "Hopping Mall." Who cried? It's okay. We'll get to that in a minute.

(Note: in light of being back in college and the lack of timeliness with this review, it will be shorter and less comprehensive. But you've seen the episodes already! You don't need me to help you with that side of things!)

"Little Frogtown" is perhaps the most keen Amphibia has ever been on prodding at the fourth wall, though under Hop Pop's voice, that's hardly a detriment. There's so little that can go wrong with a Hop Pop-led episode; he's the sort of character you could saddle with almost any premise and he'll make it work, so who better to take on the series' second big genre parody episode? (The first one, "Children of the Spore," was also notably led by him.) In this case, after Hop Pop discovers the Newtopia sandwich shop of his long-time friend abandoned and ransacked, he sets off to get to the bottom of his unexpected caper, and with the screen tinted to a grayscale and internal monologues abound, we're off to the races.

Close Enough Review: First Date / Snailin' It

"Oh, sorry, I was trying to be sexy but I have no game."

--

As we near the end of Close Enough's inaugural season, it's worthwhile to look back and see how things have evolved over the course of the past fourteen episodes. Even if the show still feels as loose as it always has in this week's batch, I feel like they continue to develop a fantastic trend for the series: devoting their time to developing our cast, and using absurdity to make grander statements about them rather than just putting them at its mercy. There was a definite tug-and-pull between those two camps at the start of the season, but it feels like the series' interest in fleshing out its characters has ultimately shined through, and I feel like it's managed to offer Close Enough a sense of maturity and pointedness that makes it feel unique and tantalizing. "First Date" and "Snailin' It" might not be the greatest refinements of that mentality, but their investment in having something more human to say ensures that they have an appreciable sense of purpose.

That's not to say that things didn't start off a little rocky. "First Date" was one of those episodes that, at least for me, benefitted from a rewatch more than anything else. I think a lot of that comes from the recognition that even if neither of its concepts did much for me compared to Close Enough's usual surrealism, it's a strong episode for its characters; you just need to be able to accept that its thrills are a little subdued by the show's standards.

Josh and Emily's plot is the simpler but more involved of the two, with Josh attempting to reinvigorate their love life when Emily fears that they've lost their spice by recreating their first date to a haunted house. It's an iffy conceit for me, personally, however flashy. Playing around with haunted houses theoretically presents shows a chance to cut loose and throw as much horrific imagery at the screen as possible while bending the rules of a show's universe on a whim, but since Close Enough's absurdity is so deeply-ingrained in its identity, there's so little to gain from the premise that it almost takes the show's edge off. That's not to say that the visual of a humanoid creature with a massive jaw for a chest and an exposed neck-butt isn't provocative, but it doesn't feel as shocking or inspired because we understand it to be fake within the context of the show's universe, and that feels hollow compared to the more creative frameworks the show has used to strong effect in the past.

Amphibia Review: Lost in Newtopia / Sprig Gets Schooled

"TEAM P'ANNE FOR LIFE!" "...Our team name's bad." "Yeah, could be better."

--

As Hop Pop says at the start of this week's batch, we've got a few days to kill before Amphibia dives back into the nitty-gritty, and that can only call for one thing: filler episodes! Sure, the term has some fairly negative connotations, but there's nothing wrong with loosening up and being able to indulge in the sense of fun at the heart of the show. That's something that both "Lost in Newtopia" and "Sprig Gets Schooled" set out to do, and while they're no great shakes, they make for pleasing enough episodes to hold us over while continuing to key into the fun in our change of setting.

"Lost in Newtopia" feels like a direct follow-up to last week's "The Plantars Check In," giving Anne and Polly a chance to cut free in Newtopia and try to experience the city as locals (and even, amusingly, holding Sprig back after his big solo outing). It's a pretty decent conceit, and most importantly, a great opportunity for Amphibia to actualize the sorts of ideas that powered its conception in the first place; more than any other episode, it's most certainly an ode to Matt Braly's childhood trips to Thailand and the outsider feelings that coincided with them.

Amphibia Review: Scavenger Hunt / The Plantars Check In

"C'mon team, it's PUZZLE TIME!"

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In light of last week’s Marcy extravaganza, I was naturally very curious to see the sort of road that Amphibia would take following such a massive development—would the show barrel into the heavy subject matter that such a shift implies, or would it spend time getting comfortable with our newest addition to the cast? “Scavenger Hunt” and “The Plantars Check In” do a little bit of both, and although the Amphibia takes it pretty easy for this batch, it’s also the show excelling at what it does best, with great character work and sharp joke-writing galore.

“Scavenger Hunt” is a fairly standard way to follow up “Marcy at the Gates,” but it certainly works well. If that episode was intent on exploring the two characters’ new and transformed dynamic, with Marcy now being a respectable ranger for the royal guard and bearing a greater degree of autonomy, “Scavenger Hunt” dives into a pesky fragment of their relationship from back home: Anne’s inability to cope with feeling inferior to her friend’s astounding intelligence and puzzle-solving skills. Hop Pop and Polly fawning over Marcy at Anne's expense, too, only serves to aggravate those self-doubts.

Close Enough Review: So Long Boys / Clap Like This

"YEAAAHH! Finally, some white guys are making it! YEAAAHH!"

--

If last week's episodes demonstrated the greatness that Close Enough is very capable of reaching, this week's batch perhaps more represent the weakness that can come out of its composition. Neither episode is particularly bad, but they come across as somewhat strained efforts that struggle to offer much new, even if they manage to make some interesting comments along the way.

"So Long Boys," thematically, is pretty easy to appreciate. The idea of centering an episode around Josh being intent upon receiving a vasectomy risks Close Enough flirting with some gracelessly bawdy material, but to the show's credit, that aspect is fairly restrained. Instead, it's a character piece, centered around Josh feeling a need to step it up and become more responsible following a pregnancy scare from him and Emily having unprotected sex. It's instantly easy to appreciate Josh here; even if he's the sort of guy that organizes a vasectomy party built out of inappropriate sight gags, he's also the sort of guy who always wants to do right for his family without any amount of selfishness impeding upon that.

Amphibia Review: Marcy at the Gates

"Let me see that power pose!"

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With our arrival to Newtopia, we've officially reached the season's first big shift. I'm, admittedly, a little saddened to see the road trip aspect gone so soon, but there's something undeniably promising about how eager Amphibia is to keep pushing its narrative forward, unafraid of dedicating itself to the ideas that it's orchestrated. While those may be as opaque as ever, though, as of right now, Anne and the Plantars have reached their destination, and equally important if not moreso, we've found Marcy!

Marcy's always been something of a mystery over the course of the series. We know that she was transported to Amphibia alongside Anne and Sasha, but beyond that, she's not someone that the show has been too intent to comment upon; her whereabouts persisted simply as one of the show's many loopholes, left at the sidelines until it could be meaningfully addressed. It's a joy, then, to finally be able to see what Marcy's personality is like beyond what little has been established: that she's a best friend of Anne and Sasha's, and that judging by the opening intro, she was very shocked to be sucked into the Calamity Box.

Close Enough Review: Robot Tutor / Golden Gamer

"...Bone?"

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Whereas last week was, in my eyes, a bit of a mixed bag, this week's episodes present Close Enough bouncing back with, as always, the unflappable determination that makes it perpetually exciting. It's something I touched on then, the special appeal of the show, and I think "Robot Tutor" and "Golden Gamer" manage to actualize that perfectly, demonstrating Close Enough's knack for taking a fairly conventional idea and managing to fully reinvigorate it with the brand of fun so unique to its identity, ensuring that whatever material the show has will be a one-of-a-kind experience.

Case in point: not dissimilar to prank episodes, there's something sort of iffy about plots centered around robots that will end up, inevitably, having some evil turn that threatens the life of the protagonists. "Robot Tutor" is able to do the premise one better, though, by really honing in on its characters rather than succumbing to the cheap thrills at its core. More than just being an excuse for everything to go batshit, it's a chance for Close Enough to demonstrate the strength of its characters and even find perhaps the most unlikely hero yet: Candice. I don't think she's a character that the show has really struggled to implement, always being used to provide a fun, childlike flippancy, but I've never really known what potential she had to be anything more than someone for the adult cast to bounce off of. It's surprising, then, to see her put at the front and center of a premise, and even moreso that she makes the episode.

Amphibia Review: Swamp and Sensibility / Wax Museum

"SWEET TADPOLE MARY!"

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I feel like it makes for an interesting sidenote to acknowledge that, if Amphibia was being churned out at the same rate as last season, Season 2 would've already concluded; instead, though, we've only really gotten to one major narrative shift (in last week's "Toad Catcher"), with the show as a whole cruising along at a nice steady rate that I feel has really assisted in my ability to assess the show with contentedness. It's nice to get a better idea of what the show is supposed to feel like, unwinding on its own terms without the contrived urgency that its eight-episodes-per-week release model created, without allowing any episodes so far to really slip through the cracks... not like an episode as notable as "Wax Museum" would really have that concern.

"Swamp and Sensibility" certainly does, not to knock on the episode too much. It's nice but no shake-up, finding our protagonists taking an unexpected pit stop in Ribbitvale, the most expensive town in all of Amphibia, only to unexpectedly spot... One-Eyed Wally? His return is pretty exciting—he's the latest contestant in Season 2's game of recontextualizing the characters we met along the preceding season, and I've always had a soft spot for the guy—and the revelation that he's actually more properly known as Walliam, the progency of the rich Ribbiton family and heir to their family fortune, makes for a nice, unexpected bit of revision.

It threatens to undo some of Wally's charm, but using that bit of personal history to accentuate his love for living like a tramp is as smart of a way to go about things as Amphibia can get. In a lot of ways, it shares DNA with Season 1's fantastic "Wally and Anne," instilling the usually-wacky character with an appreciable level of heart and depth to ensure he's more than just a wild card in the cast. Little touches the episode makes along the way, too, like Wally hiding accordions under the floorboards of every room in the family mansion to keep himself sane, speak to the sweet degree that its conception is realized.

Close Enough Review: Prank War / Cool Moms

"What are you doing?! I've got a job! And a kid!"
 "And a husband!" "THAT'S DEBATABLE!"

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With "Prank War" and "Cool Moms" marking the midpoint of the series, it's interesting to look back on how the past season's been and the extent that Close Enough has found its footing. It's not like this is a show that's really had an uphill battle to fight: there's few shows that can get away with being as self-assured with their place in market. The greatest concern, then, is just Close Enough resting on its laurels, even if that can be really hard to define; Close Enough, in being Close Enough, is wildly unpredictable no matter what, after all. Continuing off of that, these two episodes are basically the show at its most true to itself, with all of the good and bad that entails.

"Prank War" is another chance for Close Enough to go balls-to-the-wall without any deeper ambition than allowing events to transpire as they may, but it certainly manages to reach an interesting place. The idea of an episode being centered around pulling pranks risks a certain predictable outcome—the half-dozen episodes of Regular Show centered around pranks, too, had me fearing what new could even be brought to the table here—but to the episode's credit, it detours far from the usual line. By the midpoint, I assumed that the extent to which Josh's final prank goes wrong, with Emily and Bridgette giving a bush prankster the Big C (a coma) and having them put in a holding cell on charges of manslaughter, was an extension of prank episodes' rote "subversion": Emily and Bridgette are actually gonna be fine, I thought, and are pranking Josh back by pushing things to their limit rather than indulging in his immature shenanigans. (Snakes! Buckets of water! Hockey masks!)

Amphibia Review: Quarrelers Pass / Toad Catcher

"Do you have to do this every single time?" "Honestly yes, repetition helps it stick."

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A new week, two new episodes. It's hard to really draw a connection between our latest set, but to me, they represent the show at its highest degree of functioning, yielding a solidly fun, character piece for the Plantars in the front, and setting the stage for the quieter ongoing narrative going on in the back. Let's dive in.

"Quarrelers Pass" is the more inconsequential of the two episodes, but it's still enjoyable in its own right, despite being fated to fly under the radar. Its set-up is incredibly simple: Sprig and Polly's quarreling reaches the point of becoming a hindrance on Anne and Hop Pop's enjoyment of their journey to Newtopia, and when their path splits into two (though with both looping back in on each other), they decide to separate themselves from the pair and set them out on Quarrelers Pass, "a road of reconciliation for weary travel mates." Sprig and Polly, then, are tasked with hashing out their problems and getting to the other side in one piece.

In light of how I was fairly critical of Polly in her episode from last week, "Truck Stop Polly," I think it's worth commenting on the fact that she works in this episode to astonishingly great effect. Part of that is probably how much of the episode is ingrained in her caustic tone and unstable relationship with Sprig, which is the perfect vehicle for her personality quirks, but more importantly, it's neutralized by Sprig clapping back. "Truck Stop Polly" struggled because there was nothing she could bounce off of, instead having her spend almost 11 minutes talking to herself, but we're able to hit the ground running with someone else in the mix to help power the episode along and create a fun dynamic.

Close Enough Review: Skate Dad / 100% No Stress Day

"That dude just got ass-knifed!"

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Pushing onwards through Close Enough, it's become obvious that there are two different types of episodes. On one hand, there are episodes that are dedicated to furthering the development of the show's cast by making pointed revelations about how they operate, or commenting on the ways that they deal with the show's themes of adulthood, responsibility, and aging. On the other, there are episodes that simply make it their mission to do weird stuff without much intent of deeper messaging. It's not that the former sort of episode can't indulge in surrealism while having a point it's trying to hammer forth—"The Perfect House" explores ideas of escapism with a house that warps into a sitcom, and "Logan's Run'd" explores falling out-of-touch through a club that murders old fogies—and that just makes the existence of the latter episodes more confounding and dissonant in the face of the sorts of ideas Close Enough wants to toy with, even if they offer the same brand of joyous lunacy.

"Skate Dad" is, fortunately, in the former camp, and if the fact that its climax has Josh skidding his crotch across a street until it combusts into flames, it didn't have to sacrifice the show's absurdity in the process. If anything, it was a shockingly cute episode, maybe even a little low-key, because it's most focused on how it can funnel ridiculous elements into a very basic but meaningful conceit. Josh wants to bond with his daughter, and when his old skateboard catches her eye, he's ready to become the ultimate skate dad... or at least he was, until he stumbles, gets ass-knifed by a skateboard in an attempt to demonstrate an ollie, and has a metal plate inserted over his taint.

Summer Camp Island Review: Just You and Me / Glow Worm

"Think of me fondly! And often."

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While I spent the preamble of my last review discussing what I felt like were some of the broader issues concerning what we've seen of Season 2, it's only fair, as we approach the midseason finale, to acknowledge all that the show has done right. The past season of Summer Camp Island has managed to do something inexplicable for any show's second season: it's experimented with its formula and re-adjusted in all of the right ways. Its characters have been retooled and given a greater sense of purpose; its narratives have taken more angles and incorporated larger swaths of the supporting cast; and it followed through on some of the more iffy contributions of the first season with maturity and intelligence. All the while, though, it's held true to everything that made the show so great in the first place—its eagerness to explore touchy emotions and emphasize the powers of friendship at the most blissfully subatomic and earnest level, all while enveloping you like a cozy blanket.

Even if my assessments for some of the past few episodes haven't attested to it, there's something to be said about how even the rockier outings of the show have something charming about them, and that's ultimately made every entry so far feel worthwhile. Perhaps that's just the intoxicating strength of the show's identity at work, but it never uses that as a crutch, allowing every minute of SCI to feel completely authentic whether or not it's a hands-down success.

When everything's firing from all cylinders, though, you're in for a phenomenal episode, like these two. What both "Just You and Me" and "Glow Worm" excel at is the degree that they're able to dig into the characters that they're focused on with laser-sharp precision and perhaps unravel their vulnerabilities, all while emphasizing what makes them special in the first place.

Amphibia Review: Truck Stop Polly / A Caravan Named Desire

"Zap-tag, anyone?"

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As I mentioned in my last review, one of the most enjoyable parts of this chapter of Amphibia is the fact that we're no longer stuck in Wartwood, and that freedom means that whatever idea is fueling an episode, it'll feel truly unique and have its own sense of atmosphere. Whether or not an episode succeeds or struggles, though, is a matter of how well the show is able to use its new environments to make interesting revelations about its characters or push a certain theme. Anne, Sprig, Hop Pop, and Polly will always be at the forefront amid a rotating cast, and even if that means we won't get to see whoever each episode introduces be fleshed out over a longer period of time, it's an opportunity for rapid-fire character portraiture and seeing how our core four make the most of it.

All of that promise can also lead to mixed results from time to time, admittedly. In the case of "Truck Stop Polly," while its setting of a grungey truck stop opens the doors for a different crowd of characters and some fun visuals, its prospects get nixed a bit much by the fact that it's dedicated entirely to Polly, who remains the only character that I've remained unsold on.

I haven't actually written about her too much, and a lot of that is just because my general feelings towards her haven't changed since she was introduced. She's Amphibia's easy source of comic relief, affronting the comparative mellowness of the other main characters with her instability and impulsive nature. I can somewhat get how that was used as a subversive asset earlier on in the show, but as Amphibia developed and matured over its first season, I feel like Polly has felt more and more out of place. She no longer provides a unique contrast to the good-natured spirit of the show; the frequent, dark musings from Hop Pop, Sprig, and Anne do that perfectly.

Close Enough Review: Logan's Run'd / Room Parents

"Heyy, my dude, my man, my bro. What's a guy gotta do to get a few shots around here?" "Uh, stop trying so hard?"

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If there's one great thing that can be said about Close Enough, it's that it knows how to strike the exact tone it wants. This is not a show that has to compete for your attention; if you want the goods, it'll provide them with no need for a substitute. But with the show revealing so early on what it's capable of, and what it strives to be able to accomplish and say about its subject matter, there's a certain expectation it's set that it, at times, is reluctant to properly flesh out, instead piling on its silly charms at the expense of insight. "Logan's Run'd" and "Room Parents" present both sides of the coin.

"Logan's Run'd" feels like one of Close Enough's better outings, in-line with "The Perfect House" in exploring the conflicting well of emotions with being on the fringe of turning older. It's an idea that the show is proving itself to be particularly adept at, especially with integrating its humor into. An episode centered around the gang going to an intimidating club and feeling like fish out of water is far from new, but the fact that it's so rooted in the specificity of our cast ensures that there's a true sense of perspective to what's happening, and more intent than simply being able to indulge in some insane shit.

Summer Camp Island Review: Oddjobs / Tumble Dry Low

"Science Chat, Science Chat / Take a load off at the laundromat"

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Perhaps it's premature to give some general thoughts on the past half-season of television with two more episodes to go, but the past handful of episodes have had their fair share of ups and downs. A lot of that boils down to, I think, the varying degrees of comedic and narrative alchemy Summer Camp Island can pull on its premises. Even if SCI is able to reliably make something unique out of whatever idea it's working with, its strength is recontextualizing and imbuing tried-and-true ideas with the show's flavor. The result of that over this batch of episodes, though, has been occasional inconsistencies, with some simply not going the distance, and mirroring off of that, "Oddjobs" and "Tumble Dry Low" are a nice microcosm of the past season.

Let's start with "Oddjobs." Whereas other shows have to accommodate for the tone of a holiday episode, sacrificing a part of their style for the sake of feel-good festivities, Summer Camp Island should theoretically be built for that kind of fare. Granted, the fact that our series takes place over one long summer means we can't get a proper Christmas episode, but framing it instead as a new, Christmas-adjacent holiday called "Sweater Breakfast," wherein everyone wears sweaters and has breakfast, is cozy perfection.

That's where things start, and I really wish it stayed there. Miraculously, despite obviously finding workarounds to enable a holiday episode to play out, the plot that we settle on isn't exactly wrapped in yuletide cheer: Howard gets Hedgehog's and (begrudgingly) Oscar's help to locate the problems with UMPS, which is struggling to meet Sweater Breakfast quotas and ship every sweater out on-time. There's a nice bit of world-building, revealing the meager UMPS trailer to contain a portal to a sprawling package facility, but it's about as Christmas-y as the facility's decor, with a coat of garlands and sweaters covering the drab, fluorescently-lit grays.

Amphibia Review: The Ballad of Hopediah Plantar / Anne Hunter

"Audiences want clear stakes, Hop Pop! And action."

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In my last review, I delved into a lot of my general thoughts in terms of where I stand with Amphibia; it's a show that I appreciate deeply, but also a show that still feels cozily embryonic at times. It knows what it wants, but throughout Season 1, I rarely saw it trying to explore different paths, leading to a solid but streamlined feel. My greatest hope, then, is for Season 2 to demonstrate a willingness to defy expectations and ultimately find a distinct voice among its competitors, and with this batch of episodes, I feel like we might be getting on the right path.

"The Ballad of Hopediah Plantar" certainly stands in raw defiance to audience expectations, at the very least. There's a formula deeply-embedded in most of the show's episodes; a character or group of characters commit some cardinal mistake that sends them scrambling to resurrect goodwill in an attempt to salvage the situation, always ending in some happy ending that puts a nice cap on proceedings. While this episode certainly follows those basic, initial beats, it also shows an interest in tampering with that formula, and the final outcome is potentially one of Amphibia's most quietly daring episodes yet.

Close Enough Review: Quilty Pleasures / The Perfect House

"Nice family, loser."

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Alright, so this is a little bit awkward. About a month ago I wrote a review of the episode of Close Enough that aired at Annecy, "100% No Stress Day," under the impression that it was the series premiere and critiquing it as such. It turns out that was actually... the sixth episode of the season, but I'll reiterate some of my points from there.

As someone who absolutely adores JG Quintel's previous project, Regular Show, Close Enough is both an exercise in wish fulfillment and a fairly risky gambit. I'd like to think of it as "Regular Show after hours"; the show has nothing to hide and no age rating to hold it back from running as wild as it wants, and that's a double-edged sword that both of these episodes, "Quilty Pleasures" especially, still seem to be feeling out. With that, too, there's a sense of maturity under which the show operates, reaffirmed by the ideas driving the show: if Regular Show is an ode to young adulthood and doing whatever you want, Close Enough is about getting shit together and taking care of those around you.

That's a theme emphasized strongly in "Quilty Pleasures," and it makes for a fitting premiere even if it's far from the smoothest ride. It follows a fairly straightforward premise, revolving around Emily and Josh frantically trying to assemble a quilt patch for Candice's class project, but more than anything else, it's a simple case study in how the two characters interact and react off of each other and the world around them. In that regard, I think it's a success.

Summer Camp Island Review: Light as a Feather / When Harry Met Barry

"Heh, my pits are hairy too."

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Alright, Summer Camp Island has been in slightly choppy water over the past few episodes. It's inevitable, of course; every show has an ebb and flow, and episodic series especially are prone to the occasional dry patches. SCI is just throwing me for a bit of a loop, because the extent that the past few entries haven't worked for me operates in spite of the tremendous growth that Season 2, in general, has been going through. The struggles of episodes like "Honeydew Hatch" or "Wild Hearts Can't Be Caboodled" feel completely arbitrary rather than systemic, and while that's not the greatest state for the show to be in, at least it reassures that a strong episode could come out of nowhere; the fate of the season is far from set. Today's set of episodes, "Light as a Feather" and "When Harry Met Barry," further assert that.

"Light as a Feather" starts with an interesting idea in the back of its mind, but a lot of those prospects get lost in the framework. The sort of revelations that could come with Hedgehog's first witch coven run wild—it's an excellent chance to shed some light on the back-story of the island, and we do get faint hints of that—but the fact that instead, "Light as a Feather" decides to take the unexpected angle of Hedgehog desperately needing to pee sort of... speaks for itself. That's the plot that the episode chose.

I feel like this is as good of a time as ever to get into SCI's dabbling in scatological humor. It's not a new development by any means, having emerged across the second half of the first season at a fairly noticeable rate and almost always feeling like an awkward diversion, though "Light as a Feather" is definitely the most an episode has been conceived with that humor being as crucial to its backbone. I honestly wonder what the intentions are behind those general choices; it comes across as near-incompatible with the other aspects of SCI's comic identity, built out of quiet character work and an eye for subtlety. "Light as a Feather" is neither of those things, leaping out with explicit development in mind of the strangest kind: Hedgehog needs to find the strength of character to operate without the assistance of Oscar, and by peeing in a haunted outhouse.

Amphibia Review: Handy Anne / Fort in the Road (and Other Season 2 Thoughts)

"Anne! What the heck is a disk?!" "I don't know! I'm from another dimension, not the '90s!"

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When Amphibia's second season was announced, I had a lot of mixed feelings. I'm not sure how much of that was simply off-set by circumstance; beyond the fact that I'm trying to balance coverage of soon-to-be two other shows right now, writing about the first season, indebted to its agonizing release cycle, drove me up a wall. While that churned through the season far too fast for it to really be discussed to my liking, it also presented the occasionally repetitious patterns of the show that fueled my nervousness about its longevity. Amphibia is funny as all hell, clever, and endearing, but as we enter the new season, it's still quietly juggling the same set of issues.

As much as the show entertains me, I feel like there's always been something of a question in regards to, "What about Amphibia makes it Amphibia?" Some shows are able to find an identity incredibly easily, and through that, a unique perspective that makes them immediately enjoyable enough to allow you to tolerate their inevitable ebb and flow. If there's one thing I can say about Amphibia, it's that it came out fully-formed and packed with a certain swagger, smart writing, and strong characters for that writing to live through... but that's about it. As the first season unfolded, it demonstrated an admirable level of craftsmanship, but few revelatory moments.

I think what I'm trying to say is that even though Amphibia is incredibly enjoyable, it's also very safe, and it needs to show an interest in taking risks and working outside of its conventions to really prove what makes it worth investing in and find a unique pulse. This season, I wanna see the show demonstrate that it's got that intangible special something, because I know it's there, buried deep down.

Summer Camp Island Review: The Later Pile / Honeydew Hatch

"Easy as pie. (Eating it, not baking it.)"

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Summer Camp Island rarely struggles in regards to the potential of its premises. It's almost always able to find interesting and engaging spins on whatever it has at-hand, regardless of how exciting those may initially seem, but as I sat back trying to figure out what to say about either of today's episodes, "The Later Pile" and "Honeydew Hatch," I was struck by a frustrating ambivalence. It's a feeling I've seldom felt from the show, and especially considering how much the latter episode tries to accomplish, it feels... unusual, to say the least. Allow me to explain.

"The Later Pile," first and foremost, is perhaps one of the most straightforward episodes of Summer Camp Island in a while, neither marked by pronounced highs or frustrating lows. That's a weird shortcoming, but I feel like there's almost nothing worse than an episode that lacks any sort of lofty aspirations, especially from a show as routinely inspired as SCI. "The Later Pile" is effectively the documentation of a chore, albeit a strenuous one: Oscar's need to return a late DVD to the library, and subsequently a distant video store run by vampires.

Summer Camp Island Review: Catacombs / Wild Hearts Can't Be Caboodled

"I  never meadow yeti I didn't like." "Oof..."

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Usually, I try to start all of these posts by trying to find connective tissue between the two episodes at-hand, flimsy or not. But perhaps nothing speaks as much to Summer Camp Island's wild unpredictability as the pairing of an episode that does everything right—the truly fantastic "Catacombs"—and one that feels frustratingly uninvested in itself—"Wild Hearts Can't Be Caboodled." Does that mean today's thesis statement is a lack of a thesis statement? Maybe. Let's just move along.

Perhaps taking a cue from our preceding episode, "We'll Just Move The Stars," "Catacombs" is another episode operating, by and large, through a sweet, personal analogy. In effect, "Catacombs" is a coming-of-age story as told through Saxophone and his favorite childhood comb. Per yeti tradition, he had to put it on a wall in the Yeti Catacombs alongside all of the other combs of their species, but in a fit of nostalgia, he retrieves and ultimately loses it (only to be rediscovered by Oscar), causing every yeti's fur to grow at an absorbent, potentially-deathly rate.