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.

Summer Camp Island Review: French Toasting / We'll Just Move The Stars

"I'm not ready to share my finances."

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We're officially halfway through this batch of episodes, and Summer Camp Island hasn't demonstrated any signs that it's running out of steam. Even if these two episodes present a handful of issues, Season 2's going stronger than ever, and best of all, it's taking a lot of chances, especially on the front of further incorporating its supporting cast into episodes and finding new, exciting atmospheres to explore. For the most part, too, that makes those occasional issues pretty excusable.

"French Toasting," notably, is SCI's first concentrated effort to make an episode centered around Lucy's character, but like her last notable appearance in "Susie's Fantastical Scavenger Hunt," she's not really at the forefront of the episode. Instead, "French Toasting" unravels as a mystery told from Oscar and Hedgehog's perspective when, after reading a book on secret societies and noticing some strange patterns in Lucy, the former jumps to the conclusion that she's the member of a dangerous secret society on the island. That proves to be a bit of a double-edged sword.

The entirety of "French Toasting" is set up as a question—what is Lucy up to?—that inevitably gets answered by the end, and how vague it is creates the unfortunate downside of preventing Lucy from being able to do much as a character. It feels sad that what could've been a spotlight for her character fails to do that simply because she's not in control of anything that's happening; we get the entire story from Oscar and Hedgehog's perspective, and as Susie makes abundantly clear, the two are stalking her, like stalkers.

Summer Camp Island Review: Tub on the Run / Spotted Bear Stretch

"STOP THE PRESSES!"

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I'm beginning to notice a general trend in Season 2, and a good one. There's always a sense, going from the first season to the second of any show, of reassessing what worked and what didn't, and subsequently correcting the sorts of things that fell flat or left a lot to be desired. Some shows slip this up and go off the deep end, burning off the promise they bore, but a smart show takes everything in stride, and without fail, I'm seeing Summer Camp Island making the right sort of choices, especially in these two episodes. Even if they're not anything too lavish, they're signs that the show's got an upgraded agenda and it's ready to play.

I'll be the first to admit, for instance, that the mere idea of "Tub on the Run" gave me some pause, as I have a lot of conflicting feelings about the relationship between Hedgehog and Max that emerged towards the back of last season. It felt very quick and unexpected, barreling through three or so episodes with on-and-off infatuation and culminating in Hedgehog being turned down without feeling like there was ample time for her feelings to develop or take form.