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

"Think of me fondly! And often."

--

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.

In the case of "Just You and Me," that falls on the relationship between Betsy and Susie. It feels refreshing, really; this is the first episode to really push characters besides Oscar or Hedgehog to the forefront, and it's an excellent demonstration of the sort of nuance SCI can confidently find within its extended cast. Granted, Hedgehog is rather prominently featured here, but she's merely support for Betsy throughout proceedings, helping deter Susie and providing a shoulder to lean on.

Perhaps she's underutilized, but this isn't about Hedgehog at all. While her werewolf state is well-established, Betsy's is a secret, and as the beginning of the episode reveals, a secret repressed by her fears that create distance between her and her best friend. Every time she tries to confront Susie about being a werewolf, her anxieties are only further reaffirmed by the harsh tone Susie takes in espousing her disapproval of them, deeming them emotionally-stunted sadsacks who need to transform simply to express their feelings.

It's an episode with a lot of work cut out for itself. Even by the standards of SCI, a show well-trained in the art of sensitive, emotional subject matter, there's something hard-edged about "Just You and Me" that leaves it feeling like a ticking time bomb. Despite the fact that Susie's daftness in her pursuit of her best friend—constantly being rerouted by Hedgehog without realizing that her friend "Betifa" is actually Betsy—renders her a hilariously ineffectual antagonist, the sun will eventually rise, and Betsy can't keep up the act forever with Susie on her literal tail.

Speaking of, it's worth commenting that while "Just You and Me" works primarily to actualize Betsy's insecurities, it manages to actualize all of the comedic value that Susie can provide at the same time. While she almost always works in smaller doses, episodes that place Susie more at the forefront threaten to dampen things under a predictably cruel or obnoxious tone befitting of her character... and yet she works here perfectly, perhaps better than ever. Season 2's clearly been taking efforts to somewhat neutralize her powers over the other characters towards a more happy medium, like in the troubled "Wild Hearts Can't Be Caboodled," and I think we've finally settled on the perfect formula: render Susie in a position where she's able to act as antagonistic and comically vain as she naturally is, but without realistically having power over anyone else.

Instead, Susie's blissfully unaware that she's perpetually the butt of the joke. She believes that Hedgehog and "Betifa" have taken Betsy away from her and attempts to infiltrate the werewolf clan from the inside in perhaps the most beautifully Susie way possible: by dressing in a horrible, homemade poodle costume and thinks that she's invincible in spite of its shoddiness, all while being a witch with an ability to shapeshift that she's demonstrated in the past, and thinking she's bulletproof.

Of course, by the end of the episode, Susie does inevitably find out the truth, but certainly not by her own deduction. In a last-ditch effort to at least have the joys of werewolf-hood be recognized by her, Betsy takes Susie along to indulge in some of her favorite parts of being a werewolf—jumping high as the moon, running really fast, and howling off of a cliff, which Betsy cutely manages to coax an increasingly won-over Susie into doing—before accidentally blurting out their secret friendship chant moments before sunrise. There's an undeniable sweetness that the moment hints at in Betsy's subconscious, so gleeful at feeling like Susie finally understands her to some extent, and it forces both of her lives to collide in front of Susie against her better judgement... but that just makes the ultimate resolution, with it managing to bring her and Susie even closer together, all the more fulfilling.

I feel like lessons in acceptance can be difficult, especially in a time and age where so much as attempting it can feel cheesy. It's a true testament to SCI's superb writing, though, that it manages to shoot from the heart; there's no bullshit to its messaging, and the simplicity of its dialogue and how it manages to demonstrate the platonic love between Susie and Betsy—Julia Pott's delivery of "I can like both sides of you. And I do." as Susie is remarkably, beautifully potent—further demonstrate that Summer Camp Island is, perhaps, one of the most emotionally-intelligent, sharply-written cartoons you could ever dream of coming across by chance.

Those vibes carry over even more into "Glow Worm," and with a singular focus: Oscar. For as much as Season 2 has dedicated itself to his naive antics, we've rarely seen him prodded at as deeply as he is here, with the episode taking the form of a therapy session with Dr. P. Shark on the same night as "Just You and Me." Recognizing that his stomach-knots are always tied to the full moon, Shark is quick to pinpoint the cause of his anxieties to his relationship with Hedgehog, and it makes for an interesting statement.

Oscar is, and always has been, unconditionally supportive of his best friend, but his sudden revelation that he feels embarrassed to be in her presence sometimes, and disappointed in himself, is quietly heart-breaking. And it makes complete sense, too: of course Oscar must feel sad that Hedgehog is have all of this cool, supernatural stuff happening to her, which only manages to heighten his insecurities about his own value proposition. I've seen a lot of fans of the show comment on how Oscar's character has changed for the worse; he's stepped back from being a nurtured introvert struggling to adapt to an unfamiliar environment and shifted more towards becoming a guileless extrovert who thinks from his heart more than his brain. I think that both characterizations had their own pros and cons, too—the Oscar we started out with was much better suited for the extra-restrained tone that SCI used throughout the first half of Season 1 that seems to have fallen out of favor—but "Glow Worm" feels like a case study in how compelling Oscar still has the capacity to be, able to have these sorts of complicated feelings that still feel true to who he is.

The episode seeks to explore that well of emotions with the power of a magical set of goggles that Shark presents to Oscar, allowing him to observe a string of interactions with Hedgehog spanning the past 11 years. The game of the episode isn't entirely clear from the get-go, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable; any opportunity SCI gets to play with time and the past is an opportunity for challenge, and underneath the charming goofiness of the scenes is fantastic character work. Oscar's a character most unaccustomed to the sort of disciplined life Hedgehog leads under the pressure of her mother—his greatest tragedy is that his mom only bought bran flakes for him instead of sugary cereal, leaving with an insatiable sweet tooth that he tearfully bemoans—but that also grants him a sort of bubbly innocence which always makes Hedgehog feel better. All he's dedicated to doing is conjuring up the best out of all of those around him, whether or not he's consciously aware of that trait.

That's because he's a glow worm. He's got his own sort of magic, and as Shark informs him, it's the most crucial kind, bringing magic where there isn't any and being necessary for the other forms of magic to even happen. Whether or not this has always been a known truth to his character since his conception, it fits him like a glove. Oscar is nothing if not a massive sweetheart, and deciding that's a kind of magic in its own right feels like a satisfying, well-earned development that can give Oscar a newfound sense of confidence in knowing that he's just as one-of-a-kind. Even with the recognition of his powers, too, Oscar's mentality isn't altered; he happily teaches Ava how to swim and whips Hedgehog up some post-werewolf waffles, keeping his powers as a little secret to himself and recalling his night to Hedgehog as "another regular old night for regular old Osc."

And I think that's a cool message for "Glow Worm" in general, and something that feels really nice to see in media like this. Cartoons are so frequently about fantastical elements and characters imbued with otherworldly powers, and to see SCI value a character who is so normal on the outside but exceptional in his own, intrinsic way... it feels almost comforting, at least to me (and I'm sure people of all ages) as someone who's felt a lot of those same thoughts and endured a lot of those same feelings. This is an episode that I wish I could've watched as a kid. Hell, this is a show I wish I could've watched as a kid.

"Just You and Me" and "Glow Worm" both leave us in the perfect place for the incoming episode drought as we wait for the second half of Summer Camp Island—they're the show at its most pure, and what I hope to see the show continue to strive for. As long as the series continues to plug away at what it's been doing, pulling back the layers of its cast in unpredictable and gratifying ways, there's nowhere to keep going but up. It's sad that not enough people have SCI on their radar, but that's the fate of a show that happily exists to be its own thing, and being its own thing is what makes it so special in the first place.

FINAL GRADES:
"Just You and Me": A+.
"Glow Worm": A+.

I would also like to give proper dues to my amazing friend, Maddie, who's been generously and dutifully looking over all of my SCI (and Close Enough) reviews and helped me create what has ended up being some of my favorite reviews that I've ever written! You're the best.

For my review of the last two episodes, "Oddjobs" and "Tumble Dry Low," CLICK HERE.

For an archive of all of my reviews across the past season, CLICK HERE.

If you like my stuff, be sure to follow me on Twitter @Matt_a_la_mode.