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

"These will be formative memories."

--

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.

The relationship between Anne and Sasha is... complicated to say the least, but I like how Amphibia isn't trying to spin the characters as antagonistic towards one another; there's a curious gray area to their dynamic which the show is wisely intent to explore. The important bottom line is that Sasha is Anne and Marcy's friend, and given how easily she could've cast a shadow over proceedings, I appreciated the decision to have her viewed by the two at a level of reverence, influencing their actions subconsciously but still allowing both characters to shine. It's a chance to see the extent that Sasha can influence her friends even when they're far from her grip, and if the fact that Anne and Marcy reach the point of committing literal tomb desecration, she's scarily powerful.

Most of that comes into effect through the commencement of a Sasha sleepover staple: a "scare dare challenge," and one that leads Anne, Marcy, Sprig, and Polly to the forbidden basement of the castle to prove their bravery. It has a lot of the same sort of facets of your average Amphibia episode, introducing some new creatures in a new, creepy location that the characters have to fend themselves off from, but it's the context that makes "Sleepover" work. The fact that it gets to explore such an interesting well of emotions for Marcy and Anne, in their mission to retain the spirit of their sleepovers in Sasha's absence, keeps the narrative rooted in a meaningful way. Compounding that, too, with an opportunity to open some interesting doors for the show to explore in the future regarding the castle and King Andrias—What's the deal with the coffins and ghosts in the basement? The torn painting?—ensures that "Sleepover" is a gift that keeps on giving while maintaining an appreciable breeziness.

That might sound a bit counterintuitive, especially because I feel like Amphibia's greatest issue can be the occasional sameness that rises out of how effortlessly it deploys its characters. But "Sleepover" speaks to how great the show is at finding a way to reinvent itself from episode-to-episode, offering new concepts and striking unexpected beats while staying true to the sense of adventure and general wittiness that made the show appealing the first place.

"A Day at the Aquarium" is a similarly-minded episode, but I feel like that actually plays somewhat to its detriment; I want to like it and the ideas that it plays with, and there's some universe where the episode works swimmingly, but it frustratingly struggles under the weight of its own context.

That context is that, as the first scene announces, this might be the last day that Anne and the Plantars are going to have together, at least for a long time. On that basis, the episode makes complete sense: it's an opportunity for them to take a restorative trip to the Newtopia Aquarium that only ends up sending them on a downward spiral when every exhibit reminds them of a past adventure. There's arguably not a ton to the game of the episode for the most part, but again, it's nice to examine everyone's emotional state at such a meaningful point in time, and Amphibia gets shocking mileage out of the premise. Things are able to escalate nicely, too, with Sprig being confronted in the climactic ray show by, of all things, a water snake identical to the one that he and Anne confronted in  their first proper adventure. (Adding deeper potential significance to the episode, it's no stretch to acknowledge that the choice of setting is indebted to the fond memories of the show's crew taking a field trip to Long Beach Aquarium.)

All of that is well and good, but it's the ending that flags for me. Marcy, who at the start emphasizes that Anne should think with her head instead of her heart and separate from the Plantars for the sake of advancing their return home, makes the important revelation that sometimes situations are more complex. In a great little moment, she almost attempts to console Anne by putting her hand on her shoulder before withdrawing and realizing that the right thing to do, in this situation, is give Anne a little more time with her frog family. And so Anne runs after the recently-departed f'wagon, past residents of Newtopia that we've met in previous adventures, before stopping them at the gates with an announcement: she's coming back to Wartwood. It's a triumphant, touching moment... but then, what's the point of the episode's journey of emotional reconciliation?

Considering that "Aquarium" was a nostalgic joyride that ends without the meaningful change that necessitated its story, it feels like Amphibia making a mountain out of a molehill to an extent. Perhaps it's a means for the show to get all of those emotions in now, as I have a theory that this is padding for some sort of shocking twist further down the line that will unceremoniously separate Anne from the Plantars (because heaven forbid, we don't need more of this winkingly-saccharine material anytime soon). Standing on its own, though, it feels too unfulfilling to accomplish the effect that it desired. There's still plenty to appreciate, and enough that "Aquarium" is able to work: King Andrias bookends everything by unraveling the mysteries of the Calamity Box at the start and ominously proposing a proposition to Marcy in the episode's final moments, the comedic beats work, and Marcy's subtle character shift is sweet. To me, though, indebted to how it balks at what it sets up, it's a bit of a headscratcher... but we'll see how this next stretch of episodes justifies that decision.

FINAL GRADES:
"The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers": B+.
"A Day at the Aquarium": B.

For my review of the last two episodes, "Little Frogtown" and "Hopping Mall," CLICK HERE.

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