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.

"Don't Tell Lucy" stands as another reminder that set-up, mandatory as it is, doesn't necessarily make for the greatest episode. And as always, I feel the need to acknowledge that that's okay; it's really hard to set things on the right track while being individually compelling a lot of the time; episodes in its lane exist to commence a new story, and stories shouldn't be expected to be at their peak in their first chapter. Its biggest priority is just introducing the concept that will be defining the next four episodes: Yeti Confetti, a week-long, midwinter festivus for yetis to honor their roots, create their next batch of snow, and come together as one big family.

Unfortunately, indebted to its construction, so much of the episode is spent as a preamble. The interesting material within "Don't Tell Lucy" is simultaneously the material that the episode is trying to hold off as much as possible, and that means that until we can get to the point of the story actually getting the message across that it wants to communicate, there's a lot of dawdling—fun, agreeable dawdling, but dawdling all the same. While the yetis plan out their surprise ceremony for Lucy, she's stuck with Oscar performing menial, time-wasting labor in hopes of pushing her as far away from event prep as possible. That all makes sense from a story-telling standpoint, but at the same time, that also means we're gonna be watching all of that deliberately uninvigorating busy work until further notice. 

There is some interesting character work to come out of it on Lucy's part; if anything, "Don't Tell Lucy" presents the most crystalline glance we've gotten into her emotions yet. Even though we know that everything will be alright in the end, there's a sadness to Lucy's eye for deduction twisting itself into misreading signals and leaping to the conclusion that the yetis, in their suspicious aversion of her every move, don't actually like her. Even though the episode's formula of having yetis repeatedly run away from her while preparing their Lucy-centric paraphernalia could parlay into some ironic, cynical humor, there's something to appreciate about how SCI chooses to be earnest instead, keeping its pulse more on Lucy's legitimate emotions and their increasing fragility. She grows number and number to protect herself from her hurt feeling, culminating in becoming completely numb to the reveal that she's part-yeti; she just thinks, initially, that it's some demeaning joke at her expense.

Oscar, meanwhile, makes for a fun supporting character to stick with Lucy for the ride. It's a good showing for his latest voice actor, Antonio Corbo, burdened throughout the episode by an intense battle with inexplicable jet lag from the three minute walk to Yeti Meadow. Even though I don't think the fun of the character's performance quite buoys the confusion over why Oscar is suffering of that affliction in the first place, the return of his quietly-antagonized relationship with Lucy registers delightfully, and it keeps the episode moving along through the patches that risk becoming too monotonous. "Oscar, you're such a burden on my independent spirit," she chides at one point, but the opposite is true, really; the fun of Oscar is that you can stick him into any scenario as a sidekick, but he never overpowers the narrative and always allows his scene partner to shine while being just as vibrant.

Once "Don't Tell Lucy" actually gets to the place that it needs to get to, things are finally aligned. Admittedly, the climax is strictly a matter of catching Lucy up to speed with the developments on her character that everyone else already knows, but it's easy to appreciate as a moment of recognition for a character who spends so much of her time in more of an ancillary position. For once, Lucy is front and center, and once she sees the situation for what it is and recognizes that she really is part-yeti, she gets to bask in the moment all on her own, a luxury so few supporting characters get to truly attain. It's the sweet culmination to a surprisingly nuanced character arc, if one that I wish could've had a better back-drop than dehairing yeti combs.

If "Don't Tell Lucy" presents a chance for Lucy to quietly develop, "The Yum Whisperer" is an opportunity for her to demonstrate her chops in the show's narrative. There's an inherent thrill in that, considering how rarely SCI grants its supporting cast that level of agency freed from the show's usual three protagonists (Oscar, Hedgehog, and Susie), and to Lucy's credit, she holds her own remarkably well. A lot of her strength as a character here comes from how strongly it's able to fuse her personality traits together. It's the perfect crossroads of her book-smarts, quick exasperation, and extreme susceptibility to cuteness, framing everything around her discovery of a newborn scrum—a hum of yums (SCI's adorable, on-brand way of referring to a pack of baby yetis)—and immediately getting into conflict with a yeti, Fife, who claims to have expertise rendering him more credible as their caretaker. With that, they're off to the races, trying to one-up one another's qualifications through every stage of yum development.

It's an interesting format for "The Yum Whisperer" to take, breaking the narrative up across the stages and fashioning little scenes out of each step. It's also a great way to display the nice rapport between Lucy and Fife as they butt heads about how qualified they are to be the yums' parent despite both being equally, very unqualified. It's fun to see how they make up for one another's blind spots, though: Lucy knows everything she could possibly be taught about yums, but she's limited in her ability to demonstrate yeti-specific abilities (laundry rolling, camouflage), whereas Fife can pull off all the flashy tricks that he needs to, but he's also generally uneducated all the way through and plays up the idea that he knows more than he actually does. Some enjoyable friction emerges between them in the earlier segments, but it's more fun to see their differences parlay into unexpected teamwork as the episode progresses.

A lot of that camaraderie is indebted to Fife's shocking amount of likeability. I feel like it would've been easy for SCI to paint him as an annoying voice in the story, but "The Yum Whisperer" works diligently to fluctuate between brazen confidence and self-doubt, painting him as an insecure oddball who deserves sympathy more than anything else. While the episode makes sure to hammer it in by the episode's end, its strength in the matter comes from the hints that are placed along the way: his nervousness when Lucy displays a skill that he lacks; the revelation that he merely sits at the edge of yeti's cuddle puddle; even just his unexpectedly gangly appearance. He's not a deep character, but those sorts of flourishes give him realism, and it makes the small moments where he and Lucy show camaraderie all the more touching.

For all his heavy-lifting, though, Lucy's presence is no less felt, and no less essential to the episode's success. Seeing her mingle with someone new is as good of a way to reinforce their strength as any, and while there's a nice consistency in her conviction across "The Yum Whisperer," it surprises the most in the moments that highlight how kind-hearted she can be. While that comes out in droves towards the episode's conclusion, when her last-ditch effort to get her yum's fur growing lands one in the hospital, my favorite moment was much more understated. For as tiny of a beat as it is, her befuddlement over Fife's place in the cuddle puddle and encouragement that he gets deeper into it was my favorite moment in its unexpected wholesomeness. Here's hoping that, as the Yeti Confetti arc progresses, her personality continues to blossom in surprising ways.

"The Yum Whisperer" and "Don't Tell Lucy" might not make for the flashiest ways of kicking things off, but Summer Camp Island doesn't have to be. Instead, it's playing to its strengths while simultaneously flaunting some new ones in their furious character work. That's just all the more reason to have confidence in what the show's got up its sleeves for Lucy, if you ask me.

FINAL GRADES:
"Don't Tell Lucy": B.

"The Yum Whisperer": B+.

On Wednesday: Lucy performs a eulogy, and tries to find her instrument family.

For my review of the Puddle and the King chapter ("Honey Moondog," "Royally Bored," "All the King's Slides"), CLICK HERE.

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