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.