Summer Camp Island Review: Susie's Ark / Ghost Baby Jabberwock (Susie and Ramona Chapter 1 + 2)

"You mean she wasn't a sandwich the whole entire time? Plot twist."

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There's something inherently exciting about the fact that, every time Summer Camp Island returns, it seems to have a brand new bag of tricks up its sleeve. Now in its third season, SCI is looking to make its most complex transformation yet, spearheaded by a four-part special about Susie and Ramona's friendship and the history of the island and with future clusters devoted to specific groups of the island's residents (the yetis, the aliens). There is a little bit of dread on my end in terms of that decision; off the heels of a seemingly-truncated Season 2 (only half as long as the first) and with an even smaller episode count (12), I feel nervous for the show's future beyond this point. But with however much time it has left, it's good to see SCI going all in, keen to keep reinvigorating proceedings when they're not even tired yet.

The season kicks off with "Susie's Ark," taking the form of a bedtime story from Jimjams to Pajamas, Oscar, and Hedgehog—an appreciable means of retaining the show's lovable, slice-of-life feel while working the characters into a narrative that they would otherwise be eschewed out of entirely. Much like last season's premiere, "Meeting of the Minds," the episode uses its position as our opener largely for set-up, empowered most strongly by the inherent excitement of seeing the show back. That's not a strike against the episode by any means, but it's sort of the sacrifice that such a plot-intensive episode has to make. You have to set the pins up to be able to knock them down, after all.

To the episode's credit, there's a lot of work that it has to do, and it does it well. Most notably, "Susie's Ark" has to pull off a lot of world-building as fast as it can, and it accomplishes that with aplomb, transporting us back to a turn-of-the-century Manhattan at the crossroads of industrialization. Monsters and witches blend into the fabric of society: yetis do laundry, Stuart operates a milkshake bar, Susie is the magical advisor to the mayor. But things are changing, and as modernity approaches, the importance of magic in everyday life diminishes. After all, why have a witch transport cargo onto a ship when you could have a more reliable hydraulic crane instead? Efficiency conquers pathos.

The downside of that is far worse than merely leaving witches unemployed; magic, sensing that it is no longer welcome in society, has begun to retreat, draining witches of both their powers and recollection, and endangering those who subsist on it. Stricken by this realization, Susie hurriedly announces an evacuation and uses her remaining powers to poof an ark into existence to carry the refugees to the strange island that magic is retreating to. Frail, weak, and on the edge of losing her magic altogether, she's saved by a single, young witch who heeded to her call: Ramona.

It's a bit odd that Ramona only enters the narrative with only a couple minutes to spare, a fact that even Hedgehog alludes to the moment she steps into the story ("We're like three-fourths of the way done with this story! Way to bury the lead."), though it's a sensible enough debut. Ramona's able to step up to the task when Susie is at her weakest and steer them towards the island, and although her and Susie's relationship is very much in its infancy by this point, it's a strong display of her strengths as a character and her worthiness to buddy up with Susie. A simplistic introduction for sure, but as Jimjams says himself, it's just how things happened. 

That's a vibe that coats "Susie's Ark" as a whole: not too flashy, but that's how things play out sometimes. It's sort of hard, at times, to consider it any more than a series of crucial events, but they're events nonetheless, and important stepping stones to a grander story up ahead. It's a thankless job, and one that makes it feel like most of "Susie's Ark" is spent toiling away towards its specific outcome, but it's the attention to detail peppered about to craft the universe and mythos of the episode that makes it enjoyable in its own right.

The bulk of Ramona and Susie's development, then, happens throughout "Ghost Baby Jabberwock," thrusting the duo directly into their task at-hand: to save magic. That urgency powers the episode and allows it to dip into more exciting territory than its predecessor, all while things slowly start to take greater shape. Most immediately, there's a fun, added layer with the introduction of one of SCI's most unheralded joys, Barb, the groundskeeper of the island and eventual operator of its Soundhouse. She's the perfect, laid-back third wheel of "Ghost Baby Jabberwock," guiding Susie and Ramona through this new frontier—and through jabberwock-infested frozen time—with the sort of intrinsic fun and endearing quirkiness that a character needs to have when they're as didactic as Barb is across the episode. 

The narrative of "Ghost Baby Jabberwock" is also the most involved that a SCI episode has ever been, but it never feels hasty; it maximizes how it uses its time to generally great effect (more on that in a bit), offering up several fun action sequences and memorable moments in the process through which our cast of relative strangers can develop. Barb gets to show off her effortless badassery by whipping a herd of jabberwocks around with a worm, and Ramona and Susie get put to task through increasingly-perilous situations, culminating in one of the episode's big centerpieces: the characters teaming up and weaponizing Susie's ghost burps to defeat a swarm of jabberwocks while unlocking memories of her past. (Of all the lore that these episodes are laying out, I never thought that we would get an explanation of Susie's burp in the series' opening, but alas, I'm glad to be gifted with this knowledge.)

With that being said, I do have some slight gripes about how Susie and Ramona's relationship is fostered across the episode. Sure, part of it is that Susie has an innately smug disposition, and they do actually do a lot of significant stuff for each other, literally taking turns saving each other's lives. But there's not a lot of growth between them emotionally, especially to the prophetic degree that the episode suggests in the displays of the power of their friendship, creating a pool of time babies to counter the jabberwocks and saving magic on the island with clasped hands. 

It's undeniable that they make a strong team, but they're not really an intimate one, as the episode doesn't build any room for them to have truly thoughtful moments. A few quick beats sprinkled about ensure that there is some level of cute character growth—Susie and Ramona's fun wand tricks when extinguishing the jabberwocks,the ghost burp fight)—and the musical number at the episoe's climax is the greatest crystallization of how far they've come, so distinctly sweet that it pretty much patches up the developmental shortcomings of everything that preceded it. But if their song isn't at fault, and even if "Ghost Baby Jabberwock" is able to push Susie and Ramona to that level by the end, that doesn't undo how much the rest of the episode leaves to be desired.

In spite of that issue, there's still something so inherently likable about Susie and Ramona as a team, and that carries a lot of goodwill. It should be telling that that's sort of the root of my minor frustrations: I want to see more of them. We'll see how that desire is fulfilled as the special goes on, but either way, this episode makes for a nice entry into the show's canon.

"Susie's Ark" and "Ghost Baby Jabberwock" are only half of the story, and it'll be exciting to see how the next two episodes reinforce their themes and draft greater revelations. For whatever squabbles I might have with them, SCI is reliably charming, packed with passion, and unafraid to take a stab at new ideas. I don't know if Summer Camp Island could've taken a more confident step forward.

FINAL GRADES:

"Susie and Ramona Chapter 1: Susie's Ark": B.

"Susie and Ramona Chapter 2: Ghost Baby Jabberwock": B+.

On Wednesday: Betsy arrives to the island, and Susie and the gang hunt for some new residents.

For my review of the last two episodes, "Just You and Me" and "Glow Worm," CLICK HERE.

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