She-ra Review - Tumblr Posts
She-ra Season 4 Review (Spoilers)
Wow...Just wow. These past two seasons of She-ra have managed to blow me away. She-ra truly found its footing with season 3 and it hasn’t slowed down this season one bit. The character and relationship writing has been spot on and they managed to raise the stakes without losing the heart of the series, which is a difficult feat. The first season, while a pretty strong start, had some trouble with balancing the tone. It would go from incredibly light and goofy to dark and serious and touch on some really heavy stuff which was jarring at times. The show seemed to mostly correct that problem with season 2 which was largely a transition season for the series and was the calm before the storm. Seasons 3 and 4 have truly been great. They both greatly expanded the lore of the world and series while producing character and relationship focused episodes that have been some of my favorite episodes of tv.
She-ra, while bright and flashy, has always been a character focused show. This season puts heavy focus on Glimmer, Adora, Catra, and Scorpia. The deteriorating relationship between Glimmer and Adora is the driving force behind this season and all of the tension feels believable. Glimmer’s stress over her new position as queen and grief over the loss of her mother lead to her making questionable choices and that become more and more morally ambiguous all while still believing that she’s on her “hero” pedestal. She trusts shadow weaver and doesn’t listen to her friends when they know more about the situation than she does. This lead to some believable, but at times frustrating, character development because I knew that if Glimmer just calmed down and listened a lot of the bad things that happened at the end of the season wouldn’t have. That is a minor complaint on my part because it gave Glimmer some much needed growth and a future potentially fascinating dual redemption arc with Catra.
Catra is the character I believe to be the best written in the entire show and that continues to be the case this season. Catra went through an arc similar to Zuko’s in the first part of book three. She finally achieved everything she believed she wanted at the cost of all her connections. This leads to her breaking down mentally because she can’t understand why she feels so empty despite achieving her “goals”. She breaks mentally and finally realizes that while she was a victim in the beginning every bad choice she’s made throughout the show is her own fault and she is the one who pushed everyone away despite their desperate attempts to reach her. The end of the season leaves with her having realized this and deciding to help Glimmer. “When you hit your lowest point you are open to the biggest change” basically embodies what I believe was happening with Catra’s arc. She had to spiral to her lowest when she thinks she should be at her highest to finally realize her own shortcomings and make steps towards change. I really hope that Catra is now on the road to redemption because so far she has been the most consistently fascinating character on the show and her redemption arc can be a powerful and well constructed one that will be remembered.
Each season seems to have a stand out episode or two and for this season those episodes were “Hero” and the finale. “Hero” did a very good job of juxtaposing the present and the past to effectively show both Mara’s journey and the dissonance within Madam Razz’s head. It dropped game changing revelations about Mara’s end and the Heart of Etheria and ended on a tragic, bittersweet note that hits emotionally. Mara’s story may not have had a happy ending, but that doesn’t mean Adora’s won’t. Adora is simultaneously given a heavy load to bear and a weight is lifted off of her. Adora’s will to keep going despite the odds becomes even more commendable in light of these revelations, which comes to a head in the finale. The finale changed everything once again. The world and characters can’t go back to what they once were. Everything was flipped on its head. It ended many plot threads, but left a devastated Etheria and seemingly insurmountable odds for our heroes to face. It really seemed like the beginning of the end.
She-ra has managed to impress me yet again and I will not hesitate to say that it had a fantastic season. It seems to constantly one up itself with each season in one way or another. The show runners, voice cast, and animators have all done a phenomenal job. There is so much potential going forward with the world, characters, and conflict. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
The Cuphead Show! Thoughts
I want to preface this by saying the serialized vs non-serialized television debate is a bit ridiculous. Each has different strengths for the type of stories they want to tell and no one is inherently better than the other. I can understand preferring one over the other, that’s fine, in fact I typically prefer serialized television but I don’t think just because something is serialized that it makes it a better show. Now to get on with my actual thoughts.
This show is just bursting with energy and you can see all the love and care put into every frame. Every second I watched it I was amazed that something like this got greenlit, not because it was bad, far from it, but because of how unique it is in our current landscape of animation. I’ve got to once again give netflix props. They’ve been really willing to take risks with the animated shows they produce for their platform and I hope it continues because they’ve been on a real hot streak as of late.
The opening to this show may be the best example of the amount of care and just pure fun the people working on this show infused into it. I had that opening theme stuck in my head right away and I was singing along before long. I have a soft spot for cartoon openings and this has found a place among the countless openings that live rent free in my head.
All that being said I don’t think the leads of the show are as strong as I would like. The side characters steal the show every time they pop up. The Devil, Kind Dice, and Ms. Chalice (when she showed up in the final episode) all stole the show easily when on screen and every time I pressed play and they weren’t there I was a little disappointed, especially when the devil was absent. I couldn’t get enough of him. Everything about the Devil was played up to 11 and that always works well for this kind of character in animation. I easily got lost in the showmanship of the character, the exaggeration. The amount of fun I had with these characters cannot be understated because they really pulled me into the show.
I had a lot of fun with this show. It wasn’t my favorite show all around to be released. It unfortunately dropped on the same day as Vox Machina’s final 3 episodes which distracted from it. I’m impressed with this show nonetheless and the stylization of this show will never cease to pull me in. I look forward to seeing the rest of season 1’s episodes drop later this year and want to see what the animator’s are able to do with what’s on screen next.
I saw the lie about The Cuphead Show being renewed for season 2 which is just a disappointing move especially during #newdeal4animation which is important for all those who work in the industry. The reality is that these episodes were made under a single season order and split in two so they can drop the episodes at different times without having to up the pay they give the workers for another season. This is why we need a new deal for animation.