Fitzherbert P.I.

We’re back to one of the better written episodes this season, so just a short list of complaints to go over. 

Summary:  After catching a criminal, Eugene trains to be a royal guard. Unfortunately, the Captain of the Guards, who happens to be Cassandra's father, shares Cassandra's loathing of him. He does his best to make Eugene fail, even using manoeuvres so underhanded that even Cassandra objects to them. Meanwhile, Rapunzel prepares for her royal portrait to be painted by the revered Italian painter Giovanni, who may just be a thief himself.

Is It Connected or Not?

So fun fact, I accidentally skipped over this episode back when I first watched the series. I didn’t even know that I had missed it until I had finished season two. There’s only one or two call backs to this story in both seasons and really only one other in season three, despite this being an important milestone in Eugene’s arc. Which begs the question, should this series even have a story arc if individual episodes are easily skippable? 

I know the higher ups at the studio pushed for the ‘stand long episode’ format because they still think it’s the 1980s and that syndication and running random episodes out of order for marketing purposes should still be a thing, even though streaming services have all but taken over and interconnected story lines have proven to be more popular, but that doesn’t mean that it was what was best for the story. 

Neither does it mean that the writers managed the to juggle the two formats well. We’ve seen that it’s possible to do so, as a lot of modern shows have done in recent years, hence the trend, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for every show. Something as lore heavy and as character driven as Tangled should probably have taken more of page from Avatar then say Gravity Falls, which actually has a very simple mystery arc and is set in the modern world so there’s less need for buildup. 

Cassandra and the Captain Still Don’t Interact. 

Counting the pilot, we are now four episodes in and this is the first time Cassandra has shared a scene with her dad, and they don’t share a single word. We still have no clue what their relationship is actually like. 

Arianna was Robbed 

This is the one and only time Arianna gets any meaningful story line with her daughter and it’s only a B plot. She’s the mother of the main character. She should be more important than what she is. Now add in the fact that she is the only mother in the show that’s even alive and well...let’s just say we were all robbed. 

Conclusion

So that’s it for  Fitzherbert P.I.. If What the Hair was the best written episode of the show, then from a pure structural standpoint, this one could arguably take second or third. On it’s own it’s very sound. The problems stem from it’s impact within the wider story, which is next to none, and just wider problems with the show as a whole. 

Also it’s gets bonus points for making my mother laugh. I happened to be visiting her when I gave this a watch this morning.