Max’s Enemy

This might be the second worst episode of the first season, right behind Rapunzel’s Enemy. Don’t ask me why episodes with word ‘enemy’ in their titles are bad in this show, they just are. 

Summary: A new horse, Axel, shows up in Corona and quickly shows up Max in every way, even joining the royal guard and beating all of Max's former records. However, only Max sees the devious nature of Axel's behavior; his true intention was to rescue Lady Caine from the dungeon, along with the gold transfer already planned.

This is Another Episode That’s Shown Out of Order

Once again, this is one of those episodes that was meant to be shown after Queen for a Day. Only moving this episode around isn’t the problem, it’s the fact that the writers didn’t think through the over all story of the following seasons. 

Ideally, this episode should have been switched with Under Raps. It wouldn’t have changed much in season one’s plot but it would have set up the reveals in seasons two and three better. 

My recommended viewing order would be after Great Expotaions 

• Max’s Enemy
• One Angry Princess
• Queen for a Day
• Painter's Block
• Pascal's Story 
• Big Brothers of Corona
• Not In The Mood
• Under Raps 
• The Wrath of Ruthless Ruth
• Way of the Willow 
• The Quest for Varian

Then from there the rest of the season as is. It’s basically the original production order with Under Raps switched with Max’s Enemy, but only placed before TWoRR because in it King Frederic sees the entry about the balloon. 

We’ve Already Forgotten That Lance Has a Job

If this is suppose to take place after Big Brothers of Corona as intended, then why is Lance still helping Eugene with guard duty instead of being a cook, also why wasn’t he at the Snuggly Duckling in TWoRR if he’s meant to work there. Like some consistency would be nice show. Especially, if you want to have an overall arc with character development.  

Parallels Have Do Something Other Than Just Exist

Jealousy and validation is a recurring theme in the show. That’s because it’s the crux of Rapunzel’s and Cassandra’s core conflict with one another, which in turn becomes the main conflict of the last two seasons. Only here’s the thing; that’s not a nuanced enough conflict to be sustainable for three seasons and simply having other characters randomly encounter this same conflict every other episode does nothing to actually stretch that main conflict out. 

A parallel has to actually add something to the show. It either needs to permanently push one of the main or supporting characters forward and help them develop, or it needs to pull double duty and be a plot point for the overall arc.  

I’ll go with Star Wars for example. There’s an obvious parallel between Luke wanting to redeem his father, Vader, and Rey wanting to redeem Ben/Kylo Ren. The movie The Last Jedi even points this parallel out directly to the audience. That’s because one fuels the other. Rey is inspired by Luke’s story and wants to do what he did. The parallel become both a point of character development for both herself and Ben and also becomes a major plot point in the following two movies. That’s how a parallel is done. 

No one learns anything from this. No one grows. The status quo is not changed in the slightest. Max doesn’t become a different person by the end, Rapunzel doesn’t apply whatever lesson she says she’s learned here, and Cassandra isn’t even present in the episode.  

Dream Sequences are Lazy 

Ok, not all dream sequences obviously, but ones that only reiterate what the character is feeling are. 

I was watching a commentary on The Incredibles DVD, and in it, the director Brad Bird was discussing why they cut out a planned dream sequence for the film. There was no need for it. It spelled things out too much the audience. A good writer shows what a character is feeling without the use of overt symbolism.  

A proper use of a dream in a story is to make it a plot point. Is it a prophecy that pushes the characters to take action, like in Star Wars? Is it establishing that a character even has problem, a problem like PTSD for instance? Is it an excuse to get an elephant up in a tree? What is it?

Have your dream sequence actually do something or otherwise you’re just wasting everybody’s time, speaking of which. 

This Episode Is a Waste of Time

We talked about filler fatigue last episode, and that was mainly because of poor pacing, but here it applies because of poor plotting. People just aren’t invested in seeing Max get a rival. A rival who does nothing outside of this one episode. We’d rather focus on the ongoing story or one of the other established plots. Instead of this episode we could have had, an episode focusing on Varian and his time spent as fugitive, more backstory on Corona’s past with the Saporians and/or Zhan Tiri, or even just an episode fleshing out other recurring baddies, like say oh, Lady Caine for instance.

Rewarding Bad Behavior 

Regardless of whether Max was right about Axel, he did indeed behave badly. There’s no acknowledgement that he was in wrong as well and that acting upon your jealousy is bad. In fact the show not only justifies this poor behavior by making Max’s rival a villain it also has Rapunzel reward Max with the validation he so desires by apologizing to him. Even though she actually didn’t do anything wrong herself. The show doesn’t want to hold it’s mains accountable for anything and so no one learns or growns and the wrong lesson is taught. 

Hi, Lady Caine

Bye, Lady Caine 

What should have been the main villain of the series is treated as no more than a convenient plot point. She was presented to the audience as a major player, with a complex backstory and deeper motivations then the usual one off baddies. But since then she only makes two more appearances, is easily defeated in each, and her backstory and original motivation is all but forgotten. She doesn’t even get a bare bones basic resolution. She’s just dropped from the story altogether. 

That’s not some clever bait and switch. That’s just poor storytelling. It’s a lack of set and resolve. It’s misleading to your audience to the point of frustration and wasting a great concept so you can piddle around with crap that don’t actually matter.      

Conclusion

Out of all the mandated ‘animal’ episodes that marketing pushed for this is one of the most useless. It would be the worst if not for King Pascal in season two, and it’s easily the worst out of all the Max focused episodes. These characters aren’t meant to carry stories of their own. They’re aren’t complex enough for that. You have to pair them with some other character or story concept for it to work. Overall the episode is boring, stale, and predictable because of this.