King Pascal

 

This is, in my opinion, the worst episode of season two and I’ll get into why under the cut. 

Summary:  The group is stranded on an island after a storm. The tiny islanders, the Lorbs, mistake Pascal for their mystical ruler; the chameleon loves the adulation, until he’s expected to protect his people from a vicious monster.

Since When Did You Learn How to Sail, Rapunzel? 

So they hit the storm and Rapunzel starts doling out orders like she always does, but like, she logically shouldn’t know what to do here. She’s only been out of the tower for a little over a year and sailing takes time to learn. There’s been nothing to establish beforehand that she’s learned this stuff. If anything Eugene and Lance should be the one giving the orders here as their backgrounds could feasibly included sailing as they’re world travelers. 

Here lies part of the problem with Rapunzel’s characterization, and I’ve already touched upon it back in The Alchemist Returns, but Rapunzel can’t and shouldn’t be magically good at everything. She can be incredibly skilled in some areas, like acrobatics and the arts, but she also should have lapses in knowellage just due to a lack of experience and expertise. 

A female character isn’t ‘weak’ just because they have to sometimes rely on other characters. They shouldn’t be written to be magically better than the male characters just because they got boobs. That’s not empowering; that’s condescending. Women are people, and real people have varied skill sets and weaknesses that match their interests and backgrounds. 

So Why Is the Island Tropical? 

According to what few maps we see in the show (and yes, they are inconsistent, but bare with me), Corona is somewhere in Northern Europe near an ocean or sea. According to dialogue at the end Forest of No Return, they’ve been traveling east, and according to the map in Rapunzel’s Return, the Dark Kingdom is north east of Corona specifically. Meaning that they must be somewhere in the northern Baltic Sea right now, which is not tropical at all.  

This is part of the problem with Tangled’s ‘throw it all into a blender’ style of approach to worldbuilding. If traveling the world is going to be a major plot point for a season then we kind of need to know where things are in relation to each other. Climate should help determine such things, but if you’re all willy nilly about culture, which climate affects, than nothing is going to make sense. 

My only guess is that the island is suppose to be magical so it has a different climate to the surrounding environment, but that’s just a headcanon and not actually stated by anything in the show itself. I shouldn’t have to be doing the work of the writers for them. 

So Why are We Separating the Guys Again? 

Back in Freebird the writers needed to get Cass and Raps alone in order for them to have their bonding time and a heart to heart, but here, it’s just lazy writing. This is a Pascal focus episode and it requires that Rapunzel interact with lots of other characters, so splitting the group up doesn’t benefit the story in any way. 

The writers just didn’t want to fool with writing for eight characters at one time (I’m not counting Fidella or Owl, though logically they should be considered characters in their own right and not just props for the story, but oh well); which begs the question of why they wrote in so many characters to begin with. 

It’s also an excuse to make the girls seem more competent than the boys, which, as I explained above, is not real ‘girl power’; just bad writing.  

Let’s Talk About the Outfit Changes and How Marketing Affects the Story 

The entire point of this episode and indeed this whole island arc, is just because of marketing stipulations. Every season is required to have one Pascal focused episode and one Max focused episode, because Disney marketing wanted to sell cute animal toys. Another requirement of the story was outfit changes for the mains so that once again marketing could sell dolls and variants and such. It’s why Rapunzel, Cass, and Eugene get so many alternate costumes, while Lance doesn’t despite being with them on this journey too. 

Which is understandable to a point. American television animation has always been about selling toys and merchandise. It’s how these shows make most of their money back. If there’s a show that you enjoy and you want to support it being on the air, you need to buy the toys. Priating doesn’t do jack to the bottom line, it does not affect ratings as most people don't own a nielsen rating box. (an increasingly outdated method to calculate popularity anyways) But whether or not the toys sell is the make it or break it point of every show. 

However, there are better ways to implement these stipulations then how Tangled goes about it. You want to give Max and Pascal focus? Then actually give them focus that relates to the overall plot and not just meaningless filler. You want to the characters switch up outfits and have that tie into the story? Then make sure it fits all of the characters and don’t drag it out more than it needs to be, because this island arc it too damn long. 

And you want to know what the biggest kick in the teeth is? There’s barely any merchandise for this outfit. There’s like one paper doll set and that’s it. The toys for Tangled the Series did not sell and they stopped merchandising the show after season one. Now add in the rating plummet during seasons two and three, and we’re incredibly lucky the show didn’t get canceled outright because it’s by all accounts a financial flop. 

I suspect there was an upfront contract that guaranteed them three seasons no matter what, and that’s the only reason it managed to escape the chopping block and why Chris and Ben weren’t let go sooner from the project. Because Chris at least no longer works for Disney. He left as soon as production ended on the show. 

The False God Trope is Over Played 

I can find examples of this trope dating all the way back to the early 60s, and arguably even sooner than that. However around the 80s, after Return of the Jedi hit theaters, the trope was inescapable in children's media. Every cartoon since has had this same plot shoved in somewhere. It also became paired with the ‘liar revealed’ trope (the bane of my existence) more often. 

And that’s what this is; an incredibly stale take on an incredibly by the numbers story. I kept waiting all episode for the other shoe to drop, for some sort of twist on the usual cliche, but it never came. 

This episode is boring, aggravatingly so. It’s the main reason why it’s in my bottom five. Because while you could argue that really little kids wouldn’t be as over exposed to the trope like an adult such as myself, the writers themselves desperately tried to distance themselves from that targeted audience. They’re the ones that yell ‘it’s not a kid show’, while feeding us crap like this, and I just have to roll my eyes. 

Tangled doesn’t know who it’s audience is. It should be pre-teen girls, but the creators want shoot for an older audience, teens, while marketing wants this to be a preschool show. So the series careens wildly all over the place in terms of tone and winds up satisfying no one. Older audiences are frustrated by childish filler such as this, while younger audiences are exposed to themes and messages that they probably shouldn’t be. I know several parents who have stopped their kids from watching the series because they don’t approve of the toxic values the show prometes in its incompetence. 

It bungles so many of its attempts to be mature because it won’t actually explore the complexities of the plot. Either cause it’s wasting too much time on filler, it can’t explore it’s more disturbing elements to their natural conclusions due to the audience, or it just mistakes ‘shocking’ as deep. 

King Pascal isn’t mature or deep. It’s pointless guff that adds nothing while actively taking away from more interesting storylines. I say skip this dreck and go watch Doctor Who’s The Aztecs instead if you want to see this trope done right with maturity while still being all audience friendly. 

It’s also has the added bonus of featuring two well developed strong female characters who hold their own with the equally capable guys while actually developing all of those characters simultaneously, and was co-produced by an actual woman. If they could pull that off in the early sixties than Disney and Chris have no excuse today. 

This Is the Same ‘Lesson’ As Pascal’s Story

In addition to being boring and unoriginal, this episode is also redundant. Rapunzel already learned to show appreciation to Pascal back in season one. Why are we having her relearn this lesson instead of giving Pascal a new arc? 

It’s not even consistent as Rapunzel only acts this way towards him in his focus episodes. It’s also not a lesson in behaving condescendingly in general because Rapunzel goes on to be condensing to everyone anyways. 

So Did We Really Need This Episode Just to Introduce the Island and the Firefly? 

Yes both of these things come into play later, but not in any significant way. We're here on this island for four whole episodes and in only comes back for one in season three, and only to further a side characters story not the main plot. Also the Firefly will help resolve the plot in five episode time, but it’s just given a reintroduction there anyways. Why couldn’t this information have been condensed down and repackaged into another episode entirely? 

That’s what I mean by poor pacing. Tangled is not efficient in its storytelling. It drags things out only to give us rushed endings or no resolutions at all. Stop drop feeding info in the backgrounds of filler episodes where it’s not relevant and actually give us stories that focus on the plot, dang it. 

Once Again, Rapunzel is a Hypocrite 

Just like in Pascal’s Story during season one, Rapunzel is quick to show consideration for her oldest friend but can’t be bothered to admit fault to a teenager that she abused. One that she knows is currently facing horrendous and inhumane treatment inside of a jail cell right now and still does not give a damn. 

You can’t claim Rapunzel is a kind and compassionate person so long as Varian and his story exists.You just can’t. Because no matter how you slice it, being a minor means that there is a power imbalance in how adults and the government treats them. A power imbalance that is constantly being exploited by the mains. 

Conclusion

You won’t miss anything other than the shipwreck itself if you skipped the episode. Which is aggravating because it means it’s technically necessary to the on going story without actually adding anything substantial to it. It’s like the series opener all over again, only made worse by how boring and redundant it all is. Worst episode of season two; and now I just want to go watch Doctor Who instead.