This is decent episode, and one of the few that isn’t filler in season two, but because there are problems with the over all character acs, there’s problems here with episode too.
Summary: Rapunzel and Cassandra come across an abandoned magic stall while searching for parts of their destroyed caravan. The stall contains a wand of forgetting. Cassandra impulsively wishes that Rapunzel would "just forget about everything" when she was tired of her trying to patch things up between them, which results in Rapunzel regressing to when she was still in her tower with Gothel.
The Episode Order is Confusing
So this and The Brothers Hook aired on the same day. Now in the production order listing, Rapunzel Day One is suppose to come before The Brothers Hook and that’s how it’s ordered on Disney Plus. Which is where I’m watching this marathon and getting all my screen caps.
However The Brothers Hook did air before this episode according to Wikipedia. Also Hook Foot is nowhere to be seen with nary a word. So placing The Brothers Hook before would indeed make more sense in that regard.
Yet Raps and Cass aren’t fighting in The Brothers Hook, so I don’t understand how this was supposed to originally work. What’s the correct viewing order here? Is Hook Foot just off screen with Fidella this episode, or is Cass and Raps ignoring their big fight in The Brother’s Hook?
For Someone With a Disability Now, It Doesn’t Seem To Affect Things
Ok, to be fair, they do show Cassandra practicing here and later in Mirror, Mirror trying to relearn how to use her hand, and indeed physical therapy for injuries is a thing. Yet, two scenes isn’t enough to establish that. She regains usage of her hand really quickly and far too easily, given the type of injury it was.
Disabilities, even unseen ones, still impact your everyday life. Yes, they don't ruin your life; you can still do things. But they don't just go away and you have to deal with it.
Finding that balance between not making a character useless, while still recognizing that there are things that they struggle with when writing disabilities is a line that writers have trouble with. But if you’re not going to put in that effort needed to pull it off tastefully then don't introduce the concept.
One Step Forward; Two Steps Back
Rapunzel recognizing that there is a problem, and wanting to fix it before it gets worse, can be viewed as progress. After all, avoiding the issue is why things got so bad between her and Varian. But, she’s still failing to see why Cassandra is upset and so goes about things the wrong way.
And keep in mind, Rapunzel does have every right to be mad at Cassandra, just the same that Cass has a right to be mad at Rapunzel. Both girls screwed up.
Yet, it’s only Rapunzel’s side of things that Rapunzel cares about, and therefore nothing actually gets resolved.
This could have been a decent conflict for season three, but that’s not where the writers take things so we’re just spinning our wheels here.
It’s also kind of shitty that Cass is the only person that Rapunzel is willing to put effort into righting things with. She still doesn’t give a crap about Varian, nor any other villain in the show.
Well I Guess This Has to Come Before The Brothers Hook, Or Does It?
They have the caravan in Brothers Hook, don’t they? I mean how else did they meet up with Hook Hand? But if that is the case then where is Hook Foot now? I don’t know.
Cassandra’s Hurt Hand Only Matters When It Concerns Her Relationship With Rapunzel and Not How It Affects Her Character as a Whole
An extension of what I was saying before, but it shows the fundamental problem with the writing for Cassandra. The writers only think of her as a conflict for Rapunzel and not as a person with like her own life and shit.
Long Time, No See Owl
As soon as Hook Foot goes unceremoniously missing, then Owl shows up. I don’t think he’s been seen since season one, yet they act like he’s always been here with the group.
Why is continuity and consistency so hard for this show?
The Saporians Are Indeed Homeless, But Don't Expect That to Ever Be Brought Up
So things to note.
This isn’t a village. It’s an encampment. What we see here are destroyed tents and caravans. The only permanent structure is a short stone wall.
Secondly, the magic book they find has the Saporian symbol on it, and indeed the Saporians use the wand of oblivium to take over Corona in S3.
What we can gather from this is that the Saporians were driven out of Corona after the first war. They’ve been living as nomads for centuries without their homeland.Yet their most recent settlement was destroyed by the black rocks sometime before season one started, along with most of their possessions and means of living.
All of this would explain their motivations, goals, and why they picked now to try and take over and not just any other time.
But don't expect any of that to be brought up or remembered by anyone come season three. We can’t have any po the bad guys, save for Cass, being sympathetic now can we.
Also, just a side note. It’s funny how apothecary is treated as magic and alchemy as a science in this world, when in reality it should be the opposite way around.
This is Not an Apology
If you gotta throw a ‘but’ in there, then you haven’t really apologized.
Rapunzel’s not sorry for Cass getting hurt. She doesn’t recognize nor understands why Cassandra feels the way she does, and she’s even attempting to try to. All Rapunzel cares about is how Cass being upset makes herself feel. She’s putting in this effort to ‘talk about it’ because Cass being outwardly angry at her is inconvenient to herself and nothing more.
Rapunzel Still Hasn't Learned Boundaries
Didn’t we already have this conversation back in season one?
And like, yes, it’s not good for Cassandra to ignore her feelings, but what Rapunzel does here by pushing isn’t a good thing either.
What's most frustrating though is that neither learn anything from this. Just like they didn’t learn anything in Under Raps or Goodbye and Goodwill.
It’s aggravating to see the writers give us an actual conflict that’s worth having the mains fight over, only to be undermined by previous episodes and then thrown away altogether.
So How Come the Wand Only Erases Part of Rapunzel’s Memory and Not All?
Like, this is suppose to be set for season three with Frederic and Arianna losing their memories. Yet despite Clementine using a similar wand, it doesn’t have the same effect on them as it does on Rapunzel here. They lose all their memories and sense of identity, while Raps just forgets a few years.
Speaking Forgetting How Things Work
Where did this handy dandy book with the cure go when Frederic and Arinna lost their memories? Why didn’t Raps go looking for it then, or force the Saparoians to give her the cure while they were in her custody?
So This Plot Point Kind of Back Fires, and Winds Up Undermining Everyone’s Relationship with Rapunzel
First off, just repeating New Dream scenes from the movie, but with Cass in Eugene’s place is ill advised given the direction that the show went in. Whether you ship Casspunzel or not, it’s important to recognize that ‘sisters’ is what they are intended to be in canon. That’s the direction that Chris went with them, whether we like it or not. So either no one on the show knows how to write platonic female relationships, or this is gay baiting. Take your pick.
It’s also lazy.
But most damaging is that this only shows that Cassandra only liked Rapunzel when she was naive and stupid, and not the Rapunzel we have now. Tie in how her friendship with Rapunzel is based off of validation to begin with and we got a very unhealthy relationship, and not one that should be rooted for, despite the show wanting you to do just that.
They even go so far to repeat the lines from the flashback in the last episode, as if this was a positive thing in their dynamic, instead of recognizing it for the really mess up thing that it.
Then there’s the Eugene side of things that this calls into question.
We know Eugene loves Rapunzel through thick and thin, but how much of their relationship is based off their first adventure together and not about how they work together in the here in now?
Did Rapunzel just simply latch on to Eugene because he’s the first person that she met who wasn’t her mother and wound up being nice to her? If anyone else found her, would she be in a relationship with them instead? Is it healthy for her to never look for anything else? How much does Rapunzel actually like Eugene, for himself?
Then throw in Eugene’s over idealization of Rapunzel in season three, they’re lack of communication issues, and Rapunzel’s crippling need to always be right, and I can’t say if New Dream should be what we’re rooting for either.
This isn’t a Casspunzel vs New Dream thing, nor is it a personal dislike of Rapunzel herself. Rather, it’s a very serious question about the nature of Rapunzel’s interpersonal relationships vs her character development, and how that has to change things on some level, and if it’s still worth having those relationships now that she herself has changed so drastically.
Is everyone being fulfilled? Is everyone getting what they need still? No? Then, why are any of these people still together?
That needs to be addressed by the narrative now, and it never is.
So Why Would You Say That Cass?
Rapunzel doesn’t know where she is and therefore has no idea what direction the tower lies in. If you’re heading south back to the camp then just say the tower is south. In fact it actually is south because you’ve been traveling northeast to the Dark Kingdom for months now, according to the map in Rapunzel’s Return. So what was the point in lying about that?
In in effort make Rapunzel look smart, they had to make Cass look dumb and that’s not good writing. If you needed Rapunzel to suddenly not trust Cass then there were other better ways. The drawing she placed in her pocket should be enough on its own to tip her off, and all she has to do is reach into her pocket to put like a rock she found in there and then find it that way.
So When Did Rapunzel Have Time to Build This Elaborate Mousetrap?
This would have taken hours, it’s not even been minutes.
There’s making Raps competent and then there’s turning her into an overpowered invincible heroine.
Now Pascal Is Missing
Oh is he with fucking Hook Foot now?
He was right on your shoulder Eugene.
If you’re going to have characters conveniently missing then establish that first, preferably in a visual way and not with exposition.
So Rapunzel is Treated As In the Right Even When She’s Not
So Cassandra opening up about her feelings is treated as the solution to the problem, but it’s really not, or it shouldn’t be anyways. She can recognize she lied about the wand without having to doing something she finds uncomfortable, and it’s not like Rapunzel right now has any frame of reference for what Cass is talking about.
All this amounts to is giving Rapunzel a free pass on her earlier bullshit.
Also if Cass repeating a phrase Rapunzel said earlier was all that was needed to jog her memory enough to trust her, then why couldn’t Eugene done the same? He was right there.
This Doesn’t Resolve Anything
Ok first off that’s not what friends do. Friends actually work through shit. Friends make sincere apologies. Friends forgive each when they do.
If you’re not doing that then you’re not friends and you should just leave.
No one, not Raps, not Cass, ever apologizes for what happened in the Great Tree. They never try to understand what either of them did wrong, nor do they put effort into fixing themselves or addressing their issues and flaws.
And you know what? That would be a valid reason for their falling out in season three. But it’s not used as such, so any resolution to their conflict there winds up feeling hollow.
Conclusion
This episode, like with the Great Tree, gave me hope that this was all leading somewhere. Now it’s just a bitter reminder of how screwed up the writers’ morals are in this show, and how poorly planned everything was.
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