The Brothers Hook

 

It’s time to say goodbye to Hook Foot. He won’t be missed. 

Summary:  Rapunzel takes everyone to see Hook Hand in concert. However, this brings back bad memories in Hook Foot, as he was always overshadowed and looked down on by his elder brother. Hook Hand is revealed to be employed by the self-centered King Trevor who wants Hook Hand to play at the ceremony of the marriage between the Seal of Equis and his female mate. When Hook Foot sabotages his brother’s performance at the wedding he must face King Trevor in a dance off to save Hook hand’s career. 

The Episode Placement Is Indeed Wrong  

I talked about this last episode, but the ordering of episodes is confusing. 

The Brother’s Hook does come after Rapunzel: Day One in terms of production order and is placed after it on the Disney Plus, but it supposedly aired before Rapunzel: Day One originally and the events make more sense in that aired order. As they’re traveling on foot here because they lost the caravan, and they’re all stressed out and fighting in the first scene of this episode. Also it world explain Hook Foot’s absence in Rapunzel Day One. 

Yet why would they order things that way? Why hold off on resolving the Raps and Cass argument if you’re not going to even hint at it here? Why not place this earlier in the season so that you wouldn’t be dragging Hook Foot along in the Great Tree for no reason? 

It just goes to show how rushed and poorly planned out season two actually was. 

This is Another Pointless Parallel 

So Hook Foot is suppose to represent Cassandra here and Hook Hand is supposed to be Rapunzel in this scenario but like that doesn’t work for several reasons. 

For one, Rapunzel never discouraged Cassandra’s dreams. Cassandra herself just never opened up to tell her what those dreams were, and indeed even the audience don’t know what Cass’s dreams are now that she’s already achieved her goal of becoming a guard back in the first season. I don’t think even Cassandra knows what she wants. 

Second, Rapunzel and Cassandra’s conflict isn’t actually about ‘dreams’, it’s about control. Each wants to control the other, to be in charge, because they think themselves always right. Both equate ‘being right’ and a lack of criticism as validation and to them, and this show in general, validation is equated with ‘love and compassion’ and is the ultimate end all and be all goal for everyone. Even though that’s not how validation works and a it’s a very unhealthy mindset to promote. 

Third, no one owes you anything. Yeah, Hook Hand is a jerk here, but at the end of the day giving up on his dreams was Hook Foot’s choice. You are in charge of your own choices, and at some point you need to decide if you’re going to listen to rest of the world telling you no or have some self respect and do what you want because you want it. You don’t actually need anyone’s approval but your own. By making ‘validation’ the end all and be all of the narrative, it undermines characters agency and fails to teach people about self respect and accountability. 

Same goes for Cassandra, even more so in fact. She needs to be the one to get off her ass and try for what she wants. No one is going to hand it to her and Raps doesn’t owe her a damn thing. Cassandra is the only thing getting the way of Cassandra because time and time again the series gives her chances that she refuses to take for ill defined reasons. There’s nothing at stake for her to lose if she just left. 

Last off, no one learns anything from this. Cass gets nothing out of it despite being right there the whole time, and Rapunzel is too hypocritical and self centred to see that she is very bit the bully same as Hook Hand. Not because she crushes Cassandra’s dreams like the narrative wants you to think, but because she tries to insert herself and her views on to everyone. 

Bullshit

Once again, may I remind you that there is over twenty villians in this show and only four of them get redemptions. Four! And one of those four was Eugene’s doing not Rapunzel’s. 

The narrative does not support the ideas that it wants to push. If you want me to believe that Rapunzel does sincerely believe in second chances then you need to show her giving that chance to everybody equally. And no, not everyone has to take it, not everyone needs to be redeemed, but she needs to at least try. Especially if they’re a recurring baddie with a tragic backstory like Lady Caine’s.

Oh, and may I also remind you that currently a 15 year old orphan is rotting away in a jail cell because of the corrupt government and Rapunzel does not give a crap! 

This Song Sounds Good But It Adds Nothing

It doesn’t add anything to the overall narrative and it fails to add anything to the episode itself because it gives us no new information.  

This is extremely wasteful. Not only because Alan Menken and Glenn Slater are highly respected artists who are wasting their talents on crap like this, but also for pure budgetary reasons. Tangled has a limited budget for songs that is worked into the contract. Each season is suppose to get eight original songs and two reprises. (tho season three trades out one of those songs for an extra reprise) 

In an arc heavy series like this, with such a limited number of songs to convey information, then you need to choose where those songs go wisely. The writers did not choose wisely in this instance. 

Rapunzel You Are Not In A Position To Give Advice Here

This episode is foreshadowing for what season three would become. Which is a complete formula switch up that undermines the narrative’s goals. 

This is suppose to be a coming of age tale. That’s in its mission statement. It’s what the writers supposedly wanted to achieve according to interviews and the very pilot episode itself.

That requires Rapunzel learning and growing. She can’t be in the mentor role. She can’t be the one to give out sage advice if she is the one who is meant to grow the most. She not there yet. She’s not experienced enough to fulfill that place in the narrative.  

Season one may have been repetitive in it’s lessons but it at least tried to show Rapunzel owning up to mistakes and changing as a person, but here and in season three they toss that out the window and have Rapunzel teaching other people lessons instead. People who ultimately don’t matter to the overall narrative. 

Instead of showing her growing as a person and coming to fit in that role over time due to experience, it has the opposite effect of showing Rapunzel as being patronizing, selfish, and unworthy to rule. Because she has no grounds for having an opinion, no basis for her advice to go off of, no experience to back up what she says, and zero claims for being in charge except for being born in a classist feudal system. 

Had the narrative actually bothered to call out  this instead of just having Cass pitch a hissy fit over nothing, then we could have gotten a really complex character and unique moral to the show, but that’s not what actually happens. 

King Trevor Is the Saving Grace of This Episode

I don’t think the writers realize that Trevor isn’t the hateable douche that they believe him to be. 

Oh sure he’s not nice, he’s essentially the equivalent of an annoying ‘I want to speak to the manager!’ type customer. But there is a huge, huge difference between being a Karen and being a fascist dictator. One’s irritating and the other is actively malicious and a danger to people's lives. 

Frederic might be outwardly more pleasant but he’s still a person who abuses his power in order to harm poor people. Trevor is just a mother-of-bridezilla here and a perfectionist. Like big deal. 

 And to be honest Rapunzel isn’t that much better. 

Like you are a bully Raps. You’re every bit a pushy and demanding as Trevor is, particularly in season three. 

While she’s not actively malicious like Frederic, she’s still a danger to people because she refuses to acknowledge that the power she wields has an impact on others lives and that that impact can indeed be negative. 

There’s something called the banality of evil. That being simply mean to others isn’t how true evil spreads. It’s people refusing to challenge the system, and if you are a part of that system then you are a part of the evil it spreads no matter how nice you are outwardly. 

Rapunzel and the show at large, does not understand the difference between being nice and being kind. It introduces the concept of flawed government and systems but then does nothing to actually challenge it. It forgoes the actual work it takes to make change happen by focusing on easy outs and proformative progressivism. 

Trevor does more than either Frederic or Rapunzel here with this one line alone than they do in three full seasons. 

Eugene did indeed commit a violent crime, no matter how much the show tried to present such a crime as ‘funny’. Trevor is in his legal rights to prosecute the person who tried to kidnap his child/pet and assaulted his personage. 

Yet he’s actually granting mercy here. More than that, he’s inviting them to his child’s/pet’s wedding. He’s offering friendship when he could have had them killed. Because Tevor, for all his faults, recognizes the power the that he wields and then makes the conscious decision not to abuse that power. 

Moreover over he acknowledges the difference between what is a personal offense and not a an attack on his kingdom as a whole. What Eugene and Frederic did could have been considered an act of war and Trevor never even considered that an option. 

It’s sign of bad writing when the person we’re supposed to consider a jerk and a recurring antagonist is more compassionate than the main heroine herself. Even as he jeers and makes an arse of himself. 

This is the Point Where Rapunzel’s Characterization Buckles and Breaks 

At first glance this seems like growth. She’s now assertive and taking charge, and Hook Hand did indeed had this coming, but in context of the greater narrative and how Rapunzel’s character develops past this episode, this is the point where the wheels start to come off. 

Rapunzel is a hypocrite. We’ve established this as a fundamental part of her characterization back in season one and it’s the driving force behind all of the main conflicts with her in the first two seasons. But before now, her hypocrisy at least had consequences. It caused enough problems that if you were paying attention you could see it for the flaw that it was.

But here her hypocrisy is presented as being right. She looks over Hook Hand even as she tells him not to look down on others. She dictates to him how his relationship with his own brother should go, when she has zero context for said relationship. She’s heard only one side of the story and only a piece of it. She doesn’t know what actually went down between them while they were growing up nor does she honestly care why Hook Hand does what he does. Even as she asks him why. 

Yet she is rewarded for this behavior. She’s never called out as wrong. The narrative bends over backwards to accommodate her and reinforces her views. Without direct consequences a character’s flaws are rendered meaningless, and so the character will only frustrate the audience rather than endear themselves to us. 

That is the opposite of what you want to achieve in a story. You want to the audience to like you’re main characters, or at least find them entertaining in their awfulness. Making them right all of the time, even when they’re wrong sabotages this goal. 

Trevor’s Still the Better Person Here 

Like it may not have been Hook Hands fault, but at the end of the day he did screw up at his job and a paying customer has the right to be upset and refuse to work with you again or even demand their money back. That’s what being self-employed means. It’s part of the risk you take as being a contractor.  

Trevor’s not being unreasonable here just because he raised his voice and wants Hook Hand to leave the wedding premises. Yeah the insults are uncalled for, I’ll give you, but remember that Frederic locked a tailor in a stockade for accidently ripping a robe; that he has the ability to fix if he wasn’t locked up. 

And he resolves conflicts and personal insults with a dance off! 

What happened when someone called Frederic out for being a poor leader and endangering lives, oh yeah they wound up in jail! 

Also This Episode’s Big Climax is a Fucking Dance Off

Out of all the low stakes conflicts in this show this is the lowest. 

And it’s coming right off The Great Tree and the big Cassandra vs Rapunzel fight. This shouldn’t be here. It’s throws off the pacing the tone. 

Well I Guess Trevor Kept HIs Word, Which Is More Than What Frederic Would Do 

Like Trevor is defeated and he does indeed complain about losing, but everyone is apparently free to leave afterwards and Hook Hand still has a career so I guess Trevor kept his side of the bargain. Even though he has no reason to and no one to hold him to account for it. He just has a code of honor I guess. 

Meanwhile, Frederic throws a teenager in a dungeon after promising to help him and completely ignores his supposed friend Quirin being encased in amber.  

So What Was the Point In Bringing Hook Foot Along Again? 

What did Hook Foot add? What did he bring to the story that no other character out there could bring? What does writing him out of the story now achieve, and why couldn’t he have been left out of the narrative all together? 

If your answer to all of those question is ‘Nothing!’, then congratulations you have more sense than the showrunners. 

I have seen a few people get angry and suggest that Lance should have been the one to go because getting rid of Hook Foot meant getting rid of the shows main disabled rep, but that’s ignoring that getting rid of Lance would mean getting rid of the shows only real black representation as well. Because tokenism isn’t real representation.  

Yet for all of how poorly handled Lance’s character was, he still has more reason to be there than Hook Foot. He has a unique connection to one of the main characters that, once introduced, would be hard to ignore. There’s nothing connecting Hook Foot to the plot or the main characters, and that’s why he shouldn’t have been in the show at all. Regardless of how much you may have liked him. 

Destiny Isn’t a Goal!!!

How many times do I have to say this!? 

A goal needs to be specific. It needs to have logical motivation behind it. It needs a clear obstacle to be overcome for the character to achieve it. 

A vague ‘destiny’ has none of those things. 

Conclusion 

Meh. That’s the word that best describes this episode and the majority of season two. It’s not the worst thing ever if you just want to shut your brain off for 30 minutes, but it’s not actually good either, and if you stop to think about any of it for more than two seconds it falls apart.