Defenders of Berk 203 Review

PLOT A: “DoB: Brotherhood”

While out on a nighttime training mission on Dragon Island, Hiccup stumbles across Dagur who has been on the island for days hunting dragons. To keep him still under the impression that Berk is still killing dragons, Hiccup plays along, but he can only keep it up for so long when Dagur has his sights on killing Toothless.

I must’ve let out a thousand fangirl screams because this was the triumphant episode where Dagur returned! At last year’s comic con, they said Dagur was going to play a bigger role in season 2, and by the looks of this episode…this is completely true.

This episode set up a big, fat, juicy (yes, juicy) plot for Dagur to be in, and I’m loving every second of it.

In 115, Dagur basically stole the entire episode—that he wasn’t technically supposed to be the point of—but this episode was all about Dagur and rose to the occasionally wonderfully.

He seemed even more nuts in this episode, as apparently he spent his time between 115 and this episode trying to learn about dragons and going to dragon island to basically kill everyone he finds. And I do love the little added touch of Dagur’s complete disregard for people’s personal space. If he lived in modern times he’d definitely diagnosed with something….but in the 11^th century he’s just “deranged”, but still shows all the classic signs of being crazy…like the no personal space thing. And it’s not just Hiccup’s personal space, it’s everyone’s. (Why did he touch Fishlegs’ cheek like that, anyways?)

But, the interactions were probably my favorite part. Dagur and Hiccup had a wonderful dialogue chemistry in 115 and this episode was just as good, even better! Dagur keeps growing more and more unstable and Hiccup keeps getting more and more uncomfortable with it. Though, I have to admit, at the end of the episode it was hard to see Hiccup ditch Dagur and pretty much cast him off after Dagur did show—in his own “Dagur” way—a genuine interest in them being brothers. But Hiccup has his agenda, and Dagur’s got his…which by his line at the end of the episode of “no one hurts Hiccup but me”, I fear for the future.

But, this episode does address a rather important factor about this show’s lineup of villains. More specifically Dagur and Alvin. It was mentioned a lot after 115 that Dagur was a more intimidating villain who, even though he had only been in one episode, managed to get us more revved up and worried about what he was going to than the series’ regular villain. And I can only agree. But here’s why: we know Dagur’s motivations. We know his back story. We know Dagur.

Dagur’s only been in two episodes but we all feel more attached and able to make logical conclusions about him because the show has taken those two episodes to the fullest and given us formidable information about this villain, while still keeping him “mysterious” enough that we can always expect surprises.

Alvin, doesn’t have that….at least not yet. He almost got it when the first introduced him in 106 when they teased at a potential Alvin/Stoick dilemma but that never came into fruition. So when everyone wonders why Dagur is such a more intimidating villain, is because we know him, we feel attached to him, and definitely after this episode, we’ve seen him in action. He’s not afraid to really beat the crap out of Hiccup as he was basically doing at the end, and that scene alone provided—in my opinion—the best fight scene we’ve gotten in the whole show.

It was great to see a villain finally get up in Hiccup’s face and make him physically fight. The choreographing was great and so was the pacing so that didn’t hinder the fight whatsoever, but it was the first time we really saw Hiccup get in a physical fight someone, and I enjoyed seeing him be confident yet still look a little unsure of how to stand, how to use his weapon, and when to jump in and out of battle. He’ll get better with that over time, as long as he continues to have these battles to polish his skills.

But, yeah, Dagur’s the villain I’m looking at to mess stuff up as I’m sure he’s polishing his weapons and getting his armada ready to invade Berk…? Get Hiccup…? Steal Toothless…? All of the above? Yeah, Alvin needs to step up his game this season. But with this “screaming death” plot he might just be stepping it up.

Honestly, I really can’t find a thing wrong with this plot. The dialogue was brilliant, the buildup was great, and the ending fight didn’t disappoint whatsoever. And since this episode only had two main plots, both had to carry the weight of the episode more and this plot more than carried the entire episode and then some…

PLOT B: “Just some teenagers in the woods…alone…at night…”

The teens go on a nighttime training mission to Dragon Island, looking to polish their stealth skills as well as being to defend themselves without the aid of their dragons—leaving Tuffnut in charge of making sure the dragons stay out of the way.

So I’m sure everyone got that fanfiction vibe from this plot, mostly cause if you were around during the “early stages” of the fandom like I was then you know that there was fanfiction galore on this very subject: the teens going on missions without their dragons to learn how to protect themselves or a rite of passage hunting trip, etc. So it was cool to see it actually come up in the actual franchise.

And I did like the little touch of Astrid’s ideas always being complicated and difficult. That just seems legit to me.

But it was an interesting thing that they had Tuffnut actually using his brain in this episode. When he was picked to watch the dragons I knew it was gonna be a bunch of jokes (funny jokes) and stuff but there were some actual times where Tuffnut was doing his job, staying on task, and being active in correcting issues on his own. (But the “you can lightly massage my shoulders and neck” line…oh my gosh…TJ Miller is truly hilarious).

That’s kinda…at big step for his character, because he’s pretty brain dead most of the time.

But this plot, on the “minor nitpicks” side, did have some weird transition, cutoffs, and overall random choices in displaying characters. But it didn’t have pacing issues which I’m extremely proud of this season for having such a good three act pacing system!

Still, I can recall three times where there was just something extremely weird in one of those areas. One where Fishlegs was alone and walked past the Typhoomerang, another where Snotlout said “wait you mean…” and it just cut off and went to the next scene, and another when Astrid came into the “Dagur and Hiccup hunting” scene and basically jumped in, shushed Snotlout, and jumped out.

I could be missing something in these three scenes but they just struck me as extremely off putting because I just didn’t get them. Why were they chosen to be displayed that way…?

And just a mini-shoutout to the fact that Ruffnut is actually getting a personality—or just lines in general—in this season. The poor girl needed it because she was basically non-existent last season.

But anyways, this plot was a good lead into find Dagur and then letting him steal the show—as he always does—but offered some good character moments—especially for Tuffnut. And I’m glad that this season is still continuing with making the dragon academy’s “training” actually have a point. Last season some of the things they did had a point, but most of the time we didn’t even know what they were doing. They were just “training”…training how? At least now we know the motivation and purpose behind everything they’re doing in this season, which is always nice.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This episode was such a joy to watch! I can barely criticize it because it really did have such a good premise, pacing, and power to it.

But then, I can’t say it was all because Dagur was there—though that always helps, they just nail his character every time—but it seemed like a lot of good risks taken in this episode paid off. It didn’t stay in the comfort zone. It went the extra mile to have that good fight, to make the comic relief character have a few cerebral moments, and make a villain that we’ve only know for two episodes more interesting, relatable, and intimidating than the regular villain.

I’m glad Dagur’s going to be in plenty of episodes this season as he’s a welcomed addition to plot and always managed to bring the best out of the writing. Though I do wonder when his secret source of information will come back in, because if that has ties to Alvin then maybe Dagur can help out our “main villain”…? It just might be crazy enough to work.

Still, wonderful episode! Can’t wait until Dagur comes back!