Defenders of Berk 205 Review

PLOT A: "Another one bites the Dust" (these lame titles)

Snotlout has been training day and night to ready himself for the upcoming attacks, but he’s been working Hookfang too hard in the process and the nightmare falls deathly ill.

So, all I can think of in comparison to this is episode 109 “Dragon Flower”. Which one of my complaints about that episode was the sickness factor was pretty downplayed and resulted in the actual sense of urgency not being there.

In this episode, though, it’s the exact opposite. The urgency is there and it’s in your face. And interestingly enough it sparked a question for me. Yes, Hookfang was pushed too hard and thus his flame started going out, but Fishlegs also mentioned that it happens to dragons when they get older. Maybe Hookfang’s a lot older than the other dragons? Thus pushing him too hard does result in life threatening side effects. Maybe he’s a middle aged dragon…? Which would explain his behavior as a mid-life crisis (assuming dragons have those).

But, back on topic, I do like that this episode seemed to conjure up amazing amounts of emotional depth, and I hate getting overly sappy about things that really aren’t that sappy…but this totally was. I really did get a little chest jump at some points (mostly the end). I think a lot of it had to do with Zack Pearlman’s voice acting. In a rare case I’m actually going to be sad when Jonah Hill comes back for Snotlout in the sequel cause Zack has got him down pat with the emotional stuff.

I can always trace back to how impressed I was with his VA in episode 116 when he was telling Hiccup how smug he was and yadda yadda, but this episode was laden with wonderfully delivered and almost heart-wrenching vocal moments. The “What are you waiting for, eat it!” line…man, that was great.

And, of course, the return of Spitelout being a royal piece of crap has returned! We all liked him in episode 112 and we all liked him here. He did his job of being a hard-hearted prick in contrast to Snotlout who, while tough, is clearly one of the more emotional of the group. The complications of Snotlout and Hookfang’s relationship is pretty fun to watch them go through dealing with each other’s personalities only to find that they’re exactly alike.

But seriously, seeing Hookfang and Snotlout interact here was brilliant, so many great displays of physical affection that we don’t usually get from those two. But the situation was dire and called for such, and it was delivered nicely.

And HE CRIED! We haven’t even seen Hiccup cry yet.

But while on the subject, I think one of the best moments in this episode was, oddly enough, the small interactions between Snotlout and Astrid. Usually the only interaction they have is Snotlout hitting on her or being a small-minded jerk about something and she calls him out. That’s really it. I’ve never seen these two have a conversation outside those terms. Here we have some nicely done comforting, and even when she touches his shoulder—a primo time for him to shake off his emotions and hit on her for the sake of looking like nothing’s wrong (which would’ve been in character still)—Snotlout inside backs off and asks her an honest to goodness question. I was both shocked and impressed.

So, in all terms, I really can’t find anything wrong with how this plot was handled. It had a sickness plot that was actually urgent, had a nice conflict to overcome, tied it in with Spitelout’s quote and brought it back to prove it wrong, had great emotional depth, added a lot of development to Snotlout and Hookfang’s relationship, and had some awesomely delivered lines from Snotlout.

PLOT B: "The Worm Queen"

In the hopes of curing Hookfang the group learns a bit more about Fireworms by traveling to the nest.

This was a nice way to casually slip in learning more about a dragon from last season, and the queen did look pretty cool (hot?)

I enjoyed the design and invention that they all live in a honey comb/bee hive-like cave and maintain their heat by licking the gel on the combs as well as the queen choosing to save Hookfang by…biting him…? Licking him…? What did she do again?

That was a weird choice to not show what she did but just show Hookfang’s reaction. Cause she let out her tongue so it seemed like she licked him or whacked him, but then by the reaction it was like he was bitten. 

So…I just wish they could’ve shown what she did. It’s not like it’s “graphic violence” or anything.

Either way, whatever she did, it was a nice touch to have that be how Hookfang was save. And by that time he was just a limp body (that kinda broke my heart…not gonna lie).

In terms of none of this coming into play until act three, it was evenly paced and not rushed…cause I was worried when I realized their entire journey to fireworm island would be in the third act, but they pulled off the pacing nicely as usual (for this season).

And nice fire effects…much better than last season. (Not that last season was bad, it’s just noticeably better).

And perhaps there were some scenes that went on a little too long…like the pacing was still fine, but, maybe the training scene of it showing Astrid going through chasing every person and the scene of finding the fireworms…neh Maybe having the second act not take place mostly in the academy would’ve helped…? But those are just minor nitpicks just for the sake of nitpicking though.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I hate to use words that are close to perfect but…yeah, I really didn’t have too many problems here. This episode was really nicely crafted especially since it was an emotionally charged episode in a show that usually focuses on action.

Not that this show hasn’t had emotional episodes before—and nicely done ones at that—but there was something about this episode in particular that really just worked.

I think I am seeing a pattern, though, with these episodes. More so than not, the first 5 episodes have been only A and B plot type episodes…there’s rarely a random third point/plot that needs to happen and usually the A plot is so dominant there’s barely a B plot to find now. Which is helping these episodes feel more focused.

Less is more when dealing with a plot. These episodes, for the most part, know what they’re about, where they’re going, and where they need to end, and it’s showing as the season goes on. Plus, if you’re focusing on then it’s much easier for something to be good, such as this episode is pushing an almost perfect score because it focused so heavily on the Hookfang/Snotlout plot and that was good. Unfortunately, if it was bad then that really hurts the score, but that’s not the case here!

And now comes the infamous (there’s at least two “infamous” episodes every season”) episode 206….I wonder how that’s gonna turn out? The preview looks pretty good.