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.

Defenders of Berk 204 Review

PLOT A: "The deadly dragon with skin as white as snow"

While trapped down in the caves beneath Berk, Hiccup discovers not only the whispering deaths the Outcasts put underground, but a mysterious white dragon called the screaming death.

We all saw this plot coming…mostly because the advertisement for this season was hardly subtle about the fact that this dragon was going to be a major problem this season.

So ladies and gentlemen I give you the screaming death. Is it as big and bad as the Red Death in the movie…? Is the pudding worth the price?

…..Yeah, actually it is. I was really impressed with this new dragon as I wasn’t extremely moved by its design in the promotion poster, but seeing it move and be in action makes it at least 10 times more intimidating. It’s mean looking, creepy, but still looks like a dragon. Like they went for the mean look but it doesn’t look like they just piled on a bunch of extra stuff to make it look as scary as possible. The design just happens to work very well in its favor.

And it’s whole role seems rather interesting as well. Another “queen bee” dragon with a bunch of loyal whispering death hatchlings.  Oh, the possibilities…though hopefully not possibilities that’s just an exact rehash of the movie’s plot….

But, onto the actual plot behind the dragon, it’s good that they didn’t wait too long to have Hiccup find out that the Outcasts were planting dragons under the village, cause it would’ve been kind of lame to have him trying to figure out “who done it” for the whole first half of the season. But now that he knows, what is he gonna do? There’s a lot of “let them/it go” going on for these first few episodes…so something has to come to a boil eventually. And usually I’d be skeptical about big climatic battles as last season’s battles were rather…lackluster. But this season continually provides exciting battle after exciting battle so I’m feeling strangely optimistic that whatever battle is looming forth will deliver some solid action. Though I hope I’m not putting the prosthetic tail before the dragon here.

And speaking of said battle…it really deserves a shout out because not only did this episode do something I’ve been hoping it the show would do, but it did so very well.

As many of you know—and as I keep reminding so how could you forget?—pacing was one of my biggest complaints about last season, especially within the second act. The ending action would always be rushed to make up for the spare time the middle part of the episode, more or less, wasted. This season seems to have fixed this problem if the first four episodes are anything to judge, but this episode in particular was a shining example in how to utilize proper pacing.

How, you ask? Well, this episode was a tricky one, because the entire second half of it was nothing but a continuous battle. To do over ten minutes of nothing but battle and strategy you have to keep things moving and keep it fresh, both are extremely hard. But this episode seemed to pull it off. I think the main reason has to do with the fact that they allowed for so much time. The battle started in the middle of the second act, so they had the second half of the second act and all of the third to do nothing but battle. So it didn’t feel rushed or cut short.

This episode knew what to focus on and it was the battle, all the beginning was just set up and nicely paced set up at that. It didn’t linger too long with keeping Hiccup and Toothless underground, they found out what they needed to and then joined the fight.

But, whew, this is getting long…I liked the battle, and I didn’t even mind that the ending solution was obviously a callback to the movie with shot similarities and the whole nine yards. But I guess it’s just the right way vs. wrong way to reference the movie that makes it work (like in this episode’s case or 113’s case) or not work (*cough* 107 *cough*). But, like I said, I hope this isn’t foreshadowing that they’re going to rehash the plot of the movie as well.

And Hiccup’s doomsday senses are still tingling and we all know we haven’t seen the last of snow white dragon. Only question is…what it’s gonna do? I’m actually very exciting to find out.

So, good battle plotline. It had a tough job in being a plot that was 90% battle scenes and it was the main plot of the episode and it was only a two-plot episode so it had to carry more weight and it succeeded on all four ends.

Well done. My only slight nitpick might be that the ending conversation between Hiccup and Astrid seemed like rushed dialogue…it just felt like “oh we’re almost out of time, cut out some of the silence between the words” kind of thing. But it wasn’t episode-ruining. Just a nitpick for the sake of nitpicking. And there were just a few tiny little scenes where they slowed down the action and took too long of a pause—and almost unrealistic pause—like mostly when Astrid and Hiccup were strategizing how to defeat the screaming death…with the screaming death right behind them. Everything seemed a little too calm there, which kinda broke the tension since they did have this giant dragon still actively chasing them. Having them dodge something while trying to talk probably would’ve helped.

PLOT B: "Water we gonna do without water?" (okay that’s a lame title, sorry).

Berk’s well has dried up, leaving the village with a low water supply and no answers as to what happened.

So one of those “normal day on Berk” problems comes up. Gobber stinks, needs a bath, but oops there’s no water.

This plot was definitely just used as a reason to have Hiccup go underground to find the eggs, and the Gobber needs a bath gag was just put in for a laugh or two. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, it was just blindingly obvious.

Since this plot was just a “in the beginning and in the end” kind of thing, I can’t really say too much about it. The entire episode was really just heavily reliant on plot A. Luckily it did it’s job to deliver, but, to be honest, I feel like this “the water level is low” plot could’ve been replaced with just about any other plot that involves Hiccup somehow getting trapped underground and it still would’ve worked. So…it was pretty dispensable.

But, that doesn’t make it a bad choice, given that a choice had to be made. It just would’ve been nice to have a bit more of a seamless tie between plot A and B.

Though, once again, I did like how the flight club/academy was used effectively to help out a village problem. So, they still kept the group “doing something” with the academy before the big fight scene.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This episode was….(wait for it)….rock solid. (Couldn’t resist using that awful pun).

It was a big risk to have an episode put its supporting weight all on a ten-minute battle scene, but somehow it pulled it all together and kept the battle moving and interesting to watch. Not at any point can I say I was bored or wanting the fight to “just be over with already”, so they kept my attention on a continuous battle. Nice work.

Also, on a random note, I really enjoy watching Hiccup in so much action this season and, strangely enough, I love seeing him get thrown around (don’t know what that’s about, people do tend to have a sick obsession with liking their main characters to get hurt to a certain degree?). Now if only he’d get a scratch or two, because he had some really nasty falls in this fight, I don’t know how he didn’t dislocate his jaw or something.

But did I like this battle more than the one in the previous episode….?

Well, this one was longer and a lot more strategic so I should like it more. But there was something about the appeal of going out of the norm and having Hiccup fight off of Toothless that still makes me find the fight in 203 just a hair more entertaining despite it paling in comparison to length when put up against this fight.

Still, this episode was filled with lots of good stuff and an excellent usage of pacing techniques. I’m really liking how many of the season 1 flaws are getting fixed this season. I hope it keeps up!

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!