The Owl House S2E9: Eclipse Lake

This review was commissioned by Aris Katsaris.


I just finished watching this episode, but I have trouble saying what happened in it. A lot of moving parts, but very few of them actually ended up mattering as best I can tell, and some of these gears don't seem to be touching the way the story wants them to.

The episode starts with Emperor Belos completing his repairs on the portal, but being stymied when it comes time to open it. The portal, it seems, is useless without the key, and Luz never handed over that.

It also starts with us getting a look below the mask. Or at least, a look below the mask right after one of Belos' periodic paliswood infusions, when whatever physical decay he's staving off is in remission.

I'm guessing the green, hole-ridden area is larger and gooier when he's at his worst. Also, is it just me, or do his ears look like they've been surgically altered to make them look pointier, like a witch's? Also, hearing him without the mask's muffling effect his voice is definitely a match for Phillip Wittebane's. He also confirms in dialogue that he's seen Earth before, so yeah, it's pretty much got to be him.

Him being Phillip suggests that witches and baseline humans might still be genetically compatible, because when we see him next to his nephew Hunter in this scene there does appear to be a family resemblance.

Or...well, maybe. The Blights have shown us a precedent of children getting their hair died in the family colors, and that could just as easily be a Boiling Isles tradition as it is a mere family one. Also, interestingly, Hunter's ears are big and pointy like a witch's, but at least one of them appears to be clipped like Belos' own. Wonder what the story with that is?

As far as family dynamics go, Belos acts the part of a stern, but loving, uncle to Hunter. His warmth has a distinctly artificial feeling to it, though, and while he retains a soft tone when telling Hunter that he'd like to keep his beloved nephew in the castle for the foreseeable future he also doesn't deny it when Hunter asks if he's losing faith and/or trust in him after his recent failed mission.

If anything, he seems to be more honest about his intentions when he's wearing the mask than when he has it off.

This scene also shows us that Hunter still has that bird-palisman following him around, and while he isn't sure what to do with it he's nonetheless refrained from handing it over to his uncle. Despite the brownie points that doing so would certainly earn him back. And, after Belos leaves the room, he gives the door behind his uncle a wary look and then takes off to defy his orders and sneak out of the castle on a self-appointed mission.

...

You know, it occurs to me. If Belos has a family here on the Boiling Isles, why don't we see more of them in positions of power? The chief enforcer before Hunter was Lilith, rather than another of his children or nephews (and if the Clawthornes were married into the royal family I think we'd have heard about it by now). His majordomo lady appears to be some kind of demon. Warden Wrath, ditto. The lack of a prominent royal family besides Hunter is definitely calling attention to itself. Or rather; if there isn't a prominent royal family, then what's Hunter's story?

Hopefully this will have a good explanation. For now, I guess Occam's razor suggests that Phillip is only his "nephew" in a kind of pseudo-adoptive sense, and their hair colors are just like the Blights' green thing.

...

Anyway, I've previously observed that Belos' scenes tend to be the best part of their respective episodes. "Eclipse Lake" is an extreme case in point. I wouldn't say that the rest of this ep is bad, exactly, so much as just...jumbled? Wheel-spinning? Off-paced? Some combination of those three things.

The bookmouse has replayed another of Wittebane's journal entries, telling of his quest to find a titanblood deposit like the ones Gwendolyn spoke of a few episodes back. It's a rare commodity, as most of the titan's blood was lost to the sea or has decayed into various residue substances that lose its dimension-warping properties. Only small amounts remain, sometimes welling up from the fossilized veins and seeping into lakes and ponds, whose surface reflections then show flickers of blue skies, green trees, and cold rains. Wittebane apparently went to an underground body of water called Eclipse Lake to recover a sample to try and return home with.

I have some issues with where the plot ends up going with this, but hold onto that for a second.

Since the previous episode, Luz has come down with "the common mold." A witch disease that causes hallucinogenic fungi to grow out of your skull and induce a state of psychosis. It's a minor illness that everybody gets at least once, but since Luz is a human they're not sure what unforeseen effects it might have.

Meanwhile, Eda was apparently lying at the end of "Knocking at Hooty's Door" when she said she could turn into owl-harpy form at will. I'm not sure why she would have lied about it, but apparently she did. Honestly, it feels more like the writers changed their minds than anything else. For now, she's trying to get the shapeshifting to obey her by imitating the poses and constipated growls she learned from some human media on the subject.

It's a decent gag, but like...why does Eda think that human cartoons are the place to look for pointers on this? If this was Gus or someone, the joke would work just as well while also playing to the character's established quirks and foibles. For Eda it feels out of place.

Luz wants to go get titanblood, but she's in no condition to do so, being barely cognizant of where she even is. Amity even has to take the portal key away from her, after Luz wonders if swallowing it would send her home. So, Amity, Eda, and King decide to go get the titanblood, leaving Gus and Willow to babysit Luz.

Meanwhile, Belos has sent his majordomo (and attempted murderer of Hunter) Kikimora to recover titanblood as well. He needs it to forge a replacement key for the portal, it seems. And, Hunter is sneaking out of the castle to go get it before Kikimora does, to keep his enemy from gaining more power and also hopefully win back his uncle's favor.

And here's where I start having issues with the episode's premise.

Belos' regime has an established history of nationalizing any limited resources that he needs (the palistrom trees, etc). Belos has apparently had his eyes set on Earth for a long time, well before getting his hands on the portal allowed him to speed up his plans. He (unless I'm wrong about him being Wittebane, which I very much doubt at this point that I am) knows that titanblood is useful for dimensional travel.

How does he not already have a stockpile of the stuff in his castle?

Why does he not have all known or suspected deposits already fenced off and guarded?

Why would he wait until now, on the literal same day that Luz coincidentally also finds out she needs it, to send out expeditions looking for it?

So, that's the premise. Then, there's what I think is supposed to be the emotional core of the episode, which is Amity thinking that she has to prove her usefulness to Luz in order to keep her affection. I like the idea of this arc. We've seen enough of Amity's family to know that she was raised to think of love as something conditional that needs to be earned, and to believe she needs to constantly justify her existence with accomplishments. Having her apply that mentality to her relationship with Luz and being taught to resist that toxic worldview is great stuff. But the way this episode does it just....errrrgh.

So, Amity and Luz have these little emoji-text-messenger-things that look kinda like Tamagotchis that they can send each other cutesie symbols with. Luz - when she's coherent enough - is constantly sending Amity dorkey little "I love you" messages, and later on - when the mouse spontaneously plays more of Wittebane's recordings while the other three are already out on the mission - updates and warnings about what they're likely to encounter. Amity keeps misinterpreting these emoji-leetspeak messages as demands for her to go take care of things while Luz is unable to, or reminders that if she isn't able to be a good girlfriend for Luz then she won't keep dating her at all.

While sneaking passed the Imperial Coven expedition to get to the titanblood before they do, their party runs into Hunter as he's attempting to do the same thing. They manage to capture him and bring him with them, and Hunter - once he gets a decent read on Amity - starts trying to use her fear of not measuring up to Luz's expectations to try and manipulate her.

I like that the show is able to use Hunter as a pretty effective antagonist even after starting his face turn back in the palisman episode. He might have had a transformative experience with Luz, but he hasn't made any sort of connection with Eda or Amity yet, and while his loyalty has been shaken he's still in the Emperor's camp.

But...the problem is that the entire reason Amity is out here instead of Luz in the first place is because Luz is high out of her fucking mind on mycotoxins.

Wouldn't the fact that Luz has never acted remotely like this before suggest to Amity - even with Amity's emotional baggage, and even with her misinterpreting the emojis - that Luz is just saying that stuff because she's having a psychotic episode?

If the story had given Luz any kind of injury or disease *other* than the one it chose to give her, this would work so much better.

To be fair, I can totally see how this might have happened. The writers started with the idea that Luz is sick with (insert weird Boiling Isles disease here) and Amity has to go do a mission instead of her. They conceptualized the inner turmoil Amity would go through while misinterpreting the messages, and then went back and came up with a funny disease for Luz to have that would give them gag material for the b-plot back home with her, Willow, and Gus. And just never realized how "altered state of consciousness with full-on hallucinations" would reframe the a-plot stuff they'd already come up with.

But still. Understanding though I might be, when I look at the story as it is, it just makes Amity look so much dumber than the show intends her to look.

It also doesn't help that the episode's pacing is all over the place, with way too many repetitions of the main characters and the Imperial Coven party cutting each other off, Hunter almost escaping, etc. My eyes kinda glazed over a little until the episode's climax, which managed to be quite a bit better than most of the preceding material.

After Hunter tricks Amity into releasing him and the party gets separated in a clash with the Imperials, Amity and King catch up to Hunter just as he finally reaches Eclipse Lake. It turns out that in the centuries since Wittebane's first visit, the lake has drained completely, and there's no titanblood left anywhere around it. All that remains is the highly unstable "foolsblood" residue left by the blood's decay, which has been causing mishaps for all parties throughout the race. With Hunter having disobeyed his uncle's direct orders on this desperate last-ditch attempt at redemption only for said attempt to be a bust, Hunter is now digging his own grave in the barren lakebed.

To show how far Hunter still has to go, Amity - who has since managed to correctly interpret Luz's messages with King's help - talks him down from suicide. Which Hunter repays her for by brutally attacking her the instant he notices that she has the portal key on her person. The show does one of its rare - but well executed - animesque battle scenes that look more like something you'd expect from an Avatar show than a Gravity Falls Alike, that culminates in the key being broken and leaking out the titanblood that it contained inside of it all along. Hunter absconds with the broken key that still has a few drops inside, while Amity is left with a stained mitten that's absorbed most of the fluid.

Either, both, or neither of them may have gotten what the needed for their respective patrons. This episode's ending doesn't make it clear.

A highlight of this climactic battle is when Hunter - very chillingly - tells Amity that while she has a good chance of beating him, doing so will lead to escalation. Escalation that will almost certainly result in the Owl House being attacked with full force, and Luz coming to harm. The cold, earnest delivery from a character who's previously either been portrayed as kind of a bumbling mook or as a not-so-bad-guy is effective, as is Amity being scared into relenting by it.

...but it also brings back to mind all the problems I've had with how much trouble the characters haven't been in this whole time. How they can still freely wander around towns. How Luz can still go to school under her real name ffs. And like...show? How seriously do you want me to take anything? I'm confused. I'm legitimately very confused as to what the stakes are and when they're allowed to exist.

Also, Eda figures out that to unlock her hybrid mode, she needs to mentally promise the owlbear that she'll get it extra potion and also hunt and devour some live rodents for it. And she has to mean it.

Which is cute and funny and all, but also like...I'm still discombobulated at the ending of the previous episode asserting that she can do this freely, only for this one to then walk it back and make her solve another puzzle for it.

Also, that bird palisman that's been tagging after Hunter can now communicate with him, which is a sign of him developing more of a sense of self-worth independent of how useful he is to his uncle or whatever because of Amity's pep talk. Good for him.

Luz gets better.


Basically, all that really happened in this episode is "the key broke, and Amity got some of the magic juice out of it." Nothing else really changed the status quo, and we didn't learn anything new beyond the first scene with Belos. The real meat of this episode was supposed to be Amity's development, and there would have been too little of that threaded through too much poorly paced action sequence even if I didn't feel that the show had undermined it from the outset.

There was enough good stuff in here to keep me from calling it a bad episode, and the fight and some of the setpieces involving the hazards of the titan's fossilized veins were kinda cool, but I also spent a lot of time tapping my toes waiting for it to get interesting again. As well as the shaky plot and the leaning on aspects of the show that never held up to scrutiny for me. Overall, I guess it averages out to "okay" by the series' standards.