The Magical Adventures of Quasimodo Episodes 17 & 18

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Back to 2 episodes per post.

Episode 17: The Abomination’s Revenge

Quasimodo & Frollo, The Magical Adventures of Quasimodo Episode 17, The Abomination's Revenge
Quasimodo & Frollo, Episode 17: The Abomination’s Revenge

This episode starts off with a bang, a literal bang as explosions are going off. François proves he immortal as he walks into an explosion and is fine, not a scratch or even a burn.

Turns out the reason behind the explosions is Frollo but not in way one might think. Turns out it’s because in his youth Frollo’s greed made him hire an assistant in his work under Quasimodo’s awesome parents. The assistant was a young man named Robert who because of Frollo gets turned into a Lizard-person and vowed revenge under the alias “The Abomination.” And now he stalks Frollo, let that one sink in.

Frollo begs the Gang of Pals for help by locking him in the Bastille. The Abomination finds them and Quasimodo tries to talk him down but the opposite happens and Quasimodo wants to go after Frollo. However François the seemingly immortal got pushed into a wall and needs help so Quasimodo lets Frollo get away and Robert is now their friend and is going to help in the search for Quasimodo’s awesome noble parents.

This episode has a lot of good ideas but it’s an execution problem. One issue and this MIGHT not be the show’s fault was the audio was lagging. But the animation was notably lower quality in this episode and the dialogue was awkward.

So while it was a little silly watching Frollo begging to be locked up it wasn’t as enjoyable as it could have been. And I was genuinely into the plot summary but alas couldn’t enjoy it can much as I wanted. Plus François, he is very grating and not in a fun way this time. At least Djali was in this episode that is always a net positive.

There is no cave or spooky tunnels in this episode….weird.

Episode 18: The Barbarians

Quasimodo & François The Magical Adventures of Quasimodo Episode 18 The Mercenary/Barbarians
Quasimodo & François in their uniforms, Episode 18: The Mercenary/Barbarians

Or rather The Mercenary which is what the title card says and makes more sense. And before we start Frollo’s subterranean lair is featured so we have our “cave quota” I was worried we weren’t going have one.

So the plot roughly goes that a warlord named Tisphaine is attacking villages. The King sends Dennis as his messenger. Why? Good Question but Dennis get captured. Meanwhile Quasimodo volunteers for the army and does his pal François. Quasimodo also introduces him by his birth name. He does seem cool with everyone calling him Quasimodo though so it’s all good which is good for the show since Quasimodo is on the title. Also the army uniforms look more like scout uniforms. Quasimodo gets his gymnastic badge and François is forever working on that poetry one.

Meanwhile in Frollo’s spacious subterranean lair he has a fun new war weapon but he needs Dragon (the stone gargoyle of Notre Dame) to fly it. His plan to join up with his old friend Tisphaine in hopes of “owning the world.”

Meanwhile Esmeralda sees Dragon flies off and hears about Dennis’ capture and is sent off to the rescue.

In the end Quasi gets Tisphaine to smash the Frollo’s weapon and get catapulted away with the old rope tied to the top of a bent tree trick…..sure… in this magical world of magical adventures that is a thing they can do. Frollo is left in charged and the mercenaries want to be paid and thus Frollo like any good CEO runs off refusing to pay the workers. And finally Gang of Pals all get their merit badges for saving France…again.

This one was weird one. Like France is in danger and yet it feels very low stakes. The characters get capture and breakout only to get capture and break out again. The warlord is cast off via a tree-catapult and that is ends of the conflict. Is he dead? Or is the embarrassment of his dealing Quasimodo make him not a warlord any more? There is also same very weird dialogue that Frollo has with Azarof that makes it seem like Azarof betrayed Frollo or something. Maybe a scene was cut from the episode but Frollo is fine with whatever Azarof did was but I’m confused.

On some positive notes; Tisphaine’s voice actor is selling it; Frollo seems to have a lot of friends, good for him; and Esmeralda’s disguise was a pretty good outfit. Otherwise this episode was underwhelming.

Once Upon a Time Season 7 Episode 17

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Chosen

Rebecca Mader as Zelena Once Upon a Time Season 7 episode 17 Chosen picture image

Rebecca Mader as Zelena

This episode explores more of Hansel’s backstory and what wrong Zelena did to him and why he is crazy. It also explains how he woke up, it was Facilier. Facilier is like the Palpatine of this season, he’s behind it all.   

Considering Hansel’s vendetta, two counts of murder, two attempted murders and two counts kidnappings his back story is actually underwhelming.

The backstory is that the witch that kidnapped Hansel and Gretel, who was also the blind baker woman, was in OZ and Zelena didn’t want her there so Zelena goes to her candy home and they get into a witch fight. Zelena has a chance to free the children but doesn’t and goes her magic goes out from the fight. She is then nursed back by a blind man who is also the children’s father.

Zelena withholds the information from the dad but does go to try and save the children when her magic is back but they have already escaped and told their father what happen. They are all pissed at Zelena who is remorseful but she does end up purposefully burning Hansel. Hansel was being antagonistic  but he was also a child who had gone through trauma so while he didn’t deserved to get burned it does seem anti-climatic when compared to getting burned by an oven as someone trying to cook and eat him opposed to a hurt women who made a big mistake.

The Hyperion stuff is Hansel going after Zelena and kidnapping her fiancé, Zelena trying to deal with both her personas, saving Henry and Dr.Facilier’s plan. Hansel also gets the axe from Facilier since Hansel wasn’t operating toward Facilier’s goal of getting the Dark One’s dagger which seems to be Gothel’s plan. It’s also revealed that Naveen a.k.a Drew is awake. I don’t get this curse since it’s easy to wake people. Would Henry die if he was woken but the curse is still in affect?

So Hansel a.k.a the Candy killer was a Mid-Boss who did help to wrap Ivy’s storyline and Zelena though Zelena’s story also got wrapped in season 6 and according to press stuff she’ll be back towards the finale. If I didn’t know that from Reddit it would have been a nice ending for Zelena as she got back with her fiancé.  

With Hansel there have been five villains this season. Victoria/Rapunzel in the beginning, then Ivy/Drizellla,  then Gothel, then Nick/Jack/Hansel and Facilier. Is that it? Did I miss one? Also Hansel was nearly a good kidnapper except the parts where he was sloppy using his nickname with Jacinda in the text from Henry’s phone AND holding Henry at his own apartment. In the living room no less.   At least that plot-line was short.

While this episode was ok at best, I did like Zelena’s interactions with Rumple and Margot (with a T) and the fire motif.  

Overall the episode was B-.   

And I still want to know who was Dr.Sage???  Can I just BELIVE she was Esmeralda? I mean Sage is green and Esmeralda means Emerald which is green so it works in theory? She’s Esmeralda till otherwise proven like the other two ladies I suspected as being Esmeralda. 

Once Upon a Time Season 4 Episodes 17 & 18 Review

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Episode 17: Best Laid Plans

Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White & Josh Dallas as David Once Upon a Time Season 04 Episode17 Best Laid Plans picture image

Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White & Josh Dallas as David

“Best Laid Plans,” like Maleficent laid an egg, real punny. Let me get this straight, Rumple’s plan is to get the author to make Emma’s heart dark so that villains can get their happy endings but her do-gooder parents swapped her darkness with Maleficent’s baby who they just assumed was a dragon for no real reason and they did this even though they were told by by the apprentice that everyone starts out as a tabula rasa (blank slate) so there is technically no darkness getting transferred but only the potential of darkness from Emma to Maleficent’s baby who is Lily, Emma’s childhood friend, and the only thing this spell did was sending Lily, Ursula and Cruella to the land sans magic but turns out that everyone was being manipulated by the author who had gone rouge and was creating drama, Did I get all that? But what I really want to know is how Ursula and Cruella didn’t age in thirty years? Bit of a plot hole there. Maybe New York is good for the skin.

This episode really does make Snow and David look really bad. They know what they did was wrong but they still throw around the word heros and villains so casually, I mean Maleficent is far and away more sympathetic. Emma being all whiny about her parents lying to her, this lair revealed story is as old a time and super boring.

Not sure how to feel about this episode, since you could just write David and Snow off because they were being manipulated but some sketchy dude. Plus Maleficent was great in this episode. The twist of the who the author was and him taking off running was good, really he seems like a douche. I just wish everyone wasn’t being so whiny, Maleficent is the only one right now who has a good excuse. Also that line about Walt being a great storyteller, way to stroke your ego Disney.

This episode does remind me of 30 Rock quote “Sometimes you gotta do the right thing even when the wrong thing is a whole lot easier… Die, werewolf-zombie”

Episode 18: Heart of Gold

Rebecca Madder as Zelena and Sean Maguire as Robin Hood Once Upon a Time Season 04 Episode 18 Heart of Gold picture image

Rebecca Madder as Zelena and Sean Maguire as Robin Hood

Oh yay,. Zelena’s back! Goody… In a way this feels like some ploy but Zelena is good for shaking things up and I do like her brand of evil so I’m not so against on this turn of events. What I am against is a Robin Hood focused episode, he is boring. He’s better as support character.

This episode is all flashback since it focus is 9 weeks in the past and how Robin went from former thief to bartender to nobel thief and all he had to do was steal something for Rumple that now needs in New York to mend his heart which is steeped in darkness. So the Dark One has some weird time limit now?

Another question I have is Why would Robin go to freaking New York City? Have these people never heard of Portland Maine? Boston exists and so do a LOT of other places between Maine and New York City. Is it because Neal’s place is available? Did Neal keep up the rent while he was in Neverland or in the Enchanted Forest or dead? You know a year has passed or did he own the place? There is also Emma’s apartment. Did she get out her lease? Or did she own? I mean Manhattan Real Estate .

The ending with Zelena posing as Marian made up for the otherwise boring episode and actually Zelena killing Marian and taking her form corrected the time paradox. Marian was meant to die and she did. Though I bet if you rewatch beginning of season 4 with the Frozen characters, she was playing the role of Marian really well and no could have see the twist till this episode. It’s like the planned it after Marian came back from the dead.

On a Different note, Christie Laing (Marian) was on season 1 of UnReal, which I just marathoned. That show is bloody addictive and full of horrible people. Also she was in Tucker and Dale Vs Evil which is the most romantic movie ever. It’s a parody of slasher movies, which I typically hate but that movie is great. I highly recommend it.