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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
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.