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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.

The Guardian

Rose Reynolds as Alice Once Upon a Time Season 7 episode 18 The Guardian picture image

Rose Reynolds as Alice

Aside from the Henry/Jacinda ongoing tepid romance subplot, this episode was pretty great. Then again it was a Rumple and Tilly heavy episode, so of course it was just better.

In the past section Rumple tests Alice to see if she is indeed the guardian. She does pass the test but Rumple stops her taking his darkness as it would make her an immortal, I guess, they didn’t actually explain things that well. Anyway Rumple didn’t want to trap her in an immortal life and that is the reason why he stopped her from removing the darkness from him. Rumple was being noble and sacrificing. Also Nook and Rumple become friends after Nook learned what Rumple did for Alice. It was touching.

The Hyperion Height plot is the Dagger is missing! Oh No! Rumple steals Regina’s magic to find it with a locator spell. Meanwhile Tilly and Margot go on a date but Tilly is hearing voices in her head. The voices are actually from the Dagger which she was unknowlingly guarding for Rumple.

Also Samedi/Facilier is being shady, Regina isn’t happy Rumple stole her magic, Rogers investigates Nick’s weird death as well as teams up with Drew, and Henry tells Jacinda that he is the Lucy’s father.    

The only criticism is that what is the guardian’s role? It seems that they purify the dark one powers but they also become an immortal? Does this tie into the Holy Grail aspect of how the dagger was forged? Then again story aspects involving  the Dark One mythos don’t make a lot of sense, if you ACTUALLY give it thought. So just run with what the season tells and recall what the season want you to remember, THAT’s THE SECRET TO ONCE!

Also the episode had some sort of references. It had a nod to Coco with the place where Rumple talked to Belle. Also who got a Star Wars Vibe when Henry told Jacinda about being Lucy’s father? Because I did!

Anyway it was a great episode, one of the best of the season.  This episode gets an A-

Also Alice’s cloak was amazing.

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.