Reading/Watching Log #40

So, I take it we all made it through Marvel's Endgame and Game of Thrones's long night safely? I'll have more to say on both in a later post...

This log took a little longer than usual to put together. It's been difficult to write lately, though this means more downtime to read, which can never be considered a bad thing. This month I continued my "finish what you started" reading list, as well as my "treat yo self" one, not to mention a Disney animated classic, a feline-inspired musical, and several 2018 films/2019 shows (my bid to play catch-up in this regard is failing miserably).

We got cats, school-girl detectives, secret assassins, star ships, space ports, superheroes, time travel, fairy tales, robots in disguise, and Disney Princesses.

Cats (2019)

This is actually the third time I've seen Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats: first when I was a kid and then in 2007 (and believe me, that gave me a shock when I found the tickets!) This time around I sat down and read T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which was very helpful in letting me keep up with the rapid-fire lyrics of the musical itself.

And it's still a lot of fun, especially for a story that's basically a bunch of cats getting together for a night-time party. This time around they leaned into a more steampunk aesthetic, with plenty of junkyard trappings on the stage and the performers looking more like street-kids than cats (a couple of them even had ragged tutus) but the singing was strong and I went with two co-workers who had never seen it before and really loved it.

Star Wars Darth Vader: Fortress Vader by Charles Soule

The latest in the not-Kieron Gillen series of Vader-centric comics is set right on the heels of The Revenge of the Sith, and is actually pretty good - especially in how it fleshes out some of the latest canon material from Rogue One and Star Wars Rebels. In this case, it explores the construction of Vader's citadel on Mustafar, and...okay, get this:

Vader asks Palpatine for a planet of his own, and deliberately selects Mustafar due to its proximity to the Dark Side. So Palpatine gives him a helmet that used to belong to a Sith Lord - not a warrior, but an artist. He died a long time ago, but whenever somebody puts on the helmet they get possessed, and through them the Sith can start constructing a citadel that taps into Dark Side energy: specifically creating a portal between life and death.

And of course, what Vader wants to use this portal for is to go in search of Padme's spirit, and there's an incredible sequence full of symbolism and call-backs and potent imagery that takes its inspiration from the prequels, sequels and original trilogy. It's worth it just for these pages.

Poems to Live Your Life By selected by Chris Riddell

Chris Riddell is a long-time collaborator with Neil Gaiman, so it's no surprise that there are couple of Gaiman poems in this anthology, which is divided into several weighty themes (love, youth, nature, war, musings, endings) from poets such as Emily Dickinson, William Shakespeare, Leonard Cohen, Lewis Carroll, John Keats, Christina Rossetti, Robert Frost - even one by Riddell himself.

It's a very personal collection, as each one is selected by Riddell who illustrates them throughout, and in many ways feels like a gift to himself. It's a beautiful anthology though, with gold embossing on the cover and page layout that really makes you slow down and absorb the chosen poems.

The Five Find-Outers by Enid Blyton

 Back in September last year I had the sudden urge to revisit Blyton's worlds of potted meat sandwiches, lashings of ginger ale and assorted school children roaming the British countryside without any adult supervision. I thought I had blazed through all of her Five Find-Outers series, only for a couple more to pop up on the library shelves that I had missed (The Mystery of the Missing Necklace and The Mystery of the Strange Bundle).

They are so formulaic (starting with the children either bemoaning a lack of mystery to solve in the "hols" or Fatty turning up in disguise to play a trick on the rest of the gang) and continuing with the kids stumbling into strange events, Mr Goon getting in their way, and Inspector Jenks turning up as the benevolent patriarch in the last pages to beam his approval at the amateur detectives.

In light of having just watched The Avengers: Endgame, which featured the dramatic transformation of a certain character, it's interesting to note that Fatty is a rare "plus-size" character portrayed in a wholly positive light (alas poor Dudley Dursley). Naturally his weight is commented on at least once a book (even if it's just to explain the nickname), but never in a mean-spirited way, and he remains one of Blyton's best characters. I well remember how delighted I was as a child to read about his ingenious disguises and répertoire of specialized talents, ranging from ventriloquism to lock-picking.

Deathless by Catherynne Valente

You don't just read a Catherynne Valente novel, you experience it, and Deathless was no exception. I made sure I read only one chapter per night, just to savour her prose and the grand thematic weight of the story she was telling, which draws upon Russian folklore to tell a grandiose tale of life, death, marriage, meaning, love and the inescapability of stories.

Marya Morevna is a young girl living through the tumultuous years of the Russian Revolution, watching from a window as each of her sisters leave home to marry, before finally opening the door on her own future husband: a dark and terrifying man that fairy tale readers will instantly recognize as Koschei the Deathless, a preeminent figure in Russia's folk history.

The book is divided into several parts, each pertaining to a different stage of Marya's life. She goes from a teenager to a wife to a warrior and finally a middle-aged woman, grappling with the challenges she faces both on a personal level and within the bizarre supernatural world around her.

Valente effortlessly mixes in historical details from the time (the Romanovs make an appearance, and the anti-religious elements of communism are woven into the overarching theme of stories and their importance) as well as familiar fairy tale motifs: the law of three, the tests of worthiness, the talking animals, and so on.

One of the major themes is the fascinating premise that all the characters of this story will dance to the tune of a pre-established tale, one that's been told many times before, and will many times again. There's comfort in the patterns of familiar fairy tales, and yet a certain amount of existential fear when you find yourself trapped inside them.

So it plays out like a fairy tale, with familiar elements taken from various sources, such as Koschei hiding his death away in an egg, Baba Yaga's mortar and pestle, Marya undergoing the usual tests to prove her worthiness (which involves three sisters, three dogs, three tasks and three lives), but the story also leans into this idea of cyclical storytelling: during her adventures, Marya finds that she's not the first of Koschei's brides. Not even the first Marya, in fact.

It also brushes against the fourth wall when Baba Yaga (cos if ANYONE is gonna break the fourth wall, it's Baba Yaga) tells Marya that if a story is to be told correctly, then it must be experienced as well as being told.

As they say: this is my jam.

And above, around and permeating through it all is the everlasting war between Koschei, the Tsar of Life, and his brother Viy, the Tsar of Death. This duality is prevalent in all aspects of the story and characterization, starting with the divide between the past and the future, Leningrad and Koschei's country, and Marya's two husbands. Eventually a young man called Ivan turns up (a prominent name in Russian folklore, whether he be heroic prince or common fool) and again Marya is trapped between her personal desire and the immutability of fate - which one is really guiding her?

And it's all in Valente's beautiful prose, comparable only to Francesca Lia Block and Patricia McKillip in regards to her ability to drench words in imagery and symbolism and similes without tipping into purple prose.

Oh man. I'm gonna give it a couple of years, but I can't wait to read this again.

Death in the Spotlight by Robin Stevens

I'm continuing with my "finish what you started" project by tracking down the latest in Robin Stevens's wonderful Murder Most Unladylike series, which sees two schoolgirls solving mysteries in the 1920s. Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are two delightful characters, a Holmes and Watson duo in which the arrogant and capricious Daisy exploits her gentility and wealth to gather clues, while Hazel Wong slowly-but-surely overcomes her inherent shyness and finds self-worth in an oft-xenophobic environment.

As the title suggests, this instalment takes place in a theatre during rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet. The girls (who are staying with Daisy's uncle) are made part of the performance in a bid to keep them out of trouble, though they soon pick up on the fraught atmosphere between the actors, with plenty of ill-will directed towards the lead actress. It's only a matter of time before a body turns up...

The mystery and its solution is rather ludicrous this time around, but the real joy is our two protagonists and Stevens's thoughtful commentary on what life would have been like for an Asian girl in 1920s London (sometimes she faces blatant racism, other times she can use prejudice to her advantage, as when people assume she can't speak English). They're quick, fun and heartfelt reads, which would make for a great period television series. Kelly Marie Tran for Hazel!

The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas

This prequel to the Throne of Glass series is actually a series of small novellas that were originally released on-line before getting bound together and published properly. They deal with the early years of Celaena Sardothien (still have no idea how to pronounce that) and her life among the Assassin's Guild: how and why she rejected her training, her friendship with various people that come into play in later books, and her tragic love affair with fellow assassin Sam, whose death informs a big part of her mentality in the actual series.

I can see why the series is so popular with YA readers, as it's an unabashed female wish-fulfilment fantasy. And why the hell not? A part of me can't help but role my eyes at the fact that this girl is the world's greatest assassin while still in her teens and rocking a head of white-blonde hair, and yet Maas is so unapologetic in the depiction of a totally confident-to-the-point-of-arrogant, always-thinking-three-steps-ahead, Xena-esque "I have many skills" ninja-assassin-fairy-princess. I mean, you gotta respect the audacity to give a female character a backstory and skill-set that readers wouldn't blink twice at if affixed to a dude.

Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas

The penultimate book in the series goes on a surprising tangent: leaving Celaena's point-of-view narrative and instead focusing on Chaol Westfall, her ally and former lover, as he seeks out military assistance on a different continent in order to help his friends back home. He arrives in a city that certainly has an Eastern flavour (I was reminded of Dorne in Game of Thrones) and at once tries to win over the ruling khagan and his grown children.

There are obstacles in the way: the fact that the events of the previous book left him in a wheelchair, that the royal family is grieving the loss of their youngest daughter/sibling in mysterious circumstances, and that no one really believes that the rumours of demon activity in Chaol's homeland, or that it poses an immediate threat to them (again, think the disbelieving attitudes in King's Landing regarding the Army of the Dead).

With Chaol is Nesryn, a young general who gets the much more interesting story when she strikes up a friendship with one of the princes and starts to uncover some pertinent information regarding the demon Valg in the surrounding countryside, assisted throughout by the ruk (giant eagle) riders.

Despite the book's length, there is a lot of filler material involving Maas's penchant for ludicrous melodramatic romances (every single character is going to be paired up by the end of this series, and each one is written as though it's the most Epic Romance of All Time) but it's a nice setup for the final forthcoming battle in Kingdom of Ash.

A while back there were reports that this series was being adapted for the screen, though there's been no news on that front for a while. What happened? Because with a little tweaking, this could be a great watch.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

I watched the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph with a friend, and was then utterly astonished when he informed me that he had never seen a single Disney Princess film. Naturally, I've made it my business to get him up to speed.

First up is not only Disney's first princess movie, but the first hand-drawn animated film, released in 1937 and widely derided as "Disney's folly" until it hit cinemas and won hearts. There's an old anecdote that describes people openly sobbing at the dwarfs gathering around the glass case of Snow White, at which point Disney knew he'd hit a home run.

Today, it's clear that several elements have dated badly (Snow White's warbling voice, several saccharine songs, the cutesy-poo antics of the animals) and yet there's still magic here. The dwarfs singing their "heigh-ho" song as they march home from work, their shadows thrown up on the cliffside behind them. Snow White's terrifying flight through the forest, in which her terror transforms trees into grasping monsters and logs into snapping crocodiles. Finally, the laying of her body in the glass casket and the vigil of the dwarfs, in which even Grumpy is reduced to tears.

And of course, the Evil Queen, who manages to be one of the most iconic Disney villains (or perhaps filmic villains) in surprisingly limited screentime. The scene in which she casts a spell to disguise herself as the old peddler woman is gloriously rendered, and her hobbling gait as she gets into her ferry boat and casts herself off into the mists truly chilling. In fact, I was surprised at just how dark this movie got. Those circling vultures. The creepy masked face in the magic mirror. That haunting image of the skeleton, reaching hopelessly for the water pitcher just out of reach. And the Queen's terrible glee in realizing the dwarfs will bury Snow White alive after she falls into the sleeping death.

Plus it was great watching it with a newbie, who (given that his nickname is Sleepy) took great satisfaction in pointing out that it was Sleepy the dwarf (and his casual observation that the animals are probably loosing their minds because Snow White is in trouble) who saves the day.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

I guess I'll never understand how you can end up with a movie that's a feast for the eyes and put at its centre two utterly uninspiring characters, with zero charisma and even less chemistry. I actually like Cara Delevingne - she seems cool enough in interviews and has a glorious resting bitch-face, but she and Dane DeHaan are easily the weakest thing about this film, not least because their "romance" is ghastly. I mean, there's awkward, and then there's this, which is downright uncomfortable to watch.

He's a womanizing sleaze who keeps a record of all the women he's slept with, and she's rightfully disgusted by him until the inevitable moment near the end of the film in which she... just isn't.

And since they work together it's even more awful, especially when he (and I'm not making this up) takes a few moments out of their work time to propose marriage. Hey, remember how blasted Uhura was for having an argument with Spock during a mission in Star Trek: Into Darkness? Yet here this charmless, creepy tactic is treated as totally normal.

And it's a damn shame, because the rest of the movie is a pretty fun space-romp (a conspiracy in a space-station that's home to thousands of alien species - awesome!) and worth seeing for the visuals alone. There's a gorgeous opening montage that tracks the various meetings of sentient life in space to the sound of David Bowie's Space Oddity. Later there's an incredible set-piece in which Valerian and Laureline undergo a mission in an extra-dimensional marketplace, in which he navigates bustling streets while she's walking across a near-barren plain.

Even Rhianna's otherwise gratuitous stripper dance is full of inventive transformations and tricks (though how they use this character later is just appalling).

There are weird tangents, strange subplots, an obvious villain, a totally out-there resolution, clunky dialogue and the aforementioned pair of black holes that make up the two leads. But I concede: it is worth at least one watch. Those visuals were incredible.

Bumblebee (2018)

I can think of few things I care about less than Transformers, but this got some surprisingly good buzz and while over at a friend's house we ended up watching it. It's not a great movie (those that say it is can only be saying so in comparison to Michael Bay's sludge) and I can't remember any character's name, but there are some solid jokes and a nice arc.

After a war on their home planet, the Transformers separate and blast off into space, hoping to reunite at their planned rendezvous - which turns out to be Planet Earth. Badly wounded, Bumblebee disguises himself as a yellow Volkswagen Beetle which eventually ends up in the garage of a teenage girl still grieving for the death of her father.

Astoundingly, the film foregoes the expected explosions and car chases and focuses on building a genuine bond between Hailee Steinfeld and the robot-alien-shapeshifter, one which has actual weight and poignancy. Yeah, I'm as shocked as you are. If anything it reminded me of E.T., especially with its eighties setting - though I suspect the ongoing popularity of Stranger Things is just as much to blame for this particular time period.

On a slightly broader note, this film teased a mixed-race pairing between a white girl and a black guy, which is something that's turned up frequently in the stuff I've been watching lately: The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (Clara/Phillip), Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (Gwen/Miles) and the Star Wars sequel trilogy (Rey/Finn).

Yet in all these cases, they pull the brakes on any demonstrative romantic gesture (namely, a kiss) despite obvious interest from the boy. It's a bit like the first canonical appearance of a gay person in a Marvel movie - who is a nameless character that off-handedly mentions going on a date with another man. Is it a teensy, tiny baby-step forward? Sure. Is it still rather laughably inadequate? Also yes.

Just let them kiss! The fact that they're not is getting kinda awkward.

Wreck-It Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)

Okay, so I watched Wreck-It Ralph so I could watch its sequel, and I watched its sequel so I could see the widely promoted inclusion of the (to date) fourteen official Disney Princesses. That was it. My entire motivation.

As it happened, the original Wreck-It Ralph turned out to be a surprisingly delightful film, with a water-tight plot, some great characters, and a genuinely heartfelt message. Ralph Breaks the Internet is a lot messier in terms of its storyline, with plenty of jumping from one location to another and no time given to explore some of its best ideas (Ralph stumbling into the casual cruelty of a comments section, for example) but there's a reasonably nice point to be made about how friends don't have to be together every second, and the love you have for someone doesn't disappear just because you want to seek out new interests.

But I came for the Disney Princesses, and they did not disappoint. Once again, Disney pokes fun at itself and its self-created princess tropes, with the assorted girls advising Vanellope to self-reflect by looking into some important water and singing a song. And the detail on their designs is just extraordinary: from Mulan's jacket bearing an image of Mushu to Elsa casually conjuring up an ice-cream for herself.

And finally, they save the day when Ralph plummets from a high building, in a sequence that was as spine-tingling as it was contrived. Since there are only two princesses with active powers (Moana and Elsa), and only two with practical skills (Merida and Mulan) you could tell there was some scrambling around in order to get each one involved. Pocahontas now has wind-blowing powers that she certainly didn't in her movie, and Belle only gets to hit Snow White's poison apple with a book - which is still more than Anna or Tiana manage... and yet when each princess made their contribution to the tune of their distinctive musical scores - yup, I teared up.

The reason this team-up is so noteworthy is that it finally breaks the rule imposed by Roy Disney upon the franchise: that the princesses could never interact with one another. For whatever reason  he was staunchly against the princesses breaking free of their separate movie universes and intermingling with one another. Seriously, look at any piece of merchandise from the Disney Princess collection and you'll notice that on anything that feature a depiction of more than one character, they never make eye-contact with each other.

But it seems clear that Disney have gotten around that particular obstacle, and if this leads to another princess crossover somewhere further down the line... well, I am the studio's bitch and they already have my money. Damn them.

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (2018)

So, um... everyone was raving about this movie, and I watched it, and it... was good. Better than good - it was very creative and heartfelt and interesting. The animation in particular is fantastic, with just the right amount of realism fused with comic-book quirks (like the infamous "spider sense" depicted as quick wavy lines above the relevant characters' heads whenever something bad is about to go down).

But I think what it comes down to is that I don't care about Spiderman all that much, and I'm pretty superheroed-out at the moment. This dealt with multi-verses and various spider-people and alternate-universe versions of famous characters, and I'm afraid I didn't have the background knowledge to fully appreciate it all (that a recurring line is: "I'm pretty sure you know the rest" is a pretty big indication that the film is for a niche audience).

But in saying that, there was a certain exhilaration in seeing light shed on a fully-formed world that I was entirely unfamiliar with. Apparently there really is a Spider-Pig out there? And a Japanese girl with a spider-themed robot? That they're all animated in a distinct genre style (whether it's Looney Tunes cartoons or traditional anime) is another unique quirk.

And some of the spider-action is just incredible: no doubt it was Miles's first leap from the top of a New York skyscraper at night that won this the Oscar.

Mortal Engines (2018)

I love Philip Reeves's Mortal Engines quartet: it's so beautifully imagined and written, but unfortunately his well-documented reluctance to have it adapted onto the big screen was justified. 

This makes a complete hash of his original novel, starting with Hollywood's cowardice in not depicting the full extent of the heroine's facial deformities (in the book she's described as having half her face torn off, in the film she has a couple of minor scars) and ending with a trite happily ever after in which the victims of a horrific bomb attack (mostly minorities) are standing by to welcome into their city the (mostly white, but featuring a single black guy since someone clearly noticed the terrible optics of this scene) perpetrators of said attack. Yeah right.

Here's a helpful hint: don't introduce your main characters by having them spout exposition. And don't simplify a hugely complex political landscape into simple goodies versus baddies. And though I know it's a temptation that few male writers can resist, don't kill off your coolest female character who actually lives through all four of the original books and was so popular with fans that the author wrote a short-story collection centred on her.

There were some attempts here and there at social commentary (when one of the smaller towns is devoured by London, a loudspeaker informs the refugees that they may be temporarily separated from their children), but for the most part it misses why the book is so clever and subversive without losing its undercurrent of hope and humanity.

On a more neutral note, it was really weird to see Robert Sheehan playing the wide-eyed naïf so quickly on the heels of his role as the cynical, mad-cap, drug-addled Klaus in The Umbrella Academy (where he's much better), and along with toning down Hester's facial scars they also prettified her personality. Book!Hester is practically feral - this one just a little surly before she melts into the hero's arms.

Urgh, I won't go on. I'll let Melissa McCarthy share my views:

A Discovery of Witches: Season 1 (2018)

So this is pretty much the definition of "so bad it's good", though with a definite leaning towards "bad." There are thousands of supernaturally-related stories out there, and yet most of them are geared towards teenagers for good reason. Seeing big-eyed teens have discussions about vampires and witches is fine, but once you put those words in the mouths of thirty and forty-something year old adults, you realize just how silly the whole thing is.

After all this nonsense about whether or not Arya is a Mary Sue, it pains me to use the term in relation to another female character, but the description really does fit the bill when it comes to Diana Bishop. She's the youngest person ever to recieve an Oxford University tenure, her witchy powers allow her to call upon all four elements (most people can only manage one) and every male in the vicinity falls in love with her.

All that besides, it's pretty damn boring. There are vampires, witches and demons, and for the most part they just sit around in a council room, having debates. Naturally they're unhappy about the fact that Diana and Matthew (a vampire from a prominent family) are in a relationship together, and everyone is obsessed with a book that only Diana can retrieve from the Bodleian library. Why do they want it so badly? No one really makes that clear.

The show is also horrendous with its POC, who are either minions or rivals to white people. Heck, we get two would-be love interests to Matthew, both women of colour, who are roundly rejected in favour of the Bella Swan lookalike (seriously, the resemblance is uncanny). There are some lovely shots of European cities, but I definitely don't recommend this one.

The Umbrella Academy: Season 1 (2019)

Even before checking, it was pretty clear that The Umbrella Academy is based on the X-Men, with plenty of "what if?" scenarios thrown in. What if Professor X wasn't a kindly patriarch, but an emotional abuser who trains his adopted brood into a private vigilante paramilitary? What if the assorted children of this monster grew up to be adults who are as messed up as their upbringing would naturally necessitate? What if their assortment of powers are thinly-veiled analogies for drug-use, with all of the children addicted to what they're capable of doing to one extent or another? It's pretty dark stuff.

The X-Men parallels continue, with a plot taken straight from Days of Future Past, in which a time-traveller returns to the present day in order to prevent the Bad Future that he knows is on the horizon, having survived in it for decades. Said time traveller is Number Five, who for a number of timey-wimey reasons, ends up back at the Academy in the body of his pre-teen self as the others gather for their father's funeral. According to him, they have less than a week to get themselves together and avert the apocalypse that will kill them all.

Despite the standard superhero-but-grittier tropes that make up this story, it's an entertaining watch. The seven main characters are well-drawn, not only in their incredibly fucked-up psyches, but their relationships with one another, which perfectly demonstrate the strained and uncomfortable bonds of people who shared a traumatic childhood together. No one else in the world could possibly understand them, and as painful as it is to be with each other, there's no escaping their shared history.

Also, Aidan Gallagher's performance as Five is incredible. You will honestly believe that this a forty-something year old man. Throw in some time-travel shenanigans thanks to a couple of time-assassins whose job it is to make history unfold exactly as it should, and we get a very high-concept (and high budget) deconstruction of the superhero genre.

And there's still plenty of material to be covered in the next season: not only does it end on a cliff-hanger, but there tons of questions left unresolved: like Reginald's strange history, the cause of Ben's death, and the reason as to why all these super-powered children ended up being born on the same day of the same year.

Star Trek Discovery: Season 2 (2019)

Well, I loved it. The fact that I'm not really familiar with Star Trek means I could just sit back and watch the show without worrying about the way Klingons looked and continuity problems and its place in the wider Star Trek canon. Having realized its terrible mistake in promising the franchise's first same-sex relationship before killing one-half of said relationship halfway through the season, the writers quickly course-correct themselves and bring him back before focusing on what really matters.

My biggest complaint last year was that despite the number of interesting and likeable characters on board the Discovery, they weren't given the chance to form equally likeable and interesting bonds with each other. And fans don't just invest in individuals, they invest in the way characters interact with each other. The lack of fascinating dynamics was missing in the first season, dropped in favour of character-based twists and shocks, but this time around some lovely character work is done.

Dynamics like Michael/Tilly, Michael/Georgiou, Michael/Saru, Tilly/Stamets, Captain Pike/the bridge crew - even relationships that got little screen-time such as Saru/Saranna and Tilly/Po have real weight and charm, and make you care about what's happening and who it's happening to in a way that the first season didn't.

But at the heart of it all is the brother/sister relationship between Michael and Spock, which starts as a hunt to find Spock after he escapes from a mental facility, and ends with the two of them refinding their lost trust in one another to save the galaxy, before permanently going their separate ways. It's beautifully done (well, minus the contrived reasoning the show provides for explaining why Spock never mentioned his foster sister in any of the original material) and not only provides hints as to Spock's future (Michael's call-out to the eventual Spock/Kirk relationship was lovely, even to this otherwise indifferent viewer) but catapults Discovery into a brand new era that's rich with storytelling possibilities.

***

For the record, I also watched season two of She-Ra, though was disappointed it was comprised of only seven episodes. It's probably due to Netflix wanting to churn them out as quickly as possible, but the result is that this only feels like half a season. Just when things start to crank into gear, it's over. So I'll just wait until season three (or rather, the second half of the second season) is out and review it in one.