Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney, and today, we continue our look at Tangled: The Series. We are closing in on the last three episodes of the season here starting with The Quest for Varian. I do apologize for this event taking longer than planned but with that out of the way, let's get started with this episode.
The Plot
We open on another of Rapunzel's dreams, which starts out happily as she is decorating the castle with her father but it soon turns into a nightmare about the black rocks, her hair and Varian. The last part is the biggest part of this episode and we then see Rapunzel dangling in mid air.
After waking up like this, Rapunzel informs her friends that she thinks that these dreams are trying to tell her something and that they need to act upon what these dreams are telling her. So, Rapunzel goes to speak to her father about the rocks and Frederic explains or rather lies to his daughter about the rocks in Old Corona telling the princess that the rocks in Old Corona had been removed. And he tells his daughter that she should focus on her upcoming birthday party. This is something that we will discuss more in the season finale but this show presents us with three interesting and shall we tenneous father/child relationships including Rapunzel and Frederic, Varian and Quirin. And finally to a lesser extent, Cassandra and her father. We will delve more into this with the next review but considering the ways that Rapunzel's father tests her trust, it's not hard to see why she has an easy time believing him.
Rapunzel takes a walk to her statue with Eugene and Cass as she sees a lantern like one that she saw in her dream and coincidentally, it is the same design as the ones that Frederic & Ariana used in the hopes of finding Rapunzel in the events of the movie.
Now obviously, the design is a bit more simplistic compared to that of the lantern in the movie but I attribute that more to the differing animation designs between the movie and the television series. I am curious, if these lanterns are easy to come by in Corona considering their iconography within the Tangled franchise. And you also consider that the sun in Tangled is very symbolic for the kingdom of Corona.
When you consider the Sun in Corona, it is very representative of how so many nations look to a symbol as something as pride. Sure, not everyone may have that same emotional attachment and that is fine as people are allowed to look at these symbols, however, they please. And this brings up the idea that it wouldn't be too surprising if people in Corona sell merchandise with their kingdom's symbol on it as we see that all the time. Just a random thought I had, when seeing the lantern in this episode.
Attached to the lantern is a note and key from Varian saying that he may have discovered the secret of the Black Rocks and the note also tells Rapunzel to find a bronze graphtyc in his lab. And that she also needs to be on alert of people that are out to get her. Rapunzel and friends head to Old Corona and learn that Frederic hadn't exactly been truthful about the Black Rocks. And that Old Corona seems to have become a ghost town as they make their way to Varian's lab and here, Rapunzel discovers what happened to Quirin and Rapunzel has a very understandable heartbreaking moment.
But they don't have much time to dwell on this as someone has come to attack and get the graphtyc from Rapunzel and the crew. They do find the graphtyc inside one of Varian's books and after this is when the attack happens and they are able to fight off this mysterious figure but they soon learn, the reason that this man was able to keep up with them so well is that there was a whole group of these men.
Rapunzel realizes that they need to go somewhere, where these men cannot find her and that is when she decides that they need to head to the tower. So, she doesn't explain this to Cass and Eugene but they get there. And by night as they have settled into the tower, Rapunzel is still trying to figure out the mystery of the graphtyc but Rapunzel remembers that Varian's note came with a key and uses it to open the graphtyc and discovers a scroll inside the graphtyc. It's around this time that Eugene notices the men from Old Corona have followed them to the tower and Rapunzel decides to let down her hair as if her hair touches the rock, they grow in numbers and causes a giant shock wave blasting the men off the tower. This forces the crew to run back up to the tower and jump off as the rocks started following her up the tower. And after they jump from the top of the tower, we get one of the most shocking moments of the show.
The tower is collapsed and destroyed by the Black Rocks. I've talked about the moral quandary of Rapunzel's Tower a couple of times before on this blog and for both Rapunzel and the audience is a very traumatic moment considering once again, we are dealing with another iconic piece of iconography from Tangled and to destroy it shows that Tangled: The Series is willing to take risks that the audience may not have expected. Another big thing that stands out with this moment is Rapunzel's reaction.
We see Rapunzel cry for the loss of her childhood home. She actually refers to the Tower as her childhood home in this series and that is such an interesting thing to say considering that it was her prison for so long but Rapunzel remembers the Tower as the place where she grew up and made good memories similar to what we saw in "Pascal's Story". Rapunzel, Eugene, and Cass later discover the men that had been following them were the Captain and the Royal Guards. And understandably, Rapunzel and Cass are pissed. They had been ordered by the King to make sure that Rapunzel never put the scroll together. And we end the episode with Rapunzel intending to confront her father and getting some truthful answers from the man that lied to her.
All in all, this was a decent episode and perhaps one of my favorites of the season. You really start to feel things rev up as we head towards the finale.
Character
Rapunzel voiced by Mandy Moore
While Cass and Eugene were good supporting characters to Rapunzel in this episode, there isn't a whole lot to say about them in this episode as this episode is heavily focused on Rapunzel and the wringer that she is put through and it is painful to watch. And even infuriating, when you find out that part of the reason that Rapunzel had all of this emotional stress put on her was because of the misdeeds of her father. Rapunzel wants support and love from her father and he gives her the latter but perhaps doesn't understand how to properly go about the former. He may think what he is doing is right but as Rapunzel will call out in the next episode, he is just one step away from treating Rapunzel, how Gothel treated her.
My Final Thoughts
All in all, this was a fantastic episode and I adore that it is not afraid to be heartbreaking and put the characters and by extension through the emotional wringer showing that Tangled: The Series is so much more than just a spinoff of a Disney movie. With episodes like this and "Queen for a Day", they show that Tangled: The Series is willing to stand on it's own while respecting it's source material. Peace!
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