A Look at Disney Gets Tangled: Secret of the Sun Drop

Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney and we have finally reached the season one finale of Tangled: The Series.  Buckle up, because we've got a lot to get through with this emotional roller coaster of a finale.   With that outta the way, let's begin.



The Plot



The passage of time is an interesting thing with this series as the pilot movie, Before Ever After is set just six months after the events of the movie itself and this episode here is set on Rapunzel's nineteenth birthday.  Setting the end of the show, a year after the movie but there is something else that is quite fascinating as each of the three hour-long specials has coincided with a major event in Rapunzel's life.    Before Ever After was set around Rapunzel's coronation,   Queen for a Day is rather self-explanatory and now we have Secret of the Sun Drop set during Rapunzel's birthday.  It seems like the showrunners like to test Rapunzel during big moments in her life.   I mean, I like it as it does provide for some interesting stories but now it makes me wonder what the moments up to her walking down the aisle were like.   As Rapunzel has been through a lot of strenuous moments in her life.

Obviously,  something going wrong during a big moment in a character's life is nothing new. Looking at superhero weddings or primetime dramas.   I mean, Barry & Iris on The Flash had to deal with a Nazi invasion during their wedding, this season.  

Now, Rapunzel has not had to put up with anything like that but it is still fascinating to think during some rather joyous and celebratory moments in Rapunzel's life, she has been put through the ringer and has only come out stronger.  Part of me hopes that Mr. Chris Sonneburg and the crew for Tangled, give Rapunzel some breathing room before the next struggle confronts her but considering the stinger that ends this episode, I'm not sure how much relaxation, she'll get.  Anyways, let's move onto the actual meat of the episode.


Rapunzel is having a hard time celebrating her birthday as she is still reeling from events in her recent past that have left her rather shaken and  well, that understandable as the episode right before this one was The Alchemist Returns,  where Varian someone Rapunzel once considered a friend had betrayed her and used her shaken state and guilt to take advantage of her.  This is something that we've talked about throughout all these reviews but in many ways,  Rapunzel and Varian are two sides of the same coin.  This is something that is highlighted heavily in both of the episode's songs,  Set Yourself Free and perhaps more so in Ready as I'll Ever Be.  


And this brings us to something that had been mentioned throughout the pilot movie for Tangled: The Series, that if King Frederic ever found the truth of Cass taking Rapunzel on that fateful night and learned that Cass will indeed be sent to a convent.   And as the Disney Wiki highlights. 

As the trio prepare to confront the King on the matter, an automaton suddenly appears an attack the three. Deducing that Varian must've rebuilt it to attack them, the three retaliated and eventually defeated it by jamming its timing cylinder

So, everything has kinda gone up in smoke and things only get worse, when Rapunzel confronts her father and this is where Frederic goes to an extreme of protecting his daughter as he has locked up in her room.   And not even his wife can convince him that he is wrong.  This is something that we have brought up a few times throughout this retrospective by comparing Frederic and Triton.   To quote my review of The Alchemist Returns. 

 Yeah, I gotta retract on that as the show goes to great lengths to show that while Frederic is acting out of genuine love for Rapunzel, he & Gothel are two sides of the same coin.   And even by acting on love as Frederic felt he was doing, he was pushing Rapunzel away.   This is one of the biggest things that I appreciate about this show is its willingness to delve into how complicated and messy, parent and child relationships can be.  And show that while a parent may be acting out of love, they are still in the wrong and they need to realize that.   I feel like it's been some time since we've seen such a fascinating parent/child relationship in Disney animation.  The last one that comes to mind is Triton and Ariel.
















But even then, there are a couple of key differences between the father/daughter relation in The Little Mermaid and the father/daughter relationship in Tangled.    The first and perhaps most obvious one is that Ariel has lived with her dad all her life whereas as Rapunzel and Frederic are still getting to know one another. They may be family and by this point, it has almost been a year since Rapunzel left the tower.   This brings up the idea that they are family but they don't yet have a strong bond.  

To piggyback off the last thing in this quote from our last review, I think that what Frederic is doing here shows how much he does not yet understand what his daughter needs and he is doing this to protect himself as Rapunzel is sick and tired of the lies that her father had been feeding her.   Some birthday for my favorite princess.    However,  Rapunzel is a smart princess and comes up with a plan to escape the castle.  And she gets helps from her friends including Eugene, Cass and the Pub Thugs.  And it is one of the few funny moments in this otherwise tense season finale.  They hope to find out what Varian wants but as soon as they attempt to, a strange fog comes and hits the kingdom and Varian gets really intense and frightening. 

...a strange fog started to roll into the kingdom. By this point, Varian announces his presence in Corona, informing them of Fredric's lies and the kingdom's impending destruction from the growing black rocks. With his intention of making Corona pay for ignoring his pleas for help, Varian unleashes a giant monster raccoon into the fog to terrorize the citizens, injuring many royal guards in the process. In the midst of the chaos, the Captain is injured, but Cassandra managed to lead the remaining guards to help Rapunzel trap the creature, which later transformed back into its true form: Varian's pet raccoon, Rudiger.

This is a great moment to show how far gone Varian is at this point and that this was one big distraction from Varian in order to kidnap the queen.   And it worked, which leaves Frederic feeling even more defeated than usual and instead of arguing, his daughter just comforts him and promises that they will work together to get her back.  And this is when we get the story that gives this finale, it's title.

On the night Arianna was gravely sick while she was about to give birth to Rapunzel, Frederic was desperately searching for a miracle that would save them both. That was when he would found it in the form of the very flower that would save his wife and their unborn daughter. However, he was warned that if he removed the flower from its resting place, he would be unleashing a terrible darkness that would endanger the kingdom. He wanted to believe it, but at the time he was desperate to save his family. And ever since the rocks start spreading throughout Corona, he chose to ignore the problem, hoping that if everyone were to do the same that it might go away

Oh, and to add to this bit here.  It was Quirin, Varian's father that came and told Frederic of what would happen.  All the citizens of Corona are gathered together in the castle to lead an attack on Varian and we will talk a bit more about this when we look at the music for this episode but Varian has accepted his place as the bad guy of the story.


The battle is intense as the Royal Guards battle Varian's robots, the king and Rapunzel sneak into Varian's lab and Varian tries to use Rapunzel's hair on a really scary looking drill to free his father but it doesn't work and well, Varian doesn't take this well.

When they run outside, Varian uses his automaton to hold Arianna and Cassandra hostage and attempted to crush them to death to make Rapunzel suffer. As Rapunzel horrifically looked on, the black rocks finally converge and surrounded her, much to Frederic and Eugene’s horror. However, when her hair touched the tip of the rocks, they sprouted away from her and skewered some automatons. Now recalling when Frederic told her that she is connected to the rocks somehow, and Varian in one of her nightmares telling her to face her destiny, Rapunzel summons and control the rocks to destroy the remaining automatons and defeating Varian

Yeah,  Rapunzel embraces the rocks and uses them to defeat Varian and it is quite the moment and after this, Varian is carted away.  And I once again, just want to quote my Villains Profile article on Varian. 

I want to talk about my reaction to Varian in the season finale here. I was honestly hoping for a last minute redemption for Varian as I saw that he's not a bad kid, he's just angry and upset and that is what led him to make these decisions but as I watched the finale, the show made me realize that giving him a last-minute redemption wouldn't feel earned. The show knows that Varian has to atone for his actions before the thought of redemption is even presented.

And the episode ends with Frederic finally realizing that he doesn't need to go overboard protecting his daughter and her and her two friends are set to go on an adventure in season two.  But that is not all as we get a stinger of a warrior with a sword that can cut through the black rocks.





This episode is intense and does everything it can to tie up the first season and give the audience, a satisfying ending.





Characters


I want to do something a bit different here with the characters. I don't want to look at the characters individually but rather the relationships that are presented in this series.  One of the biggest things that this series highlights in the relationship between father and children.    So,  I want to look at those.  Let's start with...


Rapunzel and Frederic

As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, this episode is set one year after the events of the movie and we can see that it has taken a year for a bond to develop and it was rather rocky between these two. (Pun not intended)  Consider the end of the movie and how we saw Rapunzel embrace her parents in a hug.

For the seven years between the film's release and the premiere of the first episode, this is the only image that fans had of Rapunzel's parents.   So,  Chris Sonnenburg and the team behind the show had to take these silent characters from this movie and give them strong defined personalities. And while Ariana doesn't get much time, Frederic does and we see that Rapunzel and Frederic want a relationship with one another but Frederic's lies keep getting in the way and the way that he goes overboard with protecting his daughter because of her being taken as a baby shows that he will do anything and I mean anything to keep Rapunzel safe and perhaps even prevent her from doing what she needs.   Which, you look at all of this, it does somewhat paint that moment from the end of the movie in a new light as it shows it as just that a moment.   However, I want to quote one of my recent favorite Disney from Moana to highlight why I don't hate Frederic.

But this does not define you

Frederic does go overboard quite a bit to protect his daughter and to keep his secret hidden but those do not define Frederic.  Rather,  I believe that the big thing that defines Frederic is the love that he has for his family and that is why he goes to such extremes to protect his daughter.




Okay, let's look now move onto Cass and her dad.




Cassandra and The Captain of Royal Guards



This one is interesting as Cass has been with her dad all her life as he adopted her when she was a little kid and Cass has wanted nothing more to make her dad proud and would never want to disappoint him.  And there is a line to that effect about she felt her father had betrayed her trust.   Now, she does later rescind on that sentiment but that is important to think about.




Finally, we have




Varian and Quirin



One might think that this would be the most underdeveloped father/child relationship because of what happens to Quirin halfway through the season but I actually think that would be someone not paying attention to the characterization of Varian as his whole motivator for becoming a villain and that takes us back to Let Me Make You Proud as Varian as a character and more importantly, a son feels as though he is not good enough for his father and that he is a constant disappointment in his father's eyes and that is why drives Varian to do everything that he can and that is even brought up here as the last words that he says in the finale as he is taken away as he vows to make his father proud.



Music



Set Yourself Free







This isn't a bad number and it does a great number of capturing what Rapunzel has been going through during this first season and it does make for a nice contrast with Varian's lyrics in the second number of this finale.  But I dunno as much as I enjoy this (to the point that I downloaded it),  I think it's one of Rapunzel's weaker songs from the show.  I can't put my finger on what makes it so weak but something about it just feels off.



Ready as I'll Ever Be





I've talked about this fantastic number a couple of times here on my blog and yeah, this is one of the best numbers that I've heard from any Disney production as it is just so epic and mounting and it perfectly captures the emotions of the characters during this moment as Cass gets her moment to prove herself, Rapunzel will do anything to save her family. And then, of course, there's Varian's part in the number.

Believe me, I know
I've sunk pretty low
But whatever I've done you deserved
I'm the bad guy, that's fine
It's no fault of mine

I'm not highlighting all of Varian's lines but these lyrics help to paint a picture of someone that feels scorned and as though as that they had to go to this extreme because he had no other options.  And in a way,  I can understand Varian's feelings but while saying that I want to make it clear, that I do not condone his actions.   I understand why he did what he did as he felt that he had run out of choices but he went about it in the wrong way.





My Final Thoughts



I love this finale and I love this show.  This finale shows the wild rollercoaster ride of emotions that this show can be at times and If could be self-indulgent here for a moment, when the voice of Cassandra, Eden Espinosa tweeted out the video for Ready as I'll Ever Be,  she replied to a tweet of mine about the show being a roller coaster ride of emotions. (I'm the one with the Rapunzel avatar)

And Ms. Espinosa was right, there was indeed a lot more heartbreaking adventures with this show and I can only imagine that the second season will involve more to come.  If you have not checked out this show,  please do as it is one of the best-animated series to ever air on the Disney Channel and it is the best movie to TV continuation of a Disney movie.

Okay, I enjoyed this retrospective and I will look at the second season of the show on the new blog that I mentioned in the last review but these reviews are rather emotionally draining and that is why for a while I won't be doing any episode or movie reviews for A Look at Disney.  I'll still do other episode and movie reviews for my other blogs but those are going to take a backseat here on A Look at Disney for a while. Peace!