Five Thoughts on Hilda’s “The Deerfox”

Hands down, Twig is the best character on Hilda.

Sure, he most often is shown running in the background, or used when the animators need a quick reaction shot, but he has the greatest expressions, the most enduring personality, and such a graceful gait it’s impossible not to love him. At least if you have a heart. With “The Deerfox,” written by Luke Pearson and directed by Andy Coyle, Pearson has decided it’s time to explore where this best boy came from. And it turns into one of the most heart-wrenching and emotionally charged episodes of the series so far. We’re talking E.T. levels of feels over here. (By the way, spoilers.)

I could barely handle it.

I know I’m about to bring in personal elements, but how we react to a story is influenced by what we have going on in our lives. And when we encounter a text that mirrors and parallels what we’re going through, it’s difficult to just be like oh look at how well this is constructed or check out that neat bit of animation. (Though this episode does feature a more elaborate construction than usual and wonderful animation to boot). See “The Deerfox” understands what it means to lose a pet. Whether they ran away, had to be given away, or they passed away, the filmmakers here know that sinking loss, that overwhelming grief. They bring it all into the episode.

I lost my dog around the end of last year. She was nearly fifteen, a diva, a dragon looking wild thing. We got her after my freshman year of college and she wandered through crowds of friends, boyfriends, and family. Up until that last week, she was in good health. Then, something inside her body broke and by the end of the week, she was hooked up to an oxygen machine under the dull fluorescent veterinarian lights, her oxygen levels dropping so low her body couldn’t compensate. Sound dropped out of the room. A stillness dropped over us. The experience broke me.

Obviously, the creators were not going to write Twig away in “The Deerfox.” But Coyle and Pearson channeled that frantic desperation, that manic worry into every scene featuring Hilda and Johanna. Hilda tries to do everything he can to recover Twig, retraces old steps, farms her usual channels for as much information as possible, puts herself at risk, and flashes all the times she neglected Twig or ignored him or took him for granted because he became such a staple of her life.

Pearson and Coyle play up a metaphorical death element here. Over the course of the episode, we learn that Twig has been separated from his herd, these majestic inter-dimensional creatures that remind me of the Lord of the Mountain from Breath of the Wild and the rainicorns in Adventure Time. Twig keeps getting called toward the light. Even after they find him and battle a malevolent red wolf, he still turns toward the light. And Hilda knows she has to let him go.

Nothing about this seems right, she knows, the story shouldn’t be going like this, but that’s the way it’s going. And Hilda can only stand to the side and try to cope, try not to be overwhelmed by memories, memories of the walks and the special dinners and the way they filled the room and befriended other people and how they once tried to jump out the car window to chase a squirrel and hid treats for later and often just wanted to be in your presence though they didn’t want you to bother them and threw trash around the bathrooms and knew the exact outfit you wore when it was time to go on a walk, but at the same time, never wanting to let those memories go. Was unable to let them go because they are part of her identity now.

Yes, Twig’s return at the end does feel like backpedaling to a degree. Sure, Twig deciding to stay with the other deerfoxes may have provided a gentle way to approach death for Hilda’s young audience. Yet, so many awful things have happened, we’ve suffered through so much, maybe it’s all right he returned. Maybe that’s something we needed.

Continued below

With that in mind, I’m going to devote today’s thoughts to several great Twig moments throughout “The Deerfox.”

Enjoy.

1.) Breakfast Time