And like that, the tide mice have returned. Those adorable, wish-granting soul suckers. Actually, the tide mice never really went away, but it’s been so long since we’ve seen them, you’d be forgiven for forgetting their plot line hadn’t been resolved. Since their last appearance, the remaining mice have set up a comfortable existence in Hilda’s house. Grab food from the kitchen, build a nest under her bed, et cetera, et cetera. However, when they accidentally get out, chaos ensues in “The Jorts Incident,” written by Emily Brundige and directed by Andy Coyle.
1.) But First, a Refresher
While helping Frida with her witch studies, Hilda, David, and Frida find themselves summoned before the Committee of Three. One of them, the Committee informs, has done something to send magical pandemonium throughout Trolberg. Everyone immediately turns to Hilda, who’s like, “But I’ve been at the library all day. I haven’t had the opportunity for mischief.” Turns out the stowaway mice, the last remnants of the creatures she summoned ages ago and who snuck back to town with Hilda’s family, are at large, and the sudden good fortune of a local snack company can only spell doom for the people working there.
It’s been sixteen episodes since the tide mice first appeared. I’m not sure why Stephanie Simpson, Luke Pearson, and Andy Coyle waited so long into this season to wrap up a first season plotline. My best guess is that after a string of emotionally heavy episodes they wanted something a little lighter, a little more jubilant. “The Jorts Incident” fit the bill well enough.
In any case, tide mice are magically conjured creatures who bring their target success, fortune, and good luck. Usually they’re created with a lock of the target’s hair, giving them a variety of colors and styles. Hilda first created them in “The Tide Mice” for her mother and David, who struggled to find any luck or confidence in their respective ambitions. For a while, it worked. In true monkey’s paw fashion, however, the mice eventually extract the target’s soul and deliver it onto the conjurer. This information, Hilda was told, was included in the footnotes. Black magic, amiright?
Anyway, there was a whole big to-do about it, details of which slowly returned to me throughout “The Jortis Incident.” The episode’s script didn’t provide much to recall these details. I spent more time trying to recall the details and mechanics about the tide mice than watching the new narrative unfold. Maybe the creators thought that because Hilda’s a Netflix series, where viewers frequently binge everything straight through several times, that information would still be relatively fresh. Even then, a sixteen episode span is not insubstantial, forget about the two year gap between seasons.
2.) Speaking of: This Episode was Kind of a Mess
Like, “The Jorts Incident” is all over the place. It’s fun and enjoyable, sure, cashing in on a lot of the goodwill Hilda has built. At best, it makes for an entertaining diversion, a breath of air after the aforementioned string of heavy episodes. But then, it also feels like it was made to fulfill the series order. We breeze through locations, never lingering long enough to find our grounding, Coyle hoping we recall enough from earlier episodes to know where we are. Characters shuffle across the screen, and we’re over fifteen minutes in before it settles on Hilda, Frida, David, and the Librarian’s assault on the Jorts building. The writers leave so many dangling threads, I’m never sure which one the show’s going to grab.
It does continue the overarching season theme where Hilda makes up for her reckless mistakes. In this case, a mistake she thought had already been resolved. I love how the show’s solution or her wild spontaneity and blind courage is a more directed spontaneity and courage.
Additionally, we also see the Committee prepared to banish Hilda to the juvenile void. They’re more concerned with punishment than fixing the problem and they descend into bickering over proper consequences. We also see the inner workings of a corporate institution, where people don’t seem to do anything but nonetheless get paid well for it. Their biggest idea involves making bigger versions of their snack foods. I think there are parallels the creators are trying to draw here, especially in regards to how their hierarchical structure works. Yet, apart from being presided over by a few out-of-touch individuals, these come off more as quick sketches.
Continued belowThat being said, the whole wish fulfillment thing was better thought out and realized than Wonder Woman 1984‘s.
3.) A Perspective Shift
It also doesn’t help the episode’s mood and feel that there’s a protracted perspective pivot in the first part of “The Jorts Incident.” Hilda and Twig board a city bus, but we linger on a nearby delivery man, Gil. He gave the tide mice a bit of food and they’ve decided to follow him everywhere. They wind themselves in his hair and “The Jort Incident’s” incident launches in full force.
While Hilda remains focused primarily on its title here, there are times when its attention drifts to one of the other characters in her immediate world. We’ve had episodes for Twig and Johanna, David and Frida. What’s rare, however, is to have us stay with this rando guy she literally bumped into for so long. And, for as fun as that scene turns out, there’s something off about it, something that doesn’t feel in line with the rest of the world. It probably doesn’t help that one long montage (more on that in a moment) is the only time we spend with Gil. We don’t check in on him again until the kids’ plotline intersects.
4.) Corporate Ladders
All season, we had seen flashes of the Jorts Corporation: their downtown building, characters munching away on snacks, billboard advertisements just within our peripherals. I expected there to be some big revelation about the company. These little seeds turned out to be misdirection, ultimately. Instead, we got this soft corporate satire. Which I don’t think is bad, per say, just not what I expected out of the clues Hilda had been throwing around.
A good portion of “The Jorts Incident’s” first act is devoted to following humble Gil’s ascension through the company. Set to Dan Deacon’s “Pink Batman,” Gil finds himself behind increasingly bigger desks in high-placed offices. No one actively does much in any of these new positions. We see him waiting for something to happen or mingling around with his other coworkers. In a moment of boredom, he makes a quick doodle, someone calls him “an idea man,” and that sketch becomes the backbone to his legacy.
Yes, much of this is influenced by the tide mice but I don’t think the corporate world is all that different, especially for a man with nominal qualifications.
Jorts itself shows subtle hints of the insidious domination corporations hold on the world. The local newspaper is set to change its name to something like The Jorts Times. With their newfound success, the company starts teaming up with other big corporations to form a multinational conglomerate. Their atrium is a wide, empty space with a collage of screens on the wall, showing a wild assortment of commercial footage that feels like it’s been focus-tested to death. Even their building, a monolithic skyscraper, sticks out imposingly and oppressively over the Trolberg skyline.
A detail I did get a kick out of, though: how the non-executive employees had to wear jean shorts for their dress code. Gil ascends to the highest reaches of the company, is drawn with sharp, expensive jackets, but he’s still running around in his jorts, high socks, and work boots. I cracked up every time.
5.) Gags Galore
Hard to say if “The Jorts Incident” does anything more with these details than pointing them out, because the episode finally morphs into a giant gag-fest. This is probably where it’s the most focused, fun, and effective, the animators given the most room to flex.
In order to gather the tide mice and their offspring, Hilda, Frida, David, and the Librarian find a bunch of vacuums and start sucking them up. It’s a physical scene, with the characters running through the endless corporate corridors, acrobatic and kinetic. Dat Politics’ “Dizzy Zip” blares underneath. The mice are animated like King Rat, an amorphous blob. Our heroes sport ghostbustin’ poses. There’s this classic cartoon manic energy to the sequence, a reminder that even the rougher Hilda episodes still bear a dexterity and craft that makes them worthwhile.
It’s so much fun we forget about its half-formed and sketchy beats. It’s so much fun we still feel satisfied by the end.
