Deep in the heart of the mountain, where stone slugs carve shapes through hanging rocks, where color has evaporated and turned the world dour and gray, where everything sits still and silent, there flows a magnificent underground waterfall. It feeds into a subterranean lake with a winding stream that stretches through the infinite rocks. It has created an oasis at the center of this cavernous labyrinth. And it is where the trolls recently arrived to the hills and forest surrounding Trolberg, their campfires bright flashes in the night, have gathered. Following a mishap with Nowhere space, it is also here Hilda and Johanna suddenly find themselves, with no discernable way out.
And it is where Hilda and her mother suddenly find themselves lost within in the season finale, “The Stone Forest.” (Warning: SPOILERS.)
1. Finale, Pt. 1
“The Stone Forest,” written by Stephanie Simpson and directed by Andy Coyle, is the only episode in Hilda’s second season taken directly from the comics. Unlike the first season, there isn’t a glaring difference in tone and energy between the stories taken from Luke Pearson’s work and those created for the series. Over the course of Season Two, Hilda has found its vibe, its wavelength, its personality. The series echoes the books but stretches and wanders and explores further than a 64-page comic can accomplish.
“The Stone Forest” closes us out with all the danger, peril, chaos, destruction, near-death experiences, actual deaths, wonders, magic, and joy we’ve come to expect from this series, all rendered through highly-tuned animation. In fact, the episode is so strong, so full of life, you don’t notice it never wraps up a single one of its season-long plot arcs until long after it’s over.
2. The Failures of Law Enforcement
Take, for instance, the Trolberg Safety Patrol. We’ve watched Erik Ahlberg continually pursue his desire for glory and recognition, always at the expense of the town. Yet he holds so much charisma, taps into some deeply ingrained fear and prejudice the townspeople harbor, they willingly give up their safety and freedom to feed his ego. He moves unchecked, his every action and declaration seen-to immediately and without question.
Despite crash landing his blimp and finding himself turned into an insect for the majority of the episode, Ahlberg doesn’t change much by the end of “The Stone Forest.” David, Frida, and Deputy Gerda all face world-shattering encounters that make them question everything they believe about the nature of trolls. Yet, upon being turned human again, Ahlberg concocts various schemes to present himself as the hero, the savior, and then tries to figure out how to leverage that to continue his assault on the trolls around Trolberg.
We see the realization and shift more in Deputy Gerda. When she asks David and Frida why they didn’t contact the proper authorities when they learned Hilda and Johanna disappeared, Frida says the authorities aren’t that helpful most of the time. She then spends the rest of the episode learning why no one truly trusts her. It’s enough for her to turn away.
Hilda does not have a positive view of authority figures and people in power, and Ahlberg stands at the top of the heap of ineffectual and maniacal leaders.
While we see Erik Ahlberg’s retribution and humbling coming from leagues away, at the end of “The Stone Forest,” he’s gotten worse, if anything else.
And then there’s the stuff with Hilda and Hilda’s Mum.
3. But First, I Want to Touch on the Troll City
I know we see more of the troll community’s inner workings and politics in the sixth comic, and presumably we’ll see that in the next part of the series, but we do get a strong glimpse of it in “The Stone Forest.” Up until this point, whenever we’ve seen the trolls, they roamed around in small clusters, if they stayed with other trolls at all. It’s wild to see their settlement.
In short, it’s also terrible.
Think of it like a libertarian ideal where the trolls can do whatever they feel. For the most part, thet trolls hang about and exist. They’re like a weird simulacrum of modern life. They’re like a parallel to the modern world Hilda’s young audience can understand.
Continued belowA few enclaves have gathered together to try to make their lives more bearable, share their hordes, watch each others’ backs, and whatnot. Yet they’re often interrupted by bigger bullies who take and take and take, unconcerned about the feelings or livelihoods of their fellow trolls.
That two-headed beast reappears here and makes for the central antagonist of the episode. He pushes and shoves the other trolls, steals what they’ve gathered, then holes himself in his cave, surrounded by empty treasures.
I have no idea if Hilda will get a third season, or if all this will be wrapped up in an upcoming movie, but we’re bound to explore this world more in-depth. There’s some deep intricacies and details of troll life left dangling over us.
4. The Ballad of Hilda and Johanna
All season long, we’ve watched Hilda and Johanna’s relationship get yanked in all directions. Hilda wants to continue her adventuring unheeded while Hilda’s Mum has struggled with allowing her daughter to grow and find herself while also trying to keep her out of constant mortal peril. There have been instances where it seems they’ve come closer to understanding one another, only to have the rug pulled out from under them at the last second. They constantly end up frustrated and irritated with one another.
Therefore, they spend almost the entire running time of “The Stone Forest” with only each other. Well, and Twig, too, who acts as a mediator amidst the overwhelming and persistent danger.
Their eventual reconciliation works not because they talk out their feelings and plead their cases, or at least not only because they talk out their feelings and plead their cases. Johanna has an eye-opening moment when Hilda tells her that she’s her anchor, that Hilda gets through the danger because she knows Johanna’s home. Johanna also sees Hilda’s resourcefulness and capability while in the wild, that though chaos races toward her at sonic boom speeds, she has enough knowledge and wit to see herself out of a sticky situation.
The centerpiece section in “The Stone Forest” comes after they escape the mountain the first time. Everything seems all right except Twig gets caught and carted back inside. Hilda’s ready to charge in, but Johanna stops her, tells her daughter she’ll take care of it. She tells Hilda to wait.
Naturally, Hilda can only do this for so long before restlessness and anxiety get the better of her. She charges into the mountain, makes her usual mess of things, and defends herself by saying she couldn’t take the waiting around and worrying. She needed to do something.
Hilda, too, has a chance to see her mom in action. She sees Johanna evaluate their circumstances and respond, maybe not as recklessly as Hilda, but with a reasonable approach and intelligence. Hilda hits that moment when she realizes Johanna isn’t just her mother, but a person with her own history and interests and background.
It’s a tiny, impactful beat, a quiet moment in an overall loud episode. And that silence makes “The Stone Forest” land with a stronger impact.
So Hilda moves the characters to a place where they can empathize with one another, but it stops short of giving epiphany. There’s still a reluctance, a resistance to that notion. With its cliffhanger ending, the show offers ample reason to explore.
5. Finale, Pt. 2
While the season one capper, “The Black Hound,” was definitely more complete and whole, like the animators were unsure whether they would get another season, it also felt like another episode, didn’t have that gravitas and tension you would expect from a finale. In many ways, “The Stone Forest” is a much smaller entry. It zeroes in on a couple storylines centered around its central cast. This allows for the episode to feel more intense and driven, leading to a release of something built toward over the previous dozen episodes.
This, even though “The Stone Forest” doesn’t end.
Ahlberg’s still out on his path of destruction, Frida’s honing her magical skills, Alfur continues to find new ways to identify himself away from the greater elf community, and David, David seems to have come to terms with being beheaded twice.
The last shot of season two, after all the gains Hilda’s made, after the understanding she’s developed with her mother, involves her waking up to find she’s been turned into a troll.
More than all that, Hilda has yet to touch upon why the trolls have gathered around Trolberg in greater numbers, why it is necessary to have a Safety Patrol in the first place. It a situation introduced in the first episode of the first season and just when it seems like we gained some momentum
