After a haphazard, messy season filled with stupendous imagination and baffling narrative choices, Hilda manages to bring all its pieces together to go out on a high note. For better and worse, “The Fairy Isle” is the story the show reached toward all season. Even as individual episode plots veered in wild directions, the production team included — often shoved — clues to this finale’s mysteries. Here, in an extra-long episode, Hilda stretches and breathes and explores; here is an episode that reminds of us everything great about this series yet at the same time teases us about what this season could have been.
One
At the beginning of the season I asked, how do you continue a story that clearly ended? Some stories throw new problems at the characters. Others explore different parts of the world, expand its expanse. Too many revert to doing the exact same thing in a different color. Yet, even in worlds with an enormous capacity for adventure there comes a point where the potential is more impactful. Hilda reached a strong conclusion with Hilda and the Mountain King, the culmination of everything Hilda, David, Frida, and Johanna learned and experienced. Season three was destined to feel like a coda, an extended epilogue. The production team, led by Luke Pearson, Stephanie Simpson, and Andy Coyle, all of whom clearly love this world, still make the best effort to capture that Hilda magic.
When it started, it seemed like season three was going to explore new areas of Hilda’s world. Johanna and the kids arrive at Tofoten where they see some weird sights and have some spooky, otherworldly encounters. We’re given some lore on Johanna and learn about some mysterious gaps in her memory. New characters, like Great Aunt Astrid and the Pooka, step into frame. And then, as the story settles into gear, as it seems like the creators are settling into a narrative direction, the writers whisk us back to Trolberg.
Season three, it turns out, is more of a highlight reel. The giants may have left our world but through some time travel magic, Hilda is granted another encounter with them. There go the trolls, the Wood-Man, the nisse. It’s been a while since anyone did anything with the Sparrow Scouts, so here’s a river adventure. Most of these stories were fun, delightful: I got a kick out of the overly theatrical merman; the weird swamp creature at the forgotten lake was appropriately terrifying. I love Hilda’s giants and the last hurrah from them was as heartbreaking as their original episode, but now with a reminder that they did exist and the world was wonderful for it, even if it was only in the past. The show recognizes Twig’s greatness and provides him with numerous moments to shine.
It’s in season three’s worst moments I most dwelled on the missed potential. Hilda’s father, Anders, was unnecessary when he arrived and remained as such through the series’ final moments, a last-minute distraction from the more developed relationships. The episode focused on the nisse ranks as one of the weakest of the entire series. The two hooded figures who linger in the shadows feel included more to remind us about Tofoten but don’t add to the mystery: their presence turns into a gag.
Without any more of Pearson’s comics to adapt, the production team had the opportunity to explore so much, and it felt like they wanted to, only to lose confidence in their overarching narrative. This season was pleasant, but rarely magical.
Two
“The Fairy Isle” finds Hilda returned to Tofoten in an attempt to save her father from fairy country. She did this in secret from Johanna. Fairy land here is barren and desolate, where figures lurk in the shadows and floating tentacled creatures patrol the area. Hilda discovers her father working with Victoria van Gale, also stranded in this outer border. Don’t worry if you can’t remember Victoria van Gale because the episode doesn’t seem to care much, either. “I feel like it’s my fault you’re here,” Hilda says. “Nonsense,” Victoria van Gale replies.
Meanwhile, Johanna arrives and follows Hilda into this void.
While Anders and Victoria van Gale have been staying on the border, an entire other, wilder world awaits, behind a cloudy shroud and at the top of a winding staircase carved into a cliff face. I like how Hilda enters fairy country and immediately proceeds to break every rule about being in fairy country. She eats the food, breaks the circles, and dances with them in an exhausting frenzy. Here, Johanna learns about herself, her parents, the spirit of the island, and Great Aunt Astrid, as well as the numerous obligations she cannot begin to fathom.
Continued belowWhat follows is the breathless chases, horrifying creatures, wonderful sights, and dangerous events you expect out of Hilda.
Three
And, as expected, these elements are delivered with aplomb. For the most part. With added length, “The Fairy Isle” can take its time, allow itself to be patient and build toward the exciting moments. We enter these worlds in wonder, jaws-dropped. The backgrounds and sets remain stellar as always, from the crystal caves to the fungal forests to the decrepit towers looming over the landscape. (As if Hollow Knight had been passed around behind the scenes.)
Throughout, there’s a feeling of finality, similar to Hilda and the Mountain King. Each character is given their moment to shine, to show off what they’ve learned about themselves and their abilities, and it’s delivered with an authenticity, an earnestness that does not make it feel cheap or phoned in. Frida has some neat magic moments. David proves he is not the coward he believes himself to be. And Twig. Well. Twig’s the best. Even without specific moments where he triumphs and saves the day, his mere presence is enough.
While Hilda had always flirted with the dark and dangerous, one of its shortcomings has been its reluctance to live with consequence, even as the creators pack in all these situations that suggest lasting fallout. In “The Fairy Isle,” a few characters straight up die, yet their actions are ultimately reversed by a few plot contrivances. I understand these ideas may be considered too mature for Hilda’s younger audience, but the legends and stories and myths Hilda culls from never shied away from the consequences of your actions. Once again, I suspect studio interference.
Everything else around the production more than compensates. The animators bring fantastic tension to the screen. There are numerous moments where they demonstrate how accomplished they’ve become, not only in action beats or gorgeous environmental surveys, but in character interactions, small exchanges we wouldn’t immediately consider that cement the emotion and the wonder and the pain and the joy. And the scale! The animators have been especially adept at giving a sense of size and proportion, and it’s given this world a real weight.
Four
If the first seasons explored the idea of community and acceptance, Hilda season three is most preoccupied with change. “You’re stuck in some twisted, ancient routine,” Hilda says. There’s no way anyone can go further or improve if they linger perpetually in some vague memory. “We see everything through the haze of what the island thinks we want to see,” Great Aunt Astrid explains.
Change, the show says, can be good or bad or even disappointing, but without any attempt to adapt to it, you’re going to be trapped. Anders, for example, is predictable in that he’s wild and unpredictable. Without doing something with himself, without confronting the part of him that’s stuck, he will forever be caught in his infinite loop.
The question comes most blatantly to Johanna. In fairy country, she finds herself with all her dreams and desires about to be fulfilled, but at the expense of her freedom. The people around her are trapped in this world, people she loves, and in order to embrace them, she must turn herself into a former version of herself. Hilda recognizes a good adventure, but also recognizes you cannot live in it forever. When it turns obsessive and fanatical, you’re not the only one those decisions harm.
In a way, I think this serves as a way for the creators to reckon with being finished. Hilda has run since 2018 and I imagine rapidly adjusting to not having the show around must be difficult.
Embrace the new and different, the show says. You will benefit from it, you will be better for it, and even if our favorites won’t be there any more, at least we have our memories and experiences.
Five
Hilda started life as a one-page comic created for a competition at Nobrow based off the Icelandic maps Luke Pearson drew in college and his daydreams. There was something pleasant, quaint, and dangerous about it, told, as Alexandra Lange wrote, in the “rich color palette of a Nordic sweater.” That it maintained that sensibility throughout the course of its run, didn’t succumb to cynicism or edginess or desperate attempts at relevancy, makes for an achievement in its own right. The fact there were long gaps between seasons where animators could take their time to refine the material helped make the show so special.
I guess that’s both a benefit and a curse of being on Netflix — though Silvergate and Mercury Filmworks were responsible for the actual production. The creators had the time to make something good, something wonderful, only to have it buried under the algorithm. Having everything dumped all at once takes away its impact. And Netflix is notorious for putting a lot of fanfare into their new materials, but then all but forgetting about them until it’s time to renew.
Like Avatar: The Last Airbender or Adventure Time, Hilda is a show worth visiting every few years, because the lessons it has can serve as a reminder of the ideals we forgot and its themes can assure us about our decisions, our fears, and our triumphs.
“The Fairy Isle” ends in Trolberg, with a final parade of favorite characters and creatures. The show’s Scandinavian focus gave us some wild and weird images, and they felt so alive and real and worth keeping around, even if only in legend. It’s heartwarming to see them brought out. Not all of it was perfect, but its imperfections gave it its personality and Hilda was always adept at coming back from a stumble (though for whatever reason, it really thought highly of the nisse).
The question I had all season was how do you continue a story that ended. Hilda answered by saying nothing ever ends, it merely changes.
