Life has begun to settle in for Hilda in Trolberg. Therefore, now it’s time for her to branch out, to make new friends, and start finding a life for herself in this new environment. As always, there are spoilers throughout this piece for Hilda‘s “The Sparrow Scouts.”
1. Off Book
As far as I can tell, this is the first episode not based in part on one of the Luke Pearson comics. Therefore, all the assurance, all the poise, all the confidence is somewhat missing from this episode. “The Sparrow Scouts” feels like a second episode, after everything has been established and the show is trying to find its identity. Lead writer, Stephanie Simpson, and director, Andy Doyle, doinclude many of the elements we’ve seen so far: the mysterious creatures, the parallel themes, the quiet hints at upcoming stories. And “The Sparrow Scouts” is a fine episode. It’s entertaining. It’s cute. It feels like it belongs to Hilda, even if it never rises to any of the heights of the episodes that came before. That being said, we can see the potential for the series, for how it can form its own soul and develop into a separately wonderful thing.
2. Creature of the Week
If I’m spelling their names correctly, the creatures of this week are the vitra. They look like turnip people, though if you said they had more in common with mandrakes I’d be like, “Okay.” In “The Sparrow Scouts,” Hilda finds herself on her first scout assignment, to clean up an overrun part of a local park. As she and her teammates are cleaning, she accidentally uncovers this underground city for the turnip people, complete with their herds of miniature cows. They also accidentally send clumps of these turnip people to the local mulching yard so, y’know, they have to deal with that.
Unlike the other creatures we’ve seen so far, the turnip people are kind of flat. The main one we deal with has a Gilbert Gottfried voice and is a downer presence. Make no mistake, the turnip dude is never wrong about anything. “I’m going with you to make sure you don’t mess things up any worse than you already did,” he tells our plucky scouts as they’re about to head toward the mulching yard. Later, when all is said and done, he’s like, “You pulled up my friends in the first place so don’t expect a prize for bringing them back.”
I just don’t find much mystery or magic for the turnip people. The long chase sequence through their underground city comes dangerously close to boring. Apart from the main one, the others don’t do much or even interact with Hilda and the gang. I guess there’s a theme of them watching out for their friends while Hilda’s making new friends, but to say that feels like a reach. For the most part, I think they’re simply a device help introduce us to two new characters. The first of which is —
3. David
Of the two new characters, Hilda is least interested in exploring this character in “The Sparrow Scouts.” He gets chosen to come along with Frida mostly because he listens to whatever she tells him. He’s a quiet and timid boy, prone to distractions, and happy to let other people tell him what to do. “What do we do what do we do?” he panics when Frida disappears. “Frida would know what to do but she’s not here to do it.” When Hilda puts him in charge of holding a rope, he almost immediately discards it in favor of an interesting-looking rock. He’s soft spoken and lacks confidence. Even Ron Weasley had more agency than this boy in Sorcerer’s Stone. “The Sparrow Scouts” only gives us a broad overview of his personality and he’s 100% the comic relief. It’s cute that he sleeps with a little giraffe though. And that he was the only one of them who didn’t immediately drop his sandwich at seeing the destruction the turnip people wrought on their little garden.
4. Frida
And then there’s Frida. She’s like Hermione Granger and Dignan from Bottle Rocket were crossbred and shoved into a 10-year-old girl. She plans everything down to the idle time allowed for chitchat. She has a binder filled with detailed plans about what they’re going to do and how they’re going to go about doing it. She’s obsessed with earning her Sparrow badges. “The only badges that matter are the ones I don’t have yet.” Where Hilda is impulsive and improvisational, Frida is cool and fore-thinking. “The Sparrow Scouts” is most interested in her character. And I think it’s in her relationship with Hilda that Simpson and Doyle find the heart of the episode. These two are not at odds with each other. Hilda tries to present a case for how Frida’s meticulous planning and Hilda’s brash spontaneity both have a place in any project. How Hilda can enter a situation and observe it to find the best approach while Frida makes sure they’re prepared for almost anything. How both of them are necessary for any task and that life is full of balance.
Continued belowAnd while Frida might come off as somewhat insufferable, I found I was endeared to her character. Probably because the creators tried to show how she and Hilda do play off each other rather than make it some heated rivalry.
5. Hilda’s Making Friends
For a girl who was undoubtedly home schooled, Hilda does a pretty great job with adjusting to her new life. She knows their dodgeball game. She can work in a group setting without offsetting the entire dynamic. She’s not weird and doesn’t make bizarre references at the other kids. It might be possibly because she’s placed with Frida and David that those quirks of homeschooled kids don’t rear their heads, or maybe the homeschooling system in the UK isn’t as ridiculous as in the States. Either way, Hilda has now given us its Harry, Ron, and Hermione. It’s Aang, Sokka, and Katara. The balance and dynamic of the group might not be fully in place yet but it’s clear the show has a solid idea of how it wants to play them. I can’t wait to see how it’s going to turn out as Hilda progresses.
