Welcome back to Multiversity Comics’ Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts reviews. This week we’re doing a two-parter with flashbacks, science, peanut butter and kimchi, and mega revelations.
“Fun Gus”
Written by Joanna Lewis & Kristine Songco (parts one and two) and Leore Berris (part two)
Directed by Bridget Underwood (part one) and Matt Ahrens (part two)
1. Dave’s character growth
For the most part, I found Dave a frustrating character in season one—not because I didn’t like him, but because he was largely used for comedy and little else. He didn’t really engage with the problems of others and the story didn’t explore that aspect of him much either.
That changed significantly in the final episode of season one, and ever since then I feel like the writers have done a much better job with Dave. He’s still funny, often times getting some of the funniest moments in the show, but he’s also investing in others more. In the first episode of this season, I couldn’t help but notice that he was the one to go with Kipo to try and rescue her dad—he actually shouldered some real responsibility there, and then totally proved himself to be dependable, backing up Kipo when she needed it and even pulling her out of trouble against her wishes, but for her own good. This sort of character development has been going on in small doses through season two.
In “Fun Gus” we get a closer look at him. He’s building his confidence, able to spend more time as super Dave. But we also get to see him a bit as old Dave, a form that’s been almost exclusively played for laughs in past episodes, but here is used to explore the distance he feels between other characters. There’s an obvious shift in the dynamics between Dave and Benson, and all the stuff with everyone dismissing everything he says he’s seeing, but it was the scenes when he was wandering around with just Mandu that I found most interesting. It’s easy to forget that Dave is old—really old. I mean, he’s about two hundred, and Benson is hardly the first friend he’s traveled around with. There’s a line, “I’ve let some [friends] go and I kept some,” which implies so much we haven’t yet seen.
2. Fun Gus
It’s funny how despite being the titular character for this two-parter, Fun Gus doesn’t leave much of an impact. This is not a flaw with Gus at all, it’s just there’s so much else going on with much, much higher emotional stakes. Gus, while he’s the main obstacle for Kipo and her friends, never really feels beyond their abilities to deal with—Kipo never even has to tap into her Mega Jaguar powers.
Gus ends up being most interesting in what he does for the tone, played as a creepy monster at first, then a screaming, petulant child later, unable to see other people as anything more than “toys.” In terms of visuals, the character is great to see in action, much like Mulholland in his season one episode.
Basically, Gus is interesting enough for a B plot, and the title is a total misdirect. This episode is all about the flashbacks.
3. Lio and Song flashbacks
This is really the meat of the episodes, and I’m glad we get to spend so much time with Lio and Song. We don’t just learn all the plot details we need through them, we get a sense of who they are as people. Especially since we already know Lio as Kipo’s dad, it’s fun to see what he was like as a young man. And it’s interesting to see Song as she really was, not as Kipo imagined her to be. After all, while we’ve seen Song before, this is the first time we’re really seeing her as she actually was, and it was a Joy seeing Kipo discover a part of herself in all this.
Minor note here, but my first thought when I realized Song was going to be carrying a gene-sliced baby was how it would wreak havoc on Song’s body, so it was nice to see the show not only address the complications of microchimerism, but make it a major plot element.
Continued below4. Dr. Emilia
Through the flashbacks, we were also indirectly learning about our new antagonist. Lio and Song’s fear is palpable—we get a sense of what Dr. Emilia wants and what she could be capable of. After all, Lio and Song are so afraid she’ll find out about baby Kipo and do something terrible to her that they were willing to abandon their friends and their home.
Outside the flashbacks, it turns out that it wasn’t Scarlemagne that had control over Song (the Mega Monkey) back in season one, but rather Dr. Emilia. It was Dr. Emilia that destroyed the original Clover Burrow, putting all its residents in danger of the threats of the surface world.
Does she know Song Oak is the Mega Monkey? Honestly, considering what we know about Dr. Emilia so far, I wouldn’t put it past her to enslave a former colleague.
5. Rewatchability
The best thing about “Fun Gus” is the way it recontextualizes everything we’ve seen before. The reveal that Song is the Mega Monkey isn’t just a great twist, it takes powerful emotional moments from past episodes and augments them, making them even more powerful. Back in the episode “Cäctustown,” when Kipo sang to the Mega Monkey and managed to break through the collar’s control, we now know that was Song reaching for her own anchor—for her family. We get to see how the headband Kipo gave Song in “Paw of the Jaguar” has acted as a reminder of Song’s anchor since then. “Fun Gus” takes these moments and, now that we understand what else was happening there, elevates them, making them a richer viewing experience than they were the first time around—and they were already pretty powerful sequences!
What did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments.
