Feature: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Episode 26: It's a Trap) Television 

Five Thoughts on Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts’ “It’s a Trap”

By | November 22nd, 2020
Posted in Television | % Comments

Welcome back to Multiversity Comics’ Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts reviews. This week there’s. . . well. . . there’s a lot to digest. We’re in the final half of the season and things are getting heavy.

I’m thinking of the wrong franchise, aren’t I?

“It’s a Trap”
Written by Leore Berris
Directed by Michael Chang

1. The Goat Cheese Prophecy Strikes Back

This season has seen Kipo and company revisiting a lot of mutes in their efforts to launch H.M.U.F.A., so it’s certainly not a surprise to see the Chèvre Sisters again. If anything, I’m surprised it took till more than halfway through the season. I guess Kipo’s been very busy.

Anyway, they’re back and with them comes a new prophecy: “Dr. Emilia will not waver from ridding the surface of all mutekind. With her new army, she will succeed. Unless you stop them. You will need to fight the ones you care about in order to save us all.”

And Kipo’s hesitation about fighting the people from her burrow is understandable. She’d rather talk to them and get through to them and change their minds. That’s a good thing to want, but as this episode will show, that can come at a cost.

2. Immunity

Before we get to the heavier parts of this episode, I want to take a moment to celebrate a plot progression that changes the game a bit: Kipo’s immune to Dr. Emilia’s formula! Look, I’m taking the wins where we get them because this episode gets bleak. This development frees Kipo to attack some issues in a more direct manner. And yet. . . there’s some visual foreshadowing here that does not bode well for Kipo.

I’ve mentioned a few times now that we’ve been seeing signs that Kipo is slipping, but this image is pure alarm bells.

3. Reunion

This episode brought so many mutes together from past episodes it felt a bit like a reunion episode. Look, it’s Jamack, and he’s excited about making traps! Hey, there’s Brad and Amy, I love those two rats! Oh, even the Newton Wolves came along! It makes the first part of this episode so much fun, but it isn’t fun for long. This episode is on a collision course with tragedy.

4. Humans on Top

Yikes. Dr. Emilia isn’t even trying to disguise the biological hierarchy she wants to impose on the world, and yet there’s no hesitation from her followers—they cheer those words right back at her. They haven’t even made room in their minds for the idea that mutes have personhood.

There’s a moment in this episode, when Kipo looks at the humans attacking, and she sees Asher and Dahlia’s parents, her math teacher, and all the people she grew up with, and she can’t reconcile the people she knows with the evil they’re about to inflict on the mutes.

I’ve had that moment as a kid when I suddenly realised a lot of the adults in my life were racist. It’s very familiar. Structurally, the creators have done something with this episode that reflects this too. At the beginning of the episode, Kipo says her parents are away getting stuff for a vaccine, but it’s not just Lio and Song that are gone. All the human adults that are a part of H.M.U.F.A. are visually absent during the central conflict of this episode, and Emilia’s side is all adults, which makes this episode read as a generational conflict. This isn’t a coincidence, but rather a very deliberate choice by the creators.

There are people in your life that you care about that harbor toxic ideas that need to be challenged, and if you choose to avoid that conflict, well. . .

5. The most vulnerable people bear the cost of inaction

The humans came into the mutes’ home with guns and this costs lives. Yes, I know those mutes are still technically alive, but the show has never exactly been shy about equating this with death. When Yumyan is turned back into an animal, they have a memorial for him. And Scarlemagne unambiguously equates it with death when he says, “Here I am, all packaged up in a see-through to-go box, so go ahead, pop the top. Let me out so they don’t kill me.”

Continued below

Tolerance should never excuse hateful rhetoric. Kipo’s plan to change the minds of her people is admirable—she wants to get through to them like Zane. And yet, look at what a fickle ally Zane turned out to be. “Zane-ing” Zane didn’t even fully work. One of Zane’s people shoots at Label, and yes, Zane saves Label. . . but BARELY. Then he walks back what he did and pretends it was a muscle spasm. He does not confront his people. While it’s true Zane doesn’t shoot any mutes himself, it’s also true he just silently stands with his fellow burrow humans while they shoot mutes.

Zane is an excellent illustration of the difference between someone that says they’re not racist versus someone that is actively antiracist. And this is true of any form of intolerance. It’s not enough to simply morally absolve yourself. You have to actively fight the intolerance in your life, even when it’s coming from friends and family.

So, what did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments.


//TAGS | Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

Mark Tweedale

Mark writes Haunted Trails, The Harrow County Observer, The Damned Speakeasy, and a bunch of stuff for Mignolaversity. An animator and an eternal Tintin fan, he spends his free time reading comics, listening to film scores, watching far too many video essays, and consuming the finest dark chocolates. You can find him on BlueSky.

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