Welcome back to Multiversity Comics’ Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts reviews. This week there’s dancing, sparkly lights, fancy dress, a K-Pop band, and. . . emotions.
“Prahmises”
Written by Joanna Lewis & Kristine Songco
Directed by Michael Chang
1. Liam
Emilia and Liam grew up in the same burrow, a burrow where someone can declare, “Humans on top!” and it’s met with applause. Even still, when Liam goes to the surface for the first time, he sees with eyes unclouded by the rhetoric of his burrow. In such a short time, he sees the potential in Mutes. It’s impossible not to draw parallels between Liam’s embrace of the surface world and Kipo’s back in the first episode. And surely that’s deliberate—the show’s creators are trying to tell us Kipo reminds Dr. Emilia of Liam.
It’s wonderful to see how excited Liam is about returning to the surface world and living alongside Mutes. And it’s horrifying to see how that’s not enough for Dr. Emilia. She can tell everyone that her goal is to get humans back on the surface, but it’s a lie. Liam showed her a way to that goal more than a decade ago, but she rejected it because what she really wanted was to reinstate human dominance.
And if anyone threatens her supremacy, she’s willing to kill for it, no matter who that person may be.
2. Science
Look, science is awesome, but it often gets a bad rap in stories about hubris and whatnot. And frankly, they tend to be lazily written and overly simplistic. On paper, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is the perfect story to follow down that well-trodden path—I mean, Dr. Emilia, the show’s villain, she’s a scientist, right? It would have been so easy to fall into common storytelling tropes.
But that’s not what the show did. Instead it celebrated science from day one. Yes, scientific discovery may have been what changed the world, but it was never the problem, it was simply a tool.
Having Kipo being a science nerd, having her parents being scientists, having the Newton Wolves sing about scientific discovery made it clear that science is a positive thing, so that when Dr. Emilia was introduced, she could be read as more than an evil scientist. She’s a zealot. In fact she’s so much of a zealot, she’s willing to hurt those closest to her. She will do whatever it takes to reinstate humans on top, to take back the world—a world which never just belonged to humans in the first place. She cannot share without feeling like something is being taken from her.
When she was younger and she and Liam went to the surface world for samples, she does not see the potential there, she does not want progress, and she does not want the truth if it doesn’t serve her purposes.
What’s worse, after she kills Liam, she uses his death to motivate hatred for Mutes in the rest of her people. She begins a cascade effect in her burrow that pushes people toward ignorance and radicalization.
3. The vulnerability of the Mutes
Every since “It’s a Trap,” I’ve been fascinated by what the writers are doing with the Mutes, especially Amy. Back in the first season, Brad and Amy were dedicated to the idea of human and Mute co-existence, and they paid the price for it time and time again throughout the first and second seasons, but it wasn’t until Brad was taken by Dr. Emilia’s “cure,” that this belief is finally broken. There’s something so heartbreaking about a belief, which is such a core part of Amy’s sense of self, being broken.
But Amy’s at P.R.A.H.M anyway, even if she’s not entirely sure why. Perhaps just to show the humans how much pain they’ve caused. This entire episode, it’s impossible not to be aware of the incredible risk the Mutes are making being at P.R.A.H.M. Clearly, they’re in pain, but they believe enough in Kipo to give this a shot. The inequality between humans and Mutes here is so visible. For the humans, this is a party, they can dance and feel safe, but the Mutes are vulnerable and hurting. Look at the interactions here, where humans are faced with the anguish they inflicted on these people, and they just sort of awkwardly shuffle away. The humans said they were sorry in the last episode, but they’re still struggling with any real accountability.
Continued below4. Wolf and Scarlemagne
God, I love these two together. One of the great pleasures this season has been seeing various characters working together and becoming friends, ones that I wouldn’t have expected. Lio and Dave was particularly great. Jamack and Troy in this episode was another unexpected, but utterly delightful surprise.
But Wolf and Scarlemagne are the best. Yes, they have the potential to bring out the worst in each other, but this episode shows that they also challenge each other, and they push each other to be better. Both of them are just cynical enough that they can never dismiss what the other is saying as sentimental nonsense as if it was coming from anyone else, and then they end up actually emotionally supporting each other. Most importantly, they stop each other from making mistakes, they stop each other from lying to themselves, they bring out a surprising amount of honesty in each other.
This season was too short. I want so much more of this. This character dynamic is wonderful.
5. Standing by Kipo’s side
At the heart of this episode is a simple idea. Scarlemagne and Wolf cannot protect Kipo without destroying what she stands for—the only way to truly be there for here, is to stand by her side. This is marked by Wolf giving up her wolf-skin cloak, and by Scarlemagne visibly and vocally allying himself with H.M.U.F.A.
Scarlemagne is at last truly reconciling with what it means to be Scarlemagne instead of Hugo—the emotional distance and power protects him from being hurt, but it stole away connection to his parents, the chance to grow up with Kipo, even the chance to be friends with his fellow Mutes.
For the humans, Scarlemagne was the source of so much of their pain in the surface world. This act of him standing by Kipo’s side and pledging to make a difference, and recognizing the pain he caused, becomes a way for the humans to truly demonstrate they are sorry, by letting go of their own grudges so everyone can build a better future tomorrow.
As Kipo said, “You can’t end a war by fighting it,” and in the final moments of this episode, we see both sides embracing each other as equals.
So, what did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments.
