Welcome back to Multiversity Comics’ Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts reviews. This week Scarlemagne complains about his food (again), smashes some plates, smashes a boombox, smashes an electric guitar, and unsurprisingly gets a lot of stuff thrown at him. I wonder why.
“A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing”
Written by Christopher Amick & Ben Mekler
Directed by Michael Chang
1. H.M.U.F.A.
We’re three episodes into the season, so we’re probably overdue for a discussion about H.M.U.F.A. (the Human Mute Ultimate Friendship Alliance) and Kipo’s amazing questionable aptitude for acronyms. So much of Kipo’s energy is thrown into making this alliance work, and you’ve got to respect her enthusiasm here, but what really interests me about H.M.U.F.A. is all the ways Kipo can’t make it work, because that’s when her friends step up and push just that little bit further. This is something we’ve already seen so far this season, and we’re going to see it a lot more, but I wanted to point it out here in particular because it’s an element in all the big character decisions in this episode.
2. Wolf helping because it’s the right thing to do and she’s a nice person
Wolf’s relationship with Margot is a complicated one. They are sisters, but when Margot was scared, she abandoned Wolf. Now both characters wear vestiges of that time—Wolf, a cloak made from the pelt of her adoptive mother, and Margot, a bracelet of flowers she was given by Wolf as a child. Given that Margot and her family attempted to hunt Wolf with the intent to eat her, robbing Wolf of the only family she had ever know, forcing her to live alone and fend for herself for years, I can understand why Wolf might be a bit upset about that and why she isn’t going to forgive Margot anytime soon.
But Wolf also knows that she stands with Kipo, and as such she has to uphold the values of H.M.U.F.A. if it’s going to succeed. For that, Wolf is willing to put aside her pain and help Margot.
3. Scarlemagne can’t be sorry
On the flipside of this is Scarlemagne. To him, H.M.U.F.A. is a joke doomed to failure. And it’s easy to see why he would be so skeptical of the concept of setting aside one’s grievances for the greater good—he, or rather Hugo, has already done that. All he ever wanted was a family and he gave everything for his family, and his reward was torture and abandonment. In light of that, a loving family him seemed like something he could never have, so he became someone that didn’t want family and hated the part of himself that did, so much so that he flies into a rage whenever anyone calls him Hugo.
The idea that Scarlemagne can be sorry is utterly laughable. Hugo, however, can be sorry, and this is the part of him we see come to life again in this episode. Kipo doesn’t abandon him, she keeps trying. For a while, Hugo only sees this as Kipo using him to push her H.M.U.F.A. agenda, which makes it easy for him to dismiss the idea that Kipo is laboring out of real concern for him.
But then Kipo tells him that the H.M.U.F.A. stuff isn’t all she wants—she also wants him to have a second chance. He’s not just a pet project to Kipo; she’s his family. This is where Hugo discovers he is sorry. His actions have cut him off from his family, and despite everything Scarlemagne has done, family is something Hugo desperately still wants. Look, he’s not going to overnight suddenly care about other mutes or H.M.U.F.A., and definitely not humans, but he can be sorry that his actions have cut him off from Kipo, the family he thought he couldn’t have. That’s where his apology stems from.
We know that Hugo can be incredibly self-sacrificing and loyal, and while Scarlemagne is certainly not that person, for the first time in a long time we can see that he wants to be Hugo again, which is certainly a strong first step.
Continued below4. “People tend not to forgive someone who’s tried to pour molten gold on them”
In kid’s media, we often see a character apologize and another forgive them—that’s just the way it’s done. And that’s never something that’s sat particularly well with me, especially since there’s the implication that if the character that says sorry truly means it, then the other has to forgive them. It is owed.
And that’s not why anyone should be saying sorry. It should be to demonstrate a willingness to change to make amends, not to be absolved of guilt.
Margot and Scarlemagne have done absolutely abhorrent things, and I think what this episode does really well is stress that if someone is apologizing to you, you don’t have to forgive them. Forgiveness is a gift, and sometimes a person can be so badly hurt that it isn’t always possible to forgive, but you can always choose to let go of a grudge, which is what Wolf and the mutes do. And maybe in time, there will be forgiveness too.
5. The work of optimism
Kipo’s a naturally optimistic person, but even still, this isn’t something that always comes easily to her. We see it slip every now and then, but she takes a breath and pulls it back together again. The effort of trying to remain optimistic takes its toll though and sometimes she lashes out. We’ve seen this several times over the course of the series.
Even still, sometimes Kipo hides this effort so well that even the audience can forget it. We take it for granted that Kipo will be the evergreen optimist, but after this episode, you might want to rethink that.
Back in the first episode of the season, Kipo was worried that she couldn’t get everyone to work together and Scarlemagne advised her to make them fear her, to use the Mega Jaguar to keep the mutes in order. The suggestion is something that obviously troubled Kipo and yet, only a few episodes later, when the mutes start raging against Scarlemagne, Kipo loses it and uses the Mega Jaguar to scare them into silence. It is just a moment and it passes quickly, but we should be worried.
Kipo is slipping.
So, what did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments.
