Wraith's Journal #20 - Magic is Corrupted! More Echo Creek Shenanigans [S2E3/4]

Journal #19 - S2E1/2

Hello again! The adventures continue with Star on Wheels, Fetch, Star vs. Echo Creek, and Wand to Wand.

Star's still having fun around Earth and the Wands are still acting up. Let's go!

\"It's not doing what it's supposed to\"

Star on Wheels

Star still has her child-like sense of wonder with the invisible goats. She's just having so much fun while Marco is teaching her how to ride a bike - and Marco totally stopped the bike with the pedals. Also, did the bike not have hand-brakes?

\"Teach me, teach me, teach me!\"

Star gets mad at Marco for letting go of her seat before she was ready, turning Star on the bike into a runaway since she doesn't know how to stop. Marco runs into Oskar who is fine with following Star in his car. Glossaryck turns up and eventually actually did give Marco the answer to save Star by 'just believe in the invisible goats'.

Glossaryck was weird, but we're actually learning more about him. He seems to have the answers to things despite there being no logic behind them - he just.. has the answers. What's up with that?

Marco, in a complete blind faith, falls on to an invisible goat that happened to be there. He chases after Star, regains her trust, and convinces her to use the pedals to stop (she's been coasting for several minutes at this point, sometimes uphill - physics!).

I like Marco and Star's hug at the end here - he was really worried about her. Also they're both still kind of holding each other at the end - tough day for both of them, but Star did learn how to ride a bike, mostly.

I like this episode. It's just a fun, 'Star adjusting to Earth life' moment. And Star and Marco's hug was one of the first times I started shipping them. They fit well together and care about each other very much. And I keep wondering about Glossaryck. There's more to him than it seems.

Fetch

Ah, Fetch, the dog episode. Marco is having trouble getting a straw into a juice box (those things are legitimately a problem) and Star is putting off sending her aunt a thank you card for the necklace she received. Star, annoyed at the Laser Puppies, throws her wand (fetch!), which is retrieved by a dog that refuses to let go.

Star needs her Wand, so she spends the next day trying to get the dog (which eventually gets named Willoughby) to drop it to no avail. Eventually, having come full circle to the dog park, Star catches Willoughby trying to do magic with the Wand, which she returns to a very confused Star.

Willoughby reveals that she's from a dimension where "dogs are the ones with all the problems". She teaches Marco to poke the juice box from the bottom with the straw. Star has a moment with Willoughby, telling her she can't run away from her problems. Marco is flabbergasted by this since Star has been avoiding many of her little problems, to which Star responds that she takes "breaks".

Star helps Willoughby transition to a more carefree life (Willoughby was envious of the Laser Puppies and how Star and Marco treat them) by giving her to a strange lady. Star also sort of compliments Marco since he keeps her in check. What is the best way to deal with problems anyway?

Yeah, it's Fetch. Few things I noticed: Star mentioned that the Wands are radioactive - is that not a problem for the Butterflys? What does that say about magic? The Laser Puppies sleeping on Marco was pretty cute. There was a 'Princess Missing' poster at the dog park - what's that about? And the Wand didn't react to Willoughby at all. This, in contrast to Lobster Claws where it had a very polarized reaction based on his current disposition. Do Wands just 'know' who's using them, or can use them?

Star vs. Echo Creek

Okay, first off, NEVER give Star sugar. Just don't do it. And was this the first appearance of Britta's Tacos?

Star accidentally smashes a police car with her errant fireworks spells. Star runs for it before she's caught, leaving behind Marco.

Star ends up spending the night in the LA Echo Creek River, and in the morning meets another strange lady who makes things out of hair. Star eventually becomes perturbed by her and runs off, diving into the water to avoid the silhouette of a person and a dog (what Star thought were the police) running in her direction. Star makes a bubble with her Wand, and falls asleep. She has a musical magical adventure with a sea serpent who offers her a choice: "You can do whatever you want down here so long as you never see your family and friends again." This causes Star to finally give in. She surfaces, and surrenders to the police who have been looking for her.

At the police station, Marco is asleep, having made several 'missing person' posters for Star. He's overjoyed to see her okay. Once again, we see how much Marco and Star care about each other. Star chose Marco and her family over 'doing whatever she wants'. Marco spent a day and a half looking for Star.

The police let Star off with a little bit of community service - washing all the police cars. Is this one of the only times Star isn't wearing a dress? And she tells us that the spell she used before was clears throat:

Rainbow glitter unicorn gnome kitty bacon Hawaiian nightmare. Yeah, I like spells with simpler incantations.

More adventures. And once again, Star and Marco's bond holds strong. They're good together.

Wand to Wand

First of all, kind of interesting the dual perspective episode with Star and Ludo here. Both are trying to make sense of their new Wands, and for Star, hers is acting up again (still).

Star doesn't want to do her chores (I guess she's on a "break") and summons Cloudy, except he's a hippie very green. Instead of taking out the trash, he makes a mess, and ends up breaking some of her dozens of Mewni battleships-in-a-bottle (Star, would it not be more fun to make different models?). This angers Star who hits Cloudy with 'Sunshine Friendship Spell' - except it comes out green. Cloudy, instead of being - actually I'm not sure what exactly Star intended to do here - grows to a giant size and becomes angry.

Cloudy is over the house now and Star keeps hitting him with green blasts of energy which have little effect. The high winds Green Cloudy is creating almost carry Marco away, which causes Star to fear for his safety. Her Wand, which had been growing green up until this point, turned back to pink. She saves Marco and casts Sunshine Friendship Spell again, which works - Cloudy is returned to normal, even questioning what happened. Marco, too, is curious about what happened with the Wand. Star: "I have no idea..." Star and the Diazes get to cleaning; Star elects to do so without magic.

Meanwhile, in the Mewni wilderness, Ludo is seeking shelter and food with Bird and Spider. They come across a pub dominated by rats, but the rats have no respect for Ludo and throw him out, despite him trying to use his Wand. Ludo wanders the badlands a bit and gets his Wand to emit a green blast of energy. He practices some more and becomes drunk with his newfound power.

Never give Star sugar; never give Ludo power

Ludo, Bird and Spider go back to the pub. Ludo taunts the rats who all fight him, but he uses the Wand and blasts them all with this green magic, knocking them all out. Ludo then brings the rats under his command, and demand they serve him properly this time.

So. We've seen the green magic a few times now. Ever since the Wands were cleaved they've been acting weird. Except this time we see Star overcoming that. When she was disinterested (in doing chores) or mad at Green Cloudy (negative emotions), her magic came out all wrong - it came out green. When she saw Marco in danger, and knew she could save him (a positive emotion, more or less), her magic worked again - it came out pink.

'Marco is in danger, I need to save him'

Ludo, on the other hand, seems to have embraced power for power's sake. He was upset that the rats mistreated him, and used that power to hurt them and make them his minions.

\"Now.. serve me some porridge\"

~

Once again, we're only 4 episodes into this season and already things are getting juicy with the Wands acting up - and no one seems to know why. Star may have worked out that her emotions were at play, but this keeps happening. First the Wand flies off on its own, now it's corrupting spells?

Ludo, despite losing everything, is getting more powerful. He's learning to use his new Wand to bring people under his control.

None of this bodes well for Star, who still has to learn magic with a malfunctioning Wand. Either way, she's still having adventures on Earth with Marco and getting into trouble. Something big is coming though. Will Star be ready when it arrives?