My Review of The Owl House season 3 episode 2 For the Future · 9:20pm May 13th, 2023
Special Rating Scale: 
: Awesome!
: Great!
: Pretty good.
: Meh.
: Overrated and boring.
: Terrible!
: Unnecessary.
Greetings, folks. This is Mr. J back with another special review for today. This afternoon, I will be reviewing the second episode of The Owl House season 3 entitled: “For the Future”. As I have already covered last week, the shortened season had a pretty solid start that left a lot of room for character development and storytelling, and I was really excited to see where things would escalate just before we get into the finale. Now, before this special aired, it got leaked online which revealed a lot of spoilers. Don’t worry, I avoided the spoilers as I normally do, so I went into this completely blind. And to be honest….this episode was weak. In fact, it was pretty much disappointing.
In this episode, Luz, her mother, and her friends race against Belos to confront the Collector. However, they are waylaid by minor antagonists who are seeking to achieve their own ends. Meanwhile, King tries his best to be a good friend to the Collector without making him angry.
Before I address the plot of the episode, I really want to first mention the elephant in the room—the main thing I hated about this episode…the Collector. Yes, I said it. They practically wasted his potential in being an interesting antagonist and instead made him a dumb little kid who simply wanted to play games, have friends, and have fun without realizing the dire consequences of his actions. Basically being an innocent, unsuspecting child, if you will.
Look, I know he’s one of the fan-favorite characters of this series, but this was the most shallow character writing I’ve ever seen for an antagonist. Ever since he appeared in season 2, they had so much potential in being a mischievous, trouble-making chaos bringer who relished the thought of spreading harm around people with no regard to life. But nope, he’s just a poor, wittle baby boy who wanted some sympathy. Don’t you have any idea how furiously annoyed I was when I read the fandom’s comments on this kid?
“Awww, he’s a cute baby! I wanna hug him!” “The Collector deserves a family! He truly deserves a happy ending!” “Awww, poor kid. Aww, he’s so adorable, I hope nothing bad happens to him!” FUCK, I hate that so much!!!!!!
Look, I get it, the show already has an irredeemable villain, so I guess they decided to create a sympathetic antagonist to balance things out. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with writing sympathetic villains as long as they’re written well for the story. But in this case, the Collector has had less appearances than Belos, and he isn’t as interesting or fleshed-out as Belos. It’s like they brought another antagonist too late towards the end of the show just to increase the stakes without any buildup for the Collector. How am I supposed to feel bad for them if they don’t have as much character development as the others?
So those are the only reasons why I hate this character: he is an uninteresting, dumb, and annoying kid who got shoved into the series just to play the role of a poor little kid who needed friends. What is this? MLP? Steven Universe? COME ON!!
Here’s what I would have done if I had to rewrite his character: first off, I would have made him a chaotic entity (just a shadow figure without an actual body) who loves to spread life-threatening mischief around mortals and doesn’t want to be alone because then he would have no victims to “play” with. Without mortals to torment, he’ll end up getting bored and genuinely sad. But if he’s around people, then he’ll be happy to play his favorite games…games that he knows are dangerous to people yet doesn’t care. He knows how much harm they cause which, in turn, makes it even more fun!
Plus, he can then collect the souls of his victims and store them in his own bedroom as a way of keeping his record. Thus, he lives up to his name “The Collector”! To prove that he is very skilled in his own games whereas the souls of his dead victims will be kept as eternal losers.
This is what I would have done to make him an unhinged psychopath, not a blissfully ignorant boy. Now with an actual villain like this, I would have to rewrite the second half of season 2 (including the season finale) and have Belos as the antagonist for season 2 and then have the Collector as the final boss for season 3. OR…just take out the Collector completely and focus only on Belos. That would have been an acceptable decision to make, honestly.
Now, I do admit that Fryda Wolff did a good job voicing Collector, but the series just wasted his potential. So disappointing!
Alright, I finished my rant on the Collector. Now to the actual plot of the episode.
It started off pretty decent until it completely derailed from the unnecessary subplot thereof. That involved the return of both Kikimora and Boscha….and they fucking teamed up for a while?? Like what?? What purpose did they serve in this episode? Why did Dana feel the need to bring in two of the fandom’s least favorite characters to distract our heroes? It just felt unnecessary, in my opinion. As a matter of fact, it added nothing but filler for the episode.
They had a great opportunity to add some flashback sequences where Philip and Caleb hang out together until Evelyn shows up and then we see a falling out between the two brothers. They had Belos hallucinate his brother’s ghost haunting him, so why couldn’t they have gone that route? It would have finally answered the burning questions fans have been asking for a while. We needed to see a full backstory of Philip and Caleb, but I guess we’ll have to accept only the crumbs thereof.
Good animation, great voice acting, but rushed character development, especially in Willow’s case. Her anger, fear, and anxiety came out of nowhere (yes, we see hints of her repressing her emotions in this episode but we see none of that in the previous episode), and they rushed her growing chemistry with Hunter just to have them together. Huntlow is a cute ship (I actually like it), but it had zero development throughout the show. Again, we’ll have to blame Disney for screwing it over.
Frankly, Belos was the only character who carried the episode and made it interesting. With him possessing Raine’s puppet form, he found a way to again manipulate the Collector to have him against King and his friends. And that is where it will come to an epic conclusion in the final special. With that said, this is definitely the weakest episode of the three. It gets a : Meh.
Peace.
Any thoughts about Luz wanting to be understood and her Palisman? Also, how would you have changed the special, besides the aforementioned?
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She had some neat character growth, and her palisman is kinda…okay.
I would have just taken out the scenes involving Kikimora and Boscha, flesh out Willow and Hunter’s relationship a little more, and most importantly insert a flashback sequence with Caleb and Philip. It would have been a much better special, in my opinion.
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Along with making the Collector a genuine villain instead of the “overused” misunderstood supporting character?
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Correct.