Star vs. the Forces of Evil Season Two Post-Mortem (MASSIVE SPOILERS) · 12:54am Feb 28th, 2017
Today, the second season finale of Star Vs. the Forces of Evil aired on Disney XD. (Yes, second season finale. There is no third season yet. Those of you who thought this was season three were wrong.)
I have a lot to say about season two. Warning: MAJOR spoilers below.
FOREWORD
Season two of Star Vs. has been a rocky ride. The show's been going through some growing pains as the writers tried to do several things at once. They introduced a season-long story arc--which was not always evident in earlier episodes, and only truly became apparent later when things began to gel. They experimented with some episodes in the style of Adventure Time, which was probably not the best idea, and they evidently tried to do some Steven Universe type stuff. I wouldn't know whether or not this is the case; I don't watch Steven Universe.
They also pushed the envelope in a lot of ways, threw a lot of crap past the radar, and showed the first ever same-sex couple kiss in an animated TV series. And, y'know, dealt with some pesky growing-up and puberty issues.
A lot of people I know dropped Star Vs. in season two. I have friends who have been skeptical about the show since it put more focus on Glossaryck and started doing more Adventure Time stuff. I myself have questioned a lot of what season two did.
But the season finale and the last handful of episodes leading up to it restored my faith, and I am anxiously awaiting season three.
Below, I am going to share my thoughts on each episode of season two.
My New Wand/Ludo in the Wild
Season two got off to a weird start. It began the season-long arc with a pair of episodes related to the changes in Star's magic and Ludo's fate after the events of the first season finale.
It also started the trend of Glossaryck being a major part of this season, and not everyone saw that as a good thing.
Let's not mince words: Glossaryck is an asshole. He's an unlikable character. He's obnoxious, crude, and annoying. Basically, he's Discord without any of the charm. And he's excessively overused in season two, because he's a major part of the season arc. This alone has caused people to drop the show or lose interest in keeping up with it regularly.
More importantly though, it introduced the concept of wandless Mewni magic, showing Star using magic without her wand for the first time, and demonstrated the changes the damage to Star's wand had caused. (Strangely enough, the fact that Star's wand is cleaved has not been as major a part of season two as it seemed like it would be.)
Oh, and Star's feelings for Marco were teased.
We also saw Ludo returned to Mewni, conquering the wilderness (in a sense), picking up a large bird and a large spider as lackeys, and fashioning a new wand out of the broken piece of Star's wand--a wand that, despite only having a fragment of the magical crystal from the wand, seems to be quite powerful.
Mr. Candle Cares/Red Belt
Tom returns to dick around with Star and Marco because he's jealous. Star has a little freakout over her future as Queen of Mewni, because she doesn't want to turn into her mother, who she sees as a stiff, authoritarian figure with absolutely no sense of fun or adventure. Sensei is retooled into a needy, pathetic loser who lives with his mom, is laughably incompetent, lazy, and isn't even a real karate master.
Here, we see more of Star the Rebel Princess, as Star explores the reality that while she will one day rule Mewni, she doesn't necessarily have to turn into her mother.
"Red Belt", while a fun episode, is an ugly example of the kind of character derailment season 2 is notorious for, and honestly wasn't necessary at all.
Star on Wheels/Fetch
This pair of episodes is pure filler. Star on Wheels feels more like a season 1 episode. Fetch is...more of an Adventure Time episode than a Star Vs. episode. Glossaryck is in "Star on Wheels" for absolutely no reason whatsoever and is annoying as fuck.
Star vs. Echo Creek/Wand to Wand
"Star vs. Echo Creek" is another example of the Adventure Time style buttfuckery season 2 got up to, with a weird-ass episode about Star getting in trouble and running away and ending up meeting a crazy old hobo lady who's freakishly obsessed with hair and makes all kinds of hair furniture and hair art.
"Wand to Wand", on the other hand, is a more important episode, as we get to see more of how the damage to Star's wand has affected her magic and we get to see Ludo learning how to use his wand.
Starstruck/Camping Trip
"Starstruck" is an absolutely useless and unnecessary episode. If you want to know how unnecessary and useless it is? Disney XD has not bothered to rerun it in forever because it's the lowest-rated, most poorly-reviewed episode of the season.
"Camping Trip" is a fun episode where we get to see King River Butterfly being weird like he was back in season one. It feels more like a season one episode and while it has no real bearing on the season plot, it's a fun watch.
Starsitting/On the Job
This is a truly great pair of season two episodes.
In "Starsitting", Marco and Star are given the responsibility of looking after Buff Frog's tadpoles while he's at work. The song "Space Unicorn" makes a return appearance here in a truly epic fashion, and the whole episode is just a lot of fun.
"On the Job" shows us Buff Frog as an anti-hero, a dad doing a job, and how he's gone soft from the days when he was an evil monster for hire. It also introduces (if I'm remembering correctly; I think this was the first time it came up) the season's strange obsession with corn. Apparently corn is a BIG DEAL on Mewni, and the Mewmans are hoarding corn like crazy while leaving the monsters to starve. Or something. Anyway, Buff Frog joins a raiding party trying to steal a buttload of corn and they fail, but they find a hole in the forcefield protecting the corn. It's a good episode, in my opinion.
Goblin Dogs/By the Book
"Goblin Dogs" is another of season two's incredibly annoying Adventure Time-alike episodes that ultimately don't add anything to the experience of the series. It's an intensely irritating and frustrating episode and ultimately only contributes two things to the overall show: the introduction of Kelly and the first instance of the "650 dollars" gag which crops up a few times in this season.
"By the Book", on the other hand, is a super important episode, as it foreshadows Glossaryck's face-heel turn, and also features the first instance of Ludo hearing Toffee persuading him and giving him guidance from his wand. This episode, more than anything, is CRUCIAL to the season arc and sets up everything that happens in "Bon Bon the Birthday Clown", "Raid the Cave", "The Hard Way", and "Starcrushed"
Game of Flags/Girls' Day Out
"Game of Flags" is a very Star Vs. episode and a lot of fun, if a bit on the stupid side. "Girls' Day Out" is ALSO a very Star Vs. episode and a lot of fun, if a bit on the REALLY stupid side.
Sleepover/Gift of the Card
Hoooo boy. "Sleepover".
This one's big.
This one sets up and advances ALL the romantic entanglement subplots that drive the entire second half of the season. Marco's crush on Jackie is finally outed, and we start to see just how far Star will go to avoid admitting she has a crush on Marco.
"Gift of the Card", on the other hand, is a forgettably stupid episode about a gift card that will kill both the recipient AND the gifter if not used before it expires. It also features Miss Heinous and Rasticore as secondary antagonists, and begins Heinous' horrible character derailment.
Friendenemies/Is Mystery
In "Friendenemies", Marco and Tom hang out...except not really...and become frenemies...except not really, except yes? It's confusing as fuck honestly, but it does introduce the band Love Sentence, which is important much later.
"Is Mystery" continues the plot of the monsters and the corn, and Buff Frog learns that Ludo has built up an underground illegal corn empire for himself.
Hungry Larry/Spider with a Top Hat
These two episodes are both basically filler, and feel very much at home with what Star Vs. was back in season one. The former is a Halloween episode about a jerkass summoned spirit who "helps" Marco's dad become scary on Halloween by eating his entire family and all Marco and Star's friends to enrage him past the breaking point, because "there's nothing scarier than a man who's lost everything". It's actually a pretty clever, if WEIRD AS FUCK, episode. "Spider with a Top Hat" pretty much only exists because of the...well...spider with a top hat in the end credits animation, and it's just a dumb fluff episode, but BOY is it hilarious and WTF-inducing to watch Spider with a Top Hat turn out to be Star's most powerful spell! 
Into the Wand/Pizza Thing
"Into the Wand" is a SUPER IMPORTANT EPISODE as it reveals a lot of lore for the series, including Queen Butterfly's name (Moon), a dark and mysterious ancestor of Star's (Eclipsa) who was the most powerful member of the Butterfly lineage but also the most dangerous, and more. We learn that Queen Moon fought Toffee in the past. Also, Toffee's missing finger is found in Star's wand. ALL of this is critical to the season finale.
"Pizza Thing", on the other hand, is an incredibly boring Marco/Pony Head episode that I honestly have seen only once and don't even remember except in the vaguest sense.
Page Turner/Naysaya
This is one incredibly important pair of episodes.
In "Page Turner", we're introduced to the Magical High Commission, the Bureau of Magic, and the fact that magic is "on the fritz" across the multiverse. We also learn about Queen Eclipsa's chapter of the book, which is ALL KINDS OF SEALED and has "Dangerous Forbidden Dark Magic" literally written all over it. Star reads Eclipsa's chapter of the book...and decides none of what's inside is her thing, which makes Glossaryck proud of her.
In "Naysaya", thanks to a demon curse Tom placed on Marco to embarrass the hell out of him by blurting out all his insecurities and ugly secrets (oh, and put a talking boil on his neck) any time he tries to get anywhere with a girl, Marco is forced to expose all his insecurities to Jackie Lynn Thomas (and the school at large) and finally manages to ask Jackie out on a date.
Bon Bon the Birthday Clown
This is THE most pivotal episode of season two, and kicks the season plot arc into overdrive. In this episode, Star lets her jealousy of Marco and Jackie get the better of her, does something stupid, and ends up having the Book of Spells--and Glossaryck--stolen by Ludo. Losing the book, it turns out, is far worse than what happened to the wand at the end of season one.
Far worse.
Raid the Cave/Trickstar
Glossaryck's heel-face turn begins in "Raid the Cave". "Trickstar" on the other hand is an absolute turd of an episode that not even a guest role by Weird Al was able to save. It also further devalues Sensei as a character.
I seriously cannot even begin to tell you how much I hate "Trickstar". It is absolutely the worst episode of the entire series to date.
Baby/Running with Scissors
This pair of episodes is...interesting. Veeeeeeeeeery interesting.
In "Baby", Star is evaluated, and we learn that her magic potential is beyond her mother's potential at her age, and may even be on par with Queen Eclipsa.
"Running with Scissors" is one of my personal favorite episodes of the season. Marco has a rare moment of being a lazy-ass douche and uses Star's dimensional scissors to do all kinds of stupid, lazy things. As a result, he draws the ire of Hekapoo, the creator of all dimensional scissors. It turns out the scissors Star got from Pony Head were stolen by Pony Head from the bathroom at the Bounce Lounge. Marco is trapped in Hekapoo's dimension until he can chase her and all her clones down and blow out the flames on their heads. It takes him sixteen years, and he grows to a smoking hot thirty-year-old badass with a lot of mileage on him and a lot of memories and a Dating Catwoman romance with Hekapoo.
Then Star shows up just as Marco earns back his scissors, and Marco learns he's only been gone like eight minutes. He goes back to Earth, is fourteen again...but with sixteen years' worth of memories and experiences rattling around in his head, and he can't even remember the password to his laptop.
(And yet, it seems like everything that happened in this episode was just...FORGOTTEN after the fact. Which sucks ass.)
Mathmagic/The Bounce Lounge
"Mathmagic" is an utterly forgettable filler episode that's only noteworthy for being just plain fucking weird. "The Bounce Lounge" is another of those Adventure Time wannabe episodes that ends with a bittersweet moral about how nothing lasts forever. Even though it kindasorta has a purpose in persisting the tone of the season? It's weak, forgettable, and not one of the high points.
Crystal Clear/The Hard Way
"Crystal Clear" is a weird episode about a dumbass with too much power who's trying to find the source of the "magic fritz" but he suspects everyone and everything of being evil, and whenever he panics because someone catches him making a mistake, he encases them in crystal. Star has to convince him to calm down and think things through before he makes stupid mistakes. Ultimately, this episode is a piece of the larger puzzle, but one you can still see the whole picture without.
"The Hard Way", on the other hand, is one of the most important episodes of season two. In this episode, Ludo begins learning magic with Glossaryck's help, and we learn that Ludo had a rough childhood and never received any attention or encouragement from his parents. All of which is important later, of course, but more to the point...
Ludo opens Eclipsa's chapter of the Book and is possessed by Toffee.
Heinous/All Belts are Off
What IS it with season two and character decay? Because these two episodes are embarrassing.
In "Heinous", we see the forbidding, intimidating Headmistress of St. Olga's reduced to a pathetic, deranged, psychopathic homeless crazy lady who can't even tell the difference between a boy and a girl. "All Belts are Off" cements Sensei as the most useless, obnoxious, and braindead character in the entire series. (And Jeremy returns and he's a bigger turd than ever.)
Collateral Damage/Just Friends
"Collateral Damage" is the last filler episode of season two, and feels a LOT like a season one episode. It's just an amazingly hilarious WAT of an episode about Echo Creek's school spirit being destroyed when Star accidentally trashes the school's prized possum statue. Star tries to lift their spirits in a variety of unsuccessful ways, then finally manages to lift their spirits by encouraging them and reminding them all that they're better than a possum.
Most noteworthy part of this episode: the writers snuck a rimjob joke under the radar.
Yeah.
"Just Friends" sets up the season finale by SINKING the Starco ship mercilessly and BRUTALLY.
And now we move on to the one-hour season finale...
Face the Music/Starcrushed
Hoo boy.
Let me say, right up front, that the season finale MASSIVELY blew my mind. The stuff that happened in this episode was bigger than season one's "Blood Moon" and "Storm the Castle" COMBINED.
Let me just make a bullet point list:
- We got to see Queen Butterfly in a more active role, and this episode did more for her character than THE ENTIRE SERIES TO DATE.
- We met Ludo's family and learned that he's the runt of the litter and the black sheep of the family, but that at least one of his brothers cares about him.
- Star's loss of the Book of Spells and Glossaryck as well as her crush on Marco are outed in song form in front of ALL OF MEWNI, and all hell breaks loose as a result.
- Queen Butterfly and the Magical High Commission learn that Toffee is still alive. Most of the Commission are either killed or severely injured.
- Toffee absorbs the piece of Star's wand Ludo had.
- Toffee wants his finger back.
- Star finally tells Marco how she really feels and that she DOES have a crush on him, but the timing sucks, because she has to go back to Mewni and might never return to Earth since Toffee is alive and dangerous.
- Star's bedroom disappears from the Diaz house.
It's an even bigger bombshell than season one's finale, in a lot of ways. I'm anxious for season three now.
I have only one prediction for season three at this time:
Remember that Marco has his own dimensional scissors now? Yeah...he's not gonna just let Star go forever like that. He's gonna go to Mewni.
It hurts a bit, like Rick and Morty for a special reason. Sigh
Actually, to me, it doesn´t. We do seem some instances of Marco being a bit bleaker, like him saying in I think in Just Friends how life is basically pointless, or something like that. Still, I would love to see episodes about Marco´s sixteen years spent becoming badass
4438470 He reminded me so much of Samurai Jack
Also, Heinous still thought Marco was a girl earlier on, and well, she always seemed a bit unhinged, even back when she first appeared. I mean, she willingly brainwashes herself, and in a very Clockwork Orange manner
4438472
4438472 Huh, never thought about that. Seriously, Marco became a badass. I can just imagine Hekapoo or someone giving him back his thirty year old bod (Is him dating Jackie, being technically 30, pedophilia?), and coming to Mewni to get back Star, riding off into the sunset with her atop Nachos
4438480 Yeah in a great fight or he uses the scissors to go after Star
4438482 Or both. Gets Nachos, rips open a hole to Mewni, rides on in, and fights through all of the Castle Guards, who probably are about as competent as Whiterun´s guards
If only I had Disney XD!
in Naysaya I was reminded of the Invader Zim episode, where Zim gets a pimple, it becomes huge and he names it pustulio. Then proceeds to use it to hypnotize the school.
I really would like to see he writers either use Marco's extra 16 years or explain it away.
Greatly enjoy Star, but yeah I can see how this season had issues.
I like what they did with Glossaryck this season. Like you said he was always kind of a dick but this season attempts to show why he acts this way. I'm actually surprised he didn't appear at all in the finale and I am definitely curious as to what he is planning, honestly I like what they did with the character and how he's portrayed as being a neutral party in this situation.
Of all the episodes this season, Ludo in the Wild was the best. I'm extremely impressed with how Ludo has become a real threat to Mewni instead of a bumbling fool. He still has his fool moments, but overall, he's really leveled up. His recent badassery may be entirely Toffee's doing, but it's still cool.
I loved learning more about the former queens of Mewni in Into the Wand, including the extremely important tidbit about Star's mother, Queen Moon, defeating Toffee as a younger woman and severing his finger.
They really laid all their cards on the table in the season finale, didn't they? All
the love entanglements got dragged into the light, and a possible epic struggle for Mewni may be set up for Season 3. I'm on board with you, Moth, on what's going to happen in S3. I'm also interested in finding out what happened to Glossaryck and all the spells in the spellbook. Perhaps he's not as neutral as he said, and he fled with all the Butterfly family's knowledge to keep it out of Toffee's hands.
As a quick bit of trivia: Ludo's brother Dennis is played by Atticus Shaffer. Shaffer plays the youngest Heck child, Brick, in The Middle, which also stars Eden Sher as Sue Heck, Brick's older sister. Sher is the VA for Star Butterfly. I began watching The Middle for Sher, and it's a good family sitcom.
4438633 Links to illegal streaming sites are not allowed on FiMF.
...right. Just a quick note because the previous few comments look kinda wrong:
vaththecat's original comment containing an illegal link, I deleted.
The two deleted comments following that? Were either self-deleted by the user, or more likely, deleted by a mod.
When I saw all the deleted comments, I attempted to PM the user in question to ask what was going on with that, and discovered that user has blocked ME. Which tells me a mod deleted those comments and the user in question got mad at me for this.
(Just clarifying the issue in case anyone is wondering what's going on.)
4438537 True, I mean, he is, in essence, True Neutral. He doesn´t care who wins or loses, and he appears to do this to teach Star, as she´s become more motivated to learn her magic, even if the stress under Kitty means she can´t do basic telekinesis, which she appears to know, judging by those ships in bottles in one episode
4438482 I can imagine he uses his scissors like how Hekapoo did when fighting Ludo!Toffee, opening up portals to fling guards into, or just opening portals and letting whatever is on the other side deal with the guards
4440211 Maybe he'll do something similar
I assume you came across the thing several people have been freaking out about in the episode "Crystal Clear"?