Amphibia Returns for A Halloween Anthology

Amphibia Season 2, Episode 11 Review

While we won’t be seeing more of the show until 2021, Disney was nice enough to give us one more new episode of Amphibia to tide us over until then. And it’s a Halloween special, to boot! Granted, this won’t be the first time Amphibia has given us episodes that are perfect for the Halloween season. That’s not the point, though. The point is that we got some more Amphibia, and I’m not passing up a chance to review it. That, and I want to give my two cents on the stories being told.

The Shut-In Night

Taking us back to Wartwood for the first time this season, everyone’s getting ready for the Blue Moon Shut-In. It’s where they give each other supplies so they can board themselves inside their houses. This way, they can avoid looking at the Blue Moon and turning into hideous beasts. They pass the time by telling each other scary stories, all of which Anne says is just like Halloween.

Sad as it is, but Anne’s more right than she realizes. Thanks to COVID-19, Halloween in 2020 will be far more subdued. Trick-or-Treating has to work around social distancing, and I’m betting parties will be fewer in number. Heck, there may be people who will spend Halloween shut inside their homes!

Enough about that, though! It’s time for me to give my thoughts on each of the Plantar family’s stories! First up is Anne’s and its called…

Phone-Mo

Anne’s story takes place on Earth and is about Anne, renamed Anna. One day, some of her friends show her a video with the most adorable animal that any of them have ever seen! However, that video happens to be cursed! One by one, everyone who watched the video disappears, leaving behind only their phones until only Ann-a remains.

Before I go any further, I need to say this: there are human versions of the residents of Amphibia!

I had to pause the episode so I could gush over this. Matt Braly and his team were willing to give us human versions of Anne’s frog friends for this one episode. Somewhere in the world, some intrepid fans are making fanarts and fanfics based on this entire premise. FANDOM POWER

Gushing aside, I liked Anne’s story. It’s a homage to the 2002 horror film The Ring, reinvented for the age of social media and smartphones. The one difference being that monster won’t stop chasing you even if you share it with someone else. Fortunately, Anna learns the secret to defeating the monster: trolling, dislikes, and negative comments. I don’t know if that’s brilliant or a subtle commentary on the prevalence of trolling online. Fortunately, I don’t let trolling get to me.

Dead End

In Hop Pop’s story, he’s a young frog with a luscious pompadour, making his living as a wagon driver. One day, he picks up his next customer, a mysterious figure called Mr. Littlepot. And at every place they stop at, someone meets a swift end!

In case you haven’t figured it out, Mr. Littlepot is the personification of Death, made all the more menacing by the fact that he’s voiced by Mr. Sulu himself, George Takei! I may not be an uber-fan of Star Trek, but I love George Takei and his amazing voice. Hearing him play Death personified brings the perfect balance of menace and gentlemanly charm. Really wish I got his autograph at that sci-fi concert (I’m not making that up.)

As for the story itself, this had to be my favorite of the three. A tale worthy of the likes of The Twilight Zone. Don’t deny it: a normal guy driving around Death as he does his job is classic Twilight Zone.

Skin Deep

In our final story of the night, Sprig tells the story of how he and Ivy came face to face with the one called the Seamstress. What is the Seamstress? They say that it’s a being who lives in an old shack in the woods, taking any frogs that come near her lair and using their skins to cover herself. And Sprig and Ivy end up stuck in her home while looking for their bug ball.

The twist to this story is that the Seamstress is actually a glass frog, a species of frog with see-through skin that makes its organs visible. I think the moral of the story is that people have to comfortable in their own skin, but I forgot about that after Ivy burned down the Seamstress’ home.

Good Times In Amphibia

Overall, I liked the Amphibia Halloween special. It brought back many of the characters from Season One, gave us something to carry us through the long winter ahead of us, and gave the writer’s a chance to cut loose and have fun. It’s a win-win-win for everyone involved.

As I said at the start, though, this wasn’t the first time that we’ve seen Amphibia give us episodes with a premise that could fit for Halloween. We already got that with “Night at the Inn” and “Children of the Spore“, each of which has a pretty scary premise. In a pretty cool call-back to those episodes, though, Polly tried to use them both for her scary story, only for it to fail since they all lived through it. They even gave us title cards and everything.

Personally, though, I was kind of hoping that an Amphibia Halloween special would see the return of that mind-controlling mushroom. I mean, the ending to the latter did imply that!

Aside from that, though, I thoroughly enjoyed this Halloween themed romp in Amphibia. If anything, it’s only gotten me more hyped for the back half of Season Two in 2021. Yet another reason why I have to survive this year!

Oh, and that curse turned out to be real.

I Give “The Shut-In” a 4/5

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