The Owl House S1E15-16: "Understanding Willow" and "Enchanting Grom Fright"

A stronger pair of episodes to finish out this order, I'm glad to say. And also a pair that, in the wake of the previous ones I've seen, are leading me to ask a certain question:

Should Amity have been the protagonist of this series?

Obviously, I'm only seeing a curated list of episodes that the customer deemed important. I don't know how prominently Amity appears in the ten-odd ones that I've skipped. Maybe she isn't in any them at all. Although...well, in that case that would almost make it even more telling, if the only important episodes are also the only Amity episodes. All of which seemed to be almost (if not more, in some cases) about her than they were about Luz. The pair of friendlier witch teens who I expected to be closer to deuteragonists, meanwhile, have pretty much just been minor side characters, and one of these new episodes calls this fact into particularly stark relief.

Luz's fish-out-of-water status makes her an easy audience avatar and exposition recipient. I can see why they decided to make a visiting earthling our main POV. But I'm increasingly unsure that this was their first choice.

Structural musings aside, episodes 15 and 16 are rock solid. Probably the most consistently strong Owl House instalments that I've seen so far.


"Understanding Willow" starts out seeming like it's going to be about those other witch kids who Luz is friends with but whose roles have been too minor for me to remember their names until now. Willow is the green-haired girl, and the buzz cut boy is Gus. This episode begins with Luz and Willow at school, where the latter has been the victim of bullying by Amity and her posse of rich aspiring cop friends for some time. Not like, super hardcore nightmarish bullying, but enough to make her school life unpleasant. Willow is licking her emotional wounds after the latest session of this while she and Luz attend memory photography class.

There's a spell that lets you pull photographic images from people's memories out of their ears. You have to be really careful with this though, because damage to the photograph will also sympathetically damage the actual memory inside of the person's brain. So, we're just going to have everyone in the class take a whole bunch of these and then leave them hanging up to develop in an unlocked classroom without anyone watching over them.

...you know, I feel like Luz is actually a perfect fit for this society. Too bad about the speciesism that seems to be blinding everyone to the obvious here.

Anyway. One of Willow's memory photos, extracted by Luz, turns out to depict a childhood scene of her celebrating her birthday with her best friend Amity.

Willow tries to arrange the developing photos in a way that hides the one of her and Amity from view, not wanting it to be the source of any more prying or drama or the like (in particular, she's afraid of what might happen if Amity herself sees it). After being told specifically NOT to attempt any zany plots to get Amity and Willow to mend bridges, Luz commits...well, this time it's a very minor transgression by previous episodes' standards. She just adjusts the photos so that the one with Willow and Amity is obvious to passerby, so that Amity will have to stop pretending that they were never friends.

The real transgression is committed by Amity this time. She sees the photo, hurriedly distracts her rich bitch aspiring cop friends from seeing it as well, and the sneaks into the photo room to vandalize it and in so doing erase Willow's own memories of ever having been close with Amity.

Amity's not a natural tealhead. Cute.​

Only she somehow fucks it up and ends up setting the entire album on fire. Losing so many cherished memories at once causes a massive neural shock to Willow and renders her a complete amnesiac.

They drag the babbling Willow to the owl house. Eda is, despite everything, legitimately the most powerful witch on the Boiling Islands, so if anyone can fix this it would be her. Maybe the imperial authorities also could, idk, but probably not without it leaving a felony on Amity's record, so in any case this is preferable. Eda does have a way, and that way is - and I'm sure most of you called this - casting inception. Luz doesn't have the magical experience needed to do this alone, and Eda is needed to stay outside to cast the spell, and...well, Amity knows the memories at the core of the damage better than anyone else they've got. Even though Willow's subconscious will likely be fighting against Amity's intrusion. So, Luz and Amity will be going in.

And yeah, it's basically that one episode from Gravity Falls, surprise surprise. Which ALSO came right before the end of that show's first season, lol. Owl House really is GFv2.0, isn't it?

...

Also, weird time for me to have noticed this, but I knew I recognized Amity's voice and it was bugging me that I couldn't place it. Turns out, it's Katara from "Avatar: The Last Airbender." Almost like if that VA had been cast for a toned-down Azula instead.

...

The process of repairing Willow's mind ends up working more on fairy tale logic than the more pseudoscientific flavor of magic that the show had me expecting. Because the cause of the fire was Amity's rejection of Willow, it's loving recreations of their best childhood memories together that have the best effect on un-incinerating Willow's mind palace. As they go, Amity is forced to tell (or rather, show) the story of her and Willow's doomed friendship to Luz.

Amity's (seemingly) sudden turning against her best friend was spurred by her getting attacked and almost sex trafficked by some racist Chinese triad stereotypes parents applying direct pressure. Amity kinda hated her aristocratic parents' friends' children, but she was commanded to make friends with them and pursue the same life path on pain of dire consequences. For herself, and also for Willow. Amity's initial rejection of Willow was meant to protect her, and she doubled down on being mean to her after that point to make sure Willow would stop trying to reach out and endangering both of them. This made Amity miserable, which she coped with by lashing out at anyone within arm's reach, which happened to include Willow.

It's been a few years since then, and Amity's personality is basically an artificial construction that she's built over herself.

While repairing Willow's memory, they're eventually opposed by a defensive manifestation of Willow's subconscious. Eda warned them that they might meet an entity like this, and that it retains its own intact copy of all the memories, but that it is a purely emotional creature that won't respond to logic. It manifests as a demon of purple flames, matching the appearance of the spell Amity used to burn the photograph, and it wants to burn out Amity AND all knowledge and memories of her. Making it both reverse the repairs Amity and Luz have made, and try to directly attack Amity herself. In the end, defeating it requires Amity to reveal memories of her own, letting it (and Luz) both see what was going on at her end of the initial betrayal, and allowing the subconscious guardian to understand Amity's ongoing crusade to purge any memory of their friendship on an emotional level that it can grock. Causing it to turn back into a representation of Willow rather than a fire monster.

Also, Luz uses that ice spell she learned last time at one point, so that's neat too.


I think the summary of this episode makes my point from the post's intro pretty pointedly. This is about Amity's relationship with Willow, while Luz happens to be standing in the room.

There's also a b-plot about Eda and King competing over who gets to be interviewed for Gus' journalism assignment. That seems to be the default for an Owl House episode's structure. Transgression (usually by Luz, sometimes by someone else). Consequences. Resolution/atonement. Goofy B-plot involving King and whoever else isn't busy with the A-plot that kinda sorta reflects it, ish.

It works. It's a good formula. But I also feel like it's being repeated a bit too often.

Fortunately, this next episode partially bucks the formula. In fact, the only part of it that it keeps is "silly sidestory about King," and even that part is more connected to the a-plot than usual. Also, while Amity is once again a major player, Luz feels like she belongs in the protagonist seat this time. I think that "Enchanting Grom Fright" might be my favorite Owl House episode so far.


Coming directly after "Understanding Willow" in the episode order, "Grom Night" sets out on the right foot from the beginning. The first thing we see is Luz mastering a new spell, through the same proven-effective method that she used in "Intruder."

It's quickly established that she's learned a number of them now. Eda's shamanic excursions to places like the Knee might be expediting this process and improving her learning methods, but still, she is also repeating the initial thing that worked, and accumulating more successes. So, better late than never on that one!

Learning more magic is making Luz more socially confident at witch school, which enables her to serve as a bridge between Amity and the Gus-Willow-adjacent clique that Luz spends much of her time with. There's been no more government pressure on Eda, either via Lilith or otherwise. Things in general seem to be finding a comfortable new normal for Luz. However, there's still a shadow being cast over all of this in the form of Luz's family back on Earth. Specifically, her mother is still texting her every day or two to ask how things are going at normal-away camp, and Luz has been giving monosyllabic at best and single-emoji at worst replies. She's been feeling a mounting guilt as the extent of her lie to her mother grows by the day, and everything she does on the Boiling Islands is weighed down by the fear of uncertainty of what comes when Earth-America's summer break ends.

That actually makes me raise a question of my own as well. How well - if at all - will Luz's magic work on Earth? Without a witch-gland next to her heart, will she not have any magic at all once removed from the power source that is the god-corpse? Conversely, if she DOESN'T lose her magic on Earth, then what the hell will that mean for both her and the rest of humanity if she spends her life there with this power?

Well. I doubt that's a question that will be answered before the final episode, if ever. So I'll just move on for now.

The catalyst for this episode's plot is the approach of Grom Night, and the choosing of this year's Grom King/Queen. All the students are dreading being chosen for this horrible task, and even Amity - with all her skill and steel - nearly breaks down when she is selected.

Luz takes a little while to get it.​

Every year, the dark god Grometheus rises from his prison beneath the school to feast on the suffering and nightmares of witchkind. Every year, a single child must confront the demon and defeat it in combat, even as it torments them with visions of their greatest fears and regrets. The community has taken to ritualizing this, with the school handling the ritual and naming the yearly champion/sacrifice as "Grom King."

Okay, when I heard that Luz was going to witch school, this is exactly the kind of deranged bullshit I was hoping for. I am satisfied.

Now, Amity can back out of this responsibility, provided she can find another child her age willing to fight or die in her stead. She would never even try to find such a volunteer; death would be preferable to the public appearance of cowardice, for Amity. However, she's also coming apart at the seams for the related reason that when Grometheus takes on the form of her worst fear, everyone else will be able to see it, and the nature of that fear would make that almost equally humiliating. No, she won't tell Luz what it is, obviously.

Luz manages to convince Amity to let her try it instead. Laudable. On one hand, Luz not having been raised with a cultural fear of Grometheus might give her a bit of an outsider advantage in this fight. On the other hand...when Amity's twin siblings give Luz a test run with apparitions of her stated top fears, she doesn't do all that well against them.

Redpillers, tormented human souls being trapped in cat bodies, and her own lactose intolerance were the top three items on her list.​

Of course, the biggest fear that Luz currently has isn't one that she thought to put on that list. Even the one that takes soul-searching and courage to admit to (Eda deciding she's not a worthy student and sending her back to Earth) ends up not being it. Pretty obvious where this is going. Well, where half of it is going. Amity's secret dread still ended up taking me by surprise when it's revealed near the end of the episode.

So, Grom Night arrives. Turns out that they DO have a school prom event with dates and dances, it's just that the battle against Grometheus and possible death of one of their classmates is the centrepiece of the event.

Whatever helps them cope with it, I guess.

When the battle begins, Grometheus starts out by shuffling through a number of Luz's lesser fears before homing in on the greatest one. She deals with the redpillers, the Shou Tucker cats, the milk, even the disappointed Eda...but then gets blindsided by a version of her mother who's just realized she's been lied to.

You'd think that this simulacrum of Luz's mom having the lower half of a shoggoth would ruin the illusion and make it easier for her to fight, but I guess not by enough.

Grometheus chases Luz out of the school, out of the town, and into the woods, eventually cornering her on a cliff with the seeming intention of trying to get her to jump.

The resolution...well, it kind of damages the internal logic of the story, even if it's thematically satisfying. Several individuals try to chase after Luz and prevent her fate. First to arrive is Eda, who fires a few shots that distract Grom for a moment, but don't seem able to deal any real damage. Next is Amity, who imposes herself between Grom and Luz, and it responds by actually changing to reflect her fear instead of Luz's for a moment. It turns out that Amity's big fear, the one she was terrified of being discovered, was being romantically rejected by Luz.

Seeing this, Luz solves the problem and starts the Disney executives' years-long obsession with getting this show cancelled.

I knew Luz was gay, on account of the aforementioned controversy (and there were also a few indications of it within the previous episodes as well that I didn't think merited comment at the time). I absolutely did not see Amity as the love interest coming, though.

...is the show doing a little thing here, about the Harry Potter fandom? Drarry being a super-popular ship and all? I think it might be. Heh.

Anyway, Luz is shaken out of her fear-paralysis, and Amity's own fear is neutralized, leaving Grometheus dazed and directionless for the moment. Said moment being enough time for the girls to tear him apart with a souped-up version of Luz's new flower-growth spell and send his disembodied spirit back into dormancy under the school until next year.

Now, the obvious issue with this resolution is that apparently two or more people can fight Grom together. I initially thought maybe that was just impossible, when Eda's attack didn't do much, but nope, Amity did as much of the magical heavy lifting at the end as Luz. So...the only explanation I can see for this is that making one unlucky kid have to do this alone is literally just a sacrificial tradition that the witches adapted to also kinda-sorta serve a practical purpose with Grometheus. There's no apparent reason why they couldn't have a small army meet him when he awakens each year and probably never suffer any casualties, they just choose to do this for their own fucked up cultural reasons.

Again. This is the best I can do to explain what we just saw. And, I mean...we already know the Boiling Islands are under an authoritarian traditionalist empire, so I guess stuff like this just comes with the territory in that light. Still, I didn't expect the show to actually go there.

There's also a subplot about King overcoming his own fear of public speaking when he gets a gig of narrating this year's battle for the crowd.

Like I said, this episode doesn't completely buck the pattern. Just mostly.

Anyway, the stinger gives us a bit of a cliffhanger twist. Luz responds to her mother's latest text with a slightly more verbose-than-usual reply, implying that Luz is getting over her fear and avoidance now that she's been made aware of them.

And, we then briefly see her mother's side of the conversation, and learn that the reason she hasn't been trying to contact her daughter more is because someone has been sending her fake letters, in Luz's handwriting, documenting her fictitious experiences at normal-camp.

Could be some shenanigans Eda is playing, but I doubt she cares enough to do this. More likely, the charade is being maintained by a third party, quite possibly one with sinister intentions.

So, I guess we'll have to deal with that eventually.


Like I said, "Grom Night" is my favorite so far. It lets Luz be the source of momentum without her having to do anything that makes me dislike her, while still keeping Amity in a solid deuteragonist position even before the romantic reveal. Good balance of action, comedy, drama, and heartwarming. Plenty of crazy stuff going on visually, even before Grometheus' attack (there's one dialogue scene that didn't NEED to be set in an eerie woodland swamp lit by firelight, but chose to be, and did so much for the episode's visual diversity in the process). Lots to like, very little to dislike.

I wonder again, though, if this show might have been better served overall by taking the "Tales of Amphibia" approach. Settling into Luz as the primary POV after a while if need be, but starting the series with Amity. It would be overwhelming, dropping the audience into witchworld without isekaigirl to do the learning for them. Especially for a show aimed primarily at children. Still, I wonder if the end result would have ultimately been a stronger series.

On the other hand, and getting back to the "Gravity Falls" compare-and-contrast, I feel like having Amity with her sibling-angst be the initial protagonist might have been a little too much of an "oh, this again." Luz has her own family stuff with her mother, but unlike Amity or Eda she doesn't have sibling drama. Letting that stuff be seen from an outside perspective does serve to distinguish "Owl House" from its predecessor a bit more.

On a closing note: Luz being sent to a parody of gay conversion camps hits a lot different with her being actually gay.


There's more Owl House in queue, but not for a little while. I'll be continuing this show when the next swathe of commissioned episodes is up.