Review: The Owl House “Hooty’s Moving Hassle”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Eda’s curse restraining potions are running out, so she has to go to some special black market site to bargain for more with her gambling addiction. She loses but still gets out in the end.

But while she’s gone, Luz has watch the house, so no parties. Thankfully there’s no reason to, that is until she finds out Willow was left out of a moonlight conjuring AKA a slumber party in this world. The main difference is that they also bring stuff to life. They try to bring a doll to life, but instead end up bringing the entire house to life! Which is odd since Hooty is the house and he’s already alive. The house ends up wandering around the isles, catching the attention of some hunters of rare creatures, who are fought off with Willow’s plant magic. Willow also reveals that she and Amity used to be friends until Amity started using magic, so finding out she was being left out of the conjuring must’ve really hurt. But they get the house back, which gets everyone to start noticing Luz’s magic potential. Even Eda is impressed, though she still makes the three clean up.

OUR TAKE

The Owl House returns from a two week hiatus to begin its second quarter. Seems that, according to an interview, it’s getting 19 episodes, which is more typical of a freshman season of a Disney Channel program. That relieves me quite a bit, since I was getting pretty worried we wouldn’t cover a whole lot in just ten episodes, but I’m almost certain we’ll get to more than enough with 19.

And good thing too, as this week’s episode (which I almost forgot came out yesterday) does inch us slightly more in a few character developments. First is the slow but sure growing of the worldbuilding as we learn more about how Eda gets the potions she needs to hold off her curse of becoming a crazy feral feathery rage monster. The streets of the Boiling Isles are not always nice and supposedly can get quite mean, but it can be a hell of a lot worse for someone like Eda who is willing to bet her sanity and even her loyal companion King because she is just so addicted to playing the very lazily named Hexus Hold-em. I guess it’s neat to see there are notable pastimes in this world, but I would’ve liked it a whole lot more if we actually got a good idea of how the game was played, or if Eda learned a lesson from her loss instead of being bailed out by Luz’s antics.

Speaking of Luz, her plot makes me think of a combination between any given “don’t have a party” episode and that episode of Invader Zim where Gir became one with the house, only here we sadly don’t have Hooty going to a drive through and ordering tacos. At first I was dreading how boring this sort of storyline would be (up until the house possession), but learning about the past between Willow and Amity (which wasn’t very well set up in their debut episode but whatever) helped to give it a personal connection to Willow’s quest to feel more confident in her own choices. Although personal, the title made me think this would be an episode ABOUT Hooty (given that his name is in the title) and how he either came to meet Eda or went off to do his own thing. Maybe we’ll get that before the season ends? What we’re getting so far is perfectly fine, but I just think they’re always just a step away from brilliance and then pull back at the last second. Thankfully we still have plenty of time to see improvement.