“A Midsummer Night’s Love Quadrangle” or “Much Ado About Shipping”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

It’s the annual Lake Lilac Summer Social (in case the title didn’t make that clear), and all of the camps are invited to get down. David is eager for everyone to have fun while Gwen seems rather dead set on getting those hormones flowing. Unfortunately for her, she seems to have forgotten that all three camps basically hate one another, and barely tolerate their fellow campers at that. She does see an opening to incubate some drama when, while Max and Nikki go to cause mayhem, Flower Scout Tabii (with-two-i’s-and-one-eye) shows up to hit on Neil. Neil, however, becomes smitten with blue haired Flower Scout Erin when she makes a scientific reference. Gwen tries to fix this by sending a secret note to lead her to Neil, but the wording points her to Wood Scout Snake (tasked with recruiting new members), who in turn finds himself taken with fellow eye-patch wearer Tabii, making a complete love square. Neil tries getting advice from Ered about “going with the flow” to properly talk to Erin, while Gwen plots to have him go for Tabii and leave Erin to go for Snake.

Everybody got that?

Flower Scout leader Sasha pushes Erin to make Snake jealous by using Neil, and Snake asks Tabii to dance, allowing Tabii to use this to make Erin jealous. Gwen tries fixing things according to her plan, but eventually, the truth about the girls manipulating the guys comes out. So chances for romance get flushed, but the two Flower Scouts bond over their different eyeballs and Neil and Snake cheer each other up. And at the end of the dance, the King and Queen of the Social have crowned: Gwen and gross camper Germy Farts.

OUR TAKE

We’ve reached the halfway point of the season with the first of two double-length episodes. The other one’s likely going to be the finale, much like the last season’s finale, but did this timing warrant the extra runtime? I know shipping is pretty big in any fandom, especially this one, but compared to meeting the campers’ parents or getting David thrown in prison, was it so important that it required the equivalent of two episodes?

Personally, while I’m not entirely certain how I’d go about it, I think we could’ve condensed this to about the normal length if we removed the dance as a setting. That alone would remove at least a couple of the more erroneous subplots like Sasha wanting to be prom queen or David trying to make sure everyone’s having fun. As for what the Flower and Wood Scouts would be doing at Camp Campbell, you could just as easily fill it in with some other multi-camp activity, though this is all off the top of my head and might not fully add up.

Another option, which they may have been trying to subtly avoid to not tip their hand, is making it another play-based episode like they had in the first season. This may or may not have been intentional (or I may be stretching a bit), but this episode shares some notable similarities with a certain Shakespeare play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, which covers the wavering affections of two couples who are manipulated by fairies. It would be a neat change of pace for the show to throw itself fully into a play adaptation starring the kids and counselors, and it’s not like they’d have to worry about copyright strikes. But then again, the best cartoon adaptations of classic plays I’ve seen tend to be the ones that make you completely unaware of their source, like OK KO’s “Rad Likes Robots” for Romeo and Juliet, or even Venture Bros.’ “Everybody Comes to Hank’s”, which has elements of Oedipus Rex. So, if this does turn out to be a conscious but tempered allusion to a work of Shakespeare without outright stating it, consider me impressed.

All of that aside, it was also nice to see the respective lackeys of the Flower and Wood Scouts get some spotlight away from their leaders. The Flower Scouts, all voiced by Samantha Ireland (who also voices Nora Valkyrie in RWBY), initially started as hive mind valley girls with their leader Sasha being a slightly elevated level of mean. This changed in later appearances as Tabii became further developed through her obsession with Neil. Less apparent was Erin’s slow forming into the “smart one” of the group, which finally gets a bit of plot relevance with this episode. This, along with Ireland’s differing voice work for each girl, has allowed them to become just a bit closer to being separate characters. And of course we have the return of Dante “Fire Lord Zuko” Basco in more prominent role on the show than ever, so it’s pretty cool they’ve managed to keep around this long.

Overall, while I’ve never been super fond of the “big dance” plot (I don’t need any help drudging up the awkwardness of middle school thank you very much), this episode did end up landing on a positive and underrated message, namely that you shouldn’t be attracted to someone based on preconceptions, and especially not if they hurt you. You should value yourself and consider that you are as much a prize for them to earn as you may see your crush as. Love yourself, strive for more, and pay that love forward to others who need it. And with a moral like that, I can’t rank this episode too low.

Also, shout out to Quartermaster’s DJ Deadrat. Got a chuckle on every rewatch.

Score 7/10