As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve started a new series of analysis posts that I am calling Double Take. Each of these posts will focus on an episode from the first season of Star vs. the Forces of Evil, usually a less-popular episode, and discuss the surprising complexity that some of those early episodes offer.

The season one episodes that I plan on talking about act, I believe, as a kind of “primer” for the audience – that is, an instruction book on how to view future episodes; in other words, these episodes subtly introduce complicated ideas in order to prepare the audience for the later return of these ideas in even more complex forms. One such episode that falls into this category is “The Other Exchange Student.”

Why This Episode?

Like “Lobster Claws,” “The Other Exchange Student” is a lesser-liked episode that many rank near or at the bottom of their list of favorites. I, too, ranked it near the bottom of my favorite episodes. Yet on repeat viewings, I began to realize that there is something very peculiar about this episode – something that, to my knowledge, no one has really remarked on.

In this Double Take, I’ll discuss how Star’s paranoia in “The Other Exchange Student” is – despite being played for laughs – actually quite reasonable. I’ll also connect the lying and conspiracy we see in this episode to later episodes and explain the realizations I think the episode wants us to make.

Starspicious

First things first: Star is absolutely correct to be suspicious of Gustav. Though it’s Star’s jealousy which prompts her to be skeptical of Gustav in the first place, her belief that something is amiss is eventually confirmed by Gustav himself when he breaks down and reveals that he is, in reality, a boy named Charlie Booth.

Yet there’s something peculiar about Gustav’s confession: he never explains why he’s measuring the Diazes in their sleep.

Gustav’s inability to explain his extraordinarily suspicious behavior casts immediate doubt on all of his previous explanations – raising the possibility that he’s simply lying to Star about the rest of his actions.

Now where have we seen someone rattle off plausible explanations in response to a list of suspicious behaviors before?



Oh, right.

Webs of Deceit

I’ve written extensively about the (quite frankly) pretty incredible number of lies being told in season two (especially in the finale) by Ludo, Glossaryck, Moon, and Star. What’s more, many of these lies seem to have fooled most viewers. Yet all the way back in “The Other Exchange Student,” we have in Gustav some early exposure to a practiced liar and social chameleon whose motives are unclear.

The show, I think, wants us to draw a parallel between Gustav’s behavior and that of later characters – particularly Ludo and Toffee. In fact, this might be why “The Other Exchange Student” is paired with “Monster Arm.” I firmly believe that each pair of episodes is connected for some reason – and the reason behind the pairing of “Monster Arm” and “The Other Exchange Student” is that they both in some way precede Toffee and Ludo’s relationship. If you are skeptical, consider this: what is Ludo’s wand if not a literal monster arm? And what is Toffee if not (quite literally) part of Ludo now?

But remember that Gustav isn’t the only one who lies in “The Other Exchange Student”; in order to keep them happy, Star lies to the Diazes about what she’s learned. Does that sound familiar? Star admits in “Starcrushed” that she’s been lying to herself and to Marco about her feelings for him – something she did in order to maintain their friendship.

Let’s be honest for a moment: Gustav is no anomaly. When you really think about it, Star vs. the Forces of Evil is absolutely chock-full of shady characters:

Star, who is described – in glowing terms, no less – as a literal criminal.

Glossaryck, who (I argue) is one of the biggest liars of them all.

Pony Head, who lies and steals constantly.

River, who lies to Moon and sneaks away to fight monsters.

Moon, who teaches Star that the truth is dangerous.

Rhombulus, who makes a deal with Star to hide things from the commission.

Buff Frog, who used to torture people professionally.

Janna, who is just shady as all hell.

Tom, who is a psycho stalker.

StarFan13, who constantly stalks Star.

Sensei, who really shouldn’t be running a business.

Oskar, who lives in his car, drops out of school, and has a record.

Roy, who fleeces people for money and sells drugs to kids.

Brigid, who steals hair (for good purposes, granted).

Lydia, who puts up a fake ad about a dog and stalks Star.

… And that list doesn’t even include the “bad guys.” (Sorry about getting off-track, but it just hit me how incredibly weird it is to have so many shady characters – in a Disney cartoon, no less.)

But beyond specific comparisons, I think “The Other Exchange Student” wants to covey some broad messages to the audience as well: it wants us, the audience, to start thinking about the things that characters say; it’s trying to teach us not to trust characters when they say things, to be skeptical, to make our own judgements, and to remember what really happened instead of letting characters feed us misinformation.

In short – and this may be a bitter pill to swallow – “The Other Exchange Student” is just a warm-up. As the series progresses, the lies will get subtler, more complicated, and harder to detect, just as they do in “Starcrushed.” If that seems a little paranoid to you – well, maybe you should be a little paranoid.

Star vs. the Forces of Evil and Other Conspiracy Theories

When we first see Star’s wall of conspiracy in “The Other Exchange Student,” it seems fairly obvious that we, the audience, are intended to react as Marco does and think that Star has gone insane. Yet by the end of the episode, we know the truth: that Gustav really isn’t who he says he is – and in fact might be lying about everything altogether.

This, by the way, isn’t the last time we see Star’s suspicions of someone be dismissed only to later be proven as correct the whole time (see “Trickstar”).

But what are the implications of the fact that Star ends up being correct about Gustav?

Well, the meaning seems fairly simple to me: there are odd connections in the show that form a conspiracy – or plot, if you will – which points to something bigger. And “The Other Exchange Student” is the show’s way of telling us to pursue those connections. How does it tell us that? By revealing that Star isn’t wrong.

I truly cannot emphasize this enough: Star isn’t wrong in “The Other Exchange Student.” We never discover what Gustav is really plotting, and everything that he says to Star may be a lie. For all we know, he might have actually been planning to eat the Diazes the whole time. We simply never learn the real truth behind his origins or motives.

Speaking of conspiracy theories – many of you scoffed when I brought out some (fairly convincing, in my opinion) evidence that not only was Starbruary’s episode release structure based on a sonnet, but that those episodes also reference Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Scoff if you like. Yet, to this day, no one has offered any better explanations as to why, for instance, “The Bounce Lounge” and “The Hard Way” are, almost shot-for-shot, compositionally alike. (Seriously – play both episodes at the same time. It’s uncanny.) I explain the similarity as them being connected through the sonnet’s structure; if you have a better explanation, then please, by all means, provide it.

Furthermore, Lekmet – as noted in my post on the Holy Grail – is almost certainly based on Baphomet, who is connected to the Knights Templar, and I’d be hard-pressed to name any other group whose mere mention conjures up as many images of shadowy global conspiracies, hidden treasures, and murky, blood-soaked legends as the Knights Templar’s does.

And, as you may recall, I finally linked the Holy Grail references to what I believe is a literal Holy Grail in the series – in the form of Lekmet’s horn, no less. If that’s not a conspiracy theory, then I don’t know what is! Yet I didn’t conjure this out of thin air. I watched the series and wrote about it. The evidence is all right there; anyone can see it for themselves – just as Marco might have seen in “The Other Exchange Student” if he had been willing to hear Star out.



And speaking further of conspiracy theories – it amuses me to no end to hear people talk about how much time they spent examining the chalkboard in “Mathmagic.” Even people with degrees in mathematics couldn’t figure out what it means. I think that’s just a case of missing the forest for trees – but I can’t blame them for trying. After all, the music in that final scene sounds suspiciously like the opening theme from Gravity Falls (purposely, no doubt).

Yet, as I write about in my post on the Indiana Jones connection, the important thing on the chalk board is, in fact, the last thing written on it: the number seven. It’s a conspiracy theory worthy of comparison to The Da Vinci Code – don’t you think?

Look – if you want to understand what Star vs. the Forces of Evil is trying to tell you, you have to think like the series. Part of the purpose behind “The Other Exchange Student” – behind many of the early episodes, really – is to teach the audience how to think about the series. But don’t be surprised if sometimes you can’t come up with an answer – after all, maddeningly, we never discover what Gustav is really up to. Some mysteries just go unsolved.

The Sum of Its Parts

Star vs. the Forces of Evil operates on a simple principle: with few exceptions, it forms logically-connected links of meaning through association, and then, as those links accumulate meaning through reuse, the series builds on them to introduce greater and grander concepts. Indeed, the point behind Double Take is to discover those links in the early episodes and suss out where they lead to.

Hopefully, I have convinced you that “The Other Exchange Student” is more important than it first seemed. Maybe I won’t be able to convince you that there is some kind of grand conspiracy in the show – and maybe there isn’t one! – but I think you should certainly take into account the comparison between Gustav’s deceptions and the deceptions of other characters.

I believe the series will only get more challenging and complex with the ideas it wants to convey. My goal as someone writing analysis about the show is to shed light on those complex ideas and make them intelligible. And I hope I have served that purpose here for you today.



If you enjoyed this analysis, please let me know, and especially feel free to let me know if there’s a particular older episode of the series you’d like to see featured in Double Take. I still have a few more episodes that I’m planning to cover with the series.