Farewell to Amphibia: A Series Retrospective

March 2021.

It had been a year since Steven Universe came to an end, and I was rather aimless in terms of watching modern cartoons. Oh, sure, I made sure to watch the final episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars since I grew up loving that show and I wanted to see how it ended, but otherwise, I'd left a lot of Western animation behind. What was currently on the "big three" kids networks didn't interest me, and I only had one of the big streaming platforms. And out of curiosity one night, I decided to watch some more of a show that I dabbled in watching in a few months prior.

The show was called Amphibia.

I watched the show's first few episodes in November of 2020, but what I saw wasn't enough to impress me. However, something about the episodes I watched this time clicked with me in a way those first episodes didn't. Soon, I found myself watching through the rest of Season 1, making fan art based on what I saw there, waiting restlessly for Season 2 to be available on Disney+ (and watching THAT once I found time), and watching the first half of Season 3 as it aired.

Sadly, I found Season 3's first nine episodes to be a disappointment compared to what had come before, so I decided that I would stop watching the series before it got any worse. As a result, this isn't a "full" series retrospective so much as it is a look back on my experience with the series. In short, this article is a look back on Amphibia, a Disney Channel original that wormed its way into my heart for a time with at least two good seasons under its belt.

Let's ribbit, ribbit, jump on it!

DISCLAIMERS: There are some spoilers for Amphibia Seasons 1, 2 and "3A" (first half of Season 3) throughout this retrospective. Nothing major, but if you're planning to go in blind, be warned.

GENERAL SYNOPSIS

Anne Boonchuy is an average gal, all things considered. It’s just that she and her friends Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu have been transported from their world into a world full of frogs, beasts, and flies by a weird old music box, that’s all.

Okay, that’s not average-sounding, but you get what I mean.

Scrambling to survive this dangerous world, she finds herself on the outskirts of rural town Wartwood, home to the agricultural Plantar family and several frog townfolk.

The Plantars- patriarch Hopadiah “Hop Pop”, grandson Sprig, and granddaughter Polly- are alerted alongside the rest of the townsfolk by local town oddball Wally that there’s a “monster” on the outskirts of town. Seeking to prove himself responsible, Sprig sets out to confront the “beast”... only to find a defensive Anne. Actual monster-related shenanigans ensue, and when confronted by an angry mob opposed to Anne’s presence, the Plantars choose to take her in on their own.

Elsewhere, Sasha has been captured by a band of disgruntled toads commanded by Captain Grime (who she guiles into making her his lieutenant) and Marcy has fumbled her way into the utopian capital of Amphibia, Newtopia. What secrets does the music box hold? Will the three girls reunite and make it home? And how will they be changed by their travels throughout this mysterious land?

SEASON 1: Planting the Seeds

When it comes to first seasons of story-driven cartoons like Amphibia, there tend to be a few constants. Character dynamics are introduced and refined, the ongoing story begins halfway through the season or earlier, and whatever "early installment weirdness" (signs that the folks working on the show are still experimenting) is pressed out by the 5th episode mark at the earliest. While many credit Adventure Time as being the pioneer for shows like this, I personally believe that the formula for modern story-driven toons was set in stone by Disney's own Gravity Falls (created by Alex Hirsch).

For me, that show is the golden standard for story-driven television animation. It didn't run too short or too long (only two seasons), no characters felt like they backslid or were underdeveloped, it had the right balance of serialization and episodic storytelling, and it had an ending that felt truly satisfying, if a touch bittersweet. Of course, it's not perfect, but no show is. It's just that I feel like it set such a high bar that very few shows have managed to surpass.

How fitting, then, that Matt Braly (Amphibia's creator) actually worked on GF as a storyboarder and episode director. When looking back on Season 1 of Amphibia, you can see the lessons Matt learned from working on Gravity Falls. Sure, there's an ongoing story surrounding the "Calamity Box" (the music box that brought Anne, Sasha and Marcy to Amphibia in the first place) and Anne seeking a way home, but that story is cushioned by several lighter, more character-driven episodes. In doing so, the series is FAR more accessible than those that are just "PLOT PLOT PLOT" from the start.

A majority of the season is composed of these character-driven episodes, often focusing on Anne's efforts to introduce Earth traditions/technology/things to the frogs of Wartwood, her relationship with one or more of the Plantars and/or the Wartwood townies, her learning about Amphibia-n culture, or a combination of all three concepts. Hijinks normally ensue, and a lesson is learned by the end of the episode. However, even though these episodes are more episodic, they do contain ongoing development for Anne's relationships with Sprig, Polly and Hop Pop, showing the foursome growing into a weird but cute human/frog found family. (to quote a character from Season 2, "I love the found family trope!")

Heck, one of the strongest elements of this first season is how quickly it established the cast and then made strides towards developing them for their betterment. Anne began the series as a selfish city girl with a flawed idea of friendship (thanks to Sasha peer pressuring her) and ended this season as a courageous, selfless friend with a found frog family surrounding her. Hop Pop was a refreshingly wholesome elderly character (compared to more duplicitous folk like Grunkle Stan from Gravity Falls or Eda Clawthorne from The Owl House) with a few skeletons in his closet, Sprig 180ed from lazy frog boy to responsible young lad, and Polly... ah, poo. Polly sadly didn't get much development this season.

Lack of Polly development aside, this is still an incredibly strong main cast. If the quartet of Anne, Sprig, Hop Pop and Polly were a college thesis paper and I was the one grading them, I'd give them in Season 1 a respectable 85%- not perfect, but a respectable passing grade. There are also several standout townies, who crib from Gravity Falls in that there's a wide variety of them, they're all memorable and quirky in their own ways, and unlike the townies of Steven Universe, they actually contributed to the ongoing narrative.

The remainder of the episodes not in the "episodic and character-driven" batch were focused almost exclusively on the ongoing narrative surrounding Sasha, the toads, the Calamity Box, and Anne seeking a way home. Technically, this arc started with "Anne vs Wild" (with Hop Pop having been revealed to know the dangers the box contains), but the series's story really got going with the mid-season two-part event that is "Toad Tax/Prison Break". While these two episodes were separate stories, they paralleled one another and took place at the same time. As Anne stood up for the Wartwood townies (who still aren't entirely accepting of her) and makes strides towards becoming a true hero, Sasha remained stagnant in her manipulative ways, starting her career as Grime's #2 and her search for Anne.

Alas, we don't see much more of Sasha and Grime until the last two episodes of the season, where the former steals the show as a complex but still selfish and antagonistic rival/former friend to Anne. However, the lack of more episodes devoted to this devious duo is rectified by the next season, so it's not too big a loss. I would say similar things about Polly's lack of development this season, but that's getting ahead of myself.

There's also a smaller arc linking together three or so episodes about Hop Pop losing the family vegetable stand after being dishonest with his customers and eventually regaining not only the stand, but also the town's trust. While this arc doesn't have a lasting impact on later seasons, it does have some growth on HP's end and concludes with a really fun political episode that I recommend solely for how non-partisan it is. It doesn't matter if you're a red politician, a blue politician, or whatever colors Libertarians are associated with (apparently, they're gold-yellow); this episode will make you chuckle at some point.

Speaking of which, another area where Amphibia shines is with its writing. The sometimes macabre, sometime surreal and mostly absurdist humor that characterized Gravity Falls before it is present here, and as such the show has many gutbustingly funny moments. Humor isn't all the writing has to offer, though- the show is good at heartfelt, sincere moments as well and communicates its messages about friendship with a level of maturity I admire seeing in a show aimed at youths age 7 and up. Anne and Sasha's fractured friendship isn't as simple as "SaShA bAd, AnnE gOoD", and the series makes it clear through this season that both of them have things they need to work on. Anne has to unlearn the bad behavior she inherited from Sasha; Sasha is forced to face the reality of her and Anne's broken relationship.

If there's anything I could critique about Season 1 other than the lack of Sasha/Grime screen time or Polly development, it's that there must've been some sort of scheduling shuffle when it came to airing the show, as "Bizarre Bazaar" contains a reference to "A Trip to the Archives" despite being aired several episodes apart from it. This continuity flub can be ignored if you binge-watch the show, fortunately, but it does seem odd that they didn't just air "Archives" and "Bizarre Bazaar" back-to-back so we could have a big half-hour special.

Also, "Cracking Mrs. Croaker" is the objective worst episode of the entire series- not only does it screw up Sprig's reputation with the town (an early episode claimed he was something of an outcast; this episode portrays him on good terms with the town), but it also felt incredibly heavy-handed with its moral of "sometimes, people just don't like you." Unlike the gap between "Archives" and "Bizarre Bazaar", this one cannot be skipped due to it being paired up with an episode that shows what happens when Amphibian frogs face the chills of winter and "Cracking Mrs. Croaker" itself establishing Mrs. Croaker's... distaste for Sprig (a trait that had never been shown in episodes prior to this).

Regardless of these foibles, Amphibia started off on the right foot. It efficiently established its main cast and developed them (most of them, anyway) well, it balanced its ongoing story with smaller episodic stories as to not alienate casual viewers, and its humorous and heartfelt writing solidified its first season as a firm foundation for later seasons to build off of. And that's exactly what Season 2 did!

SEASON 2: Reaping the Harvest

I'm gonna be real with y'all. Season 2 of Amphibia is THE best season of the show, hands down. Not only did it rectify my issues with Season 1, but it revealed itself to be one of the greatest modern cartoon seasons I'd seen in quite some time. Had I known the show was capable of pumping out such a "banger" of a season when I started watching, I probably would've started watching a lot easier.

So, what exactly makes this season so good?

Well, dear readers, this is where Amphibia's ongoing narrative shifted from "that thing that was going on in the background" to "the primary focus of the show; hope you've been paying attention". That doesn't mean that the episodic character-driven stories ceased all together- far from it. It's just that they're utilized more strategically, usually to further preexisting character development or to establish new character dynamics amidst the intertwined arcs running throughout this season.

And good gravy gracious, there are a LOT of threads that get woven together! Hop Pop faces the consequences of a deceitful act he committed late in Season 1, Anne, Sasha and Marcy work to mend their strained relationship, Marcy finds herself in the crosshairs of a dark conspiracy involving the Calamity Box, the Anne/Plantars/Marcy team works to restore the gems powering the Calamity Box to full power, Sasha and Grime prepare a coup against King Andrias (ruler of Amphibia as a whole; more on him later), and Anne grows closer to her frog found family. Keep in mind, this is all in ONE season.

By some manner of the arcane, the Amphibia writers did what many other story-driven cartoons fail to do. They made almost every single one of those plot threads mentioned above pay off by the season's end. Of course, not everything was resolved (Season 3 needed some story to call its own, after all), but what Season 2 accomplished is nothing short of impressive. There's nary a bad episode among this batch, as even the poorer episodes are at least mediocre and consistent with what the show had established before hand (which is more than I can say for "Cracking Mrs. Croaker").

Moving on, let's discuss characters new and old. Anne and the Plantars are on par with how they were a season prior. Anne grows more courageous and selfless; Hop Pop owns up to his lie (temporarily fracturing his relationship with Anne before mending it). Polly is fortunately less a one-note "small child who likes violence and makes morbid comments" character this season, learning from her mistakes and becoming more mature (for the latter, quite literally in the season finale).

Sadly, Sprig seems to be the Plantar child who was shafted this season. The most we got with him were some episodes that repeat the whole "proving he's responsible" thing and furthered development of his relationship with his feisty sparring partner Ivy Sundew, but other than that, he remains rather stagnant. Admittedly, this wasn't bad (since his development in Season 1 left him at a decent place), but I personally feel like the writers played their cards with him too early and as a result he got put on character development standby until everyone else got caught up.

Outside of the Plantars' continued growth, this season found Sasha and Grime at the center of their aforementioned coup plot. I was very pleasantly surprised to see how Season 2 not only gave them more spotlight episodes, but also took the time to flesh both of them out. Sasha's complexities are further delved into as she questions whether or not she needs to be the domineering manipulative alpha blonde she was before getting warped to Amphibia; Grime's sillier side comes out and we see the strength of his bond with his newly-appointed lieutenant. The brand of simple but effective "fun evil" that the latter brings to the table is something sorely missed in this age of morally ambiguous non-villains whose motivations are so complex or ambiguous that they make no sense when looked at through a more critical lens.

If there was anything I could compare the Sasha/Grime dynamic to, it would be the relationship between rash, angry, and conflicted Prince Zuko and his loving, wise, and wise-cracking uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Granted, Iroh doesn't have a bad bone in his body (from what I've seen) compared to Grime, but both duos are composed of a reckless, stubborn youth and their experienced mentor who can read their younger charge's emotions like the morning newspaper no matter how hard the youth attempts to act like they're fine. While I don't normally make A:TLA comparisons, I believe that due to how well Sasha is written (considering how her mistreatment of Anne has hurt their friendship; wanting to change despite not really knowing how), it's a comparison worth making.

Now that we've made our way through the old guard (returning characters), let's talk about the newbies for this season. One would expect me to start with Marcy since she became a fan favorite almost five seconds after she was introduced, but I'd rather "subvert your expectations" and discuss General Yunan, Scourge of the Sand Wars, Defeater of Ragnar the Wretched, and Youngest Newt to Ever Achieve the Rank of General In the Newtopian Military. And yes, the show makes jokes about how ridiculously long her title is.

Despite only appearing in 3 episodes, Yunan made a fantastic impression on me through those three appearances. She takes her duty as one of Andrias's generals very seriously, but at the same time, this self-seriousness is a fault of hers that the writers exploit for humor. Add on a killer character design, and you have my favorite newbie of the season.

Yes, really; I like her more than Marcy.

Call me a heretic all you want, Amphibia f-Annes, but I have my reasons to not like Ms. Wu as much as you do. Admittedly, I wouldn't say Marcy is an outright bad character- quite the opposite, really. Like Yunan, she made a very good first impression on me. She's smart, she's funny, and she provides a nice foil to both Anne and Sasha. Where those two struggled upon arrival in Amphibia, Marcy thrived and adapted to her new surroundings rather easily.

However, unlike her friends, Marcy's values weren't really challenged the same way Anne was in Season 1 or Sasha is throughout Season 2. As a result, some of her more... problematic behaviors, we'll say... were enabled by King Andrias, and the result is that she's living her best life while ignoring the fact her friends were put in very real danger when the girls were warped to Amphibia. It's a very interesting contrast, but unfortunately, the writers didn't really explore it as much as I would've liked them to.

This is primarily because Marcy's motivations and allegiances were kept top secret until the season finale "True Colors". I believe that this kneecapped her narrative potential, as there were plenty of things that could've been done with her had her... erm, true colors been revealed earlier. What if Anne and Sasha learned the truth earlier? What if Marcy realized the downsides of her friends either being ostracized by a town full of impoverished villagers (Anne) or being taken captive and presumably tortured by the toads (Sasha)? What if the guilt of keeping up her lie took a toll on her?

All of those are left unaddressed thanks to the writers saving the big revelation for "True Colors", and as such I don't find myself liking Marcy as much as I'd like to. Instead of being able to go back and be like "ohhh, that was smart writing!", the truth about Marcy retroactively tainted her character for me. There's not enough time to unpack the reveal, and Marcy felt stunted as a character because of that.

But you know who wasn't stunted as a character by "True Colors"? King Andrias, that's who. Now, in the aftermath of Season 1, I was fully expecting someone higher-ranking than Grime to be the next step up on the proverbial villain ladder. Maybe something like a really high-ranking coalition of toad generals tougher and scarier than he was (which we DID get, but their role in the season was only there to expand on Grime's family history and to provide him and Sasha with an army for "True Colors"). In actuality, Andrias is the true villain of the series.

Granted, he's not final boss material, given that he serves something far more sinister. Keeping with the Legend of Zelda influences of the series, the best thing I could compare Andrias to is the penultimate baddies of many Zelda titles who serve usual final boss Ganon. And good frog, Andrias is IMPRESSIVELY evil for a show aimed at children.

Put simply, he's a twist villain, but not in the hackneyed way that characterized the antagonists of films like Frozen or Incredibles II. Instead of being a character who we don't learn is evil until the last second, we know he's evil from the get-go, but the characters don't. Any friendly interactions he has with the main cast is a faux-affable act he puts up to conceal his true intentions, and anything they do indirectly advances his behind-the-scenes machinations.

When his... erm, "True Colors" are revealed in the season finale of the same name, we're shocked not because of the fact he's evil; rather, it's because of what he did to achieve his goals. He did something darkly devious to get where he needed to be in the finale, and it's enough to unite Anne, Sasha, Grime, Marcy, and the Plantars against him. The scene where the truth about him is revealed to the characters is an utter gut punch, and it's a testament to Keith David's acting skills that he makes Andrias simultaneously charismatic and utterly loathsome because of how willing he is to savagely strike at a mostly young band of opponents.

He's a manipulative monster hiding behind a shield of faux-affability, and antagonists like him and top-hat-clad reality warper Bill Cipher (of Gravity Falls infamy) just make me wish Disney's theatrical division was able to deliver villains like they did back in their golden age and Renaissance days. The industry-wide desire to "subvert expectations" is well-intentioned, but it often results in heroes that aren't worth looking up to due to their poorly defined morals and villains who are so needlessly complex and favored by the narrative to the point that they might as well be the main characters of the story. Conversely, Andrias and Bill are deliciously despicable, and I think that straightforward brand of evil is something we're starting to see audiences clamor for again. Sometimes we just wanna see good triumph over evil in a satisfying manner, y'know?

The writing is just as strong as it was in Season 1, if not stronger. Humorous moments are still humorous, heartfelt scenes carry appropriate weight, and the characters are kept consistent with how they were written. Heck, I'd argue that Season 2 handles its characters better due to how memorable a lot of the lesser (read: new characters who aren't Yunan, Marcy, or Andrias) newbies came off as. Even the characters who've only made one appearance in the series are more memorable than some of the one-offs from Season 1!

Sans my gripes about Marcy's kneecapped narrative potential, the only gripe I have with Season 2 looking back on it is that there are points where it felt kinda bloated. While I said earlier that I believe the Amphibia writers managed to address almost every plot thread they set up at the start of S2, part of me wonders if they played their cards too early with some narrative beats, such as the lore surrounding the Calamity Box or Anne and Marcy's reconciliation with Sasha. Don't get me wrong; these episodes aren't bad, but for some people, the show might seem like it's blitzing through way too much in too little time.

I would argue the most bloated episode in the season is the episode that ends it all: "True Colors". Again, I'm not saying it's bad (far from it), but I feel it tried to do too much in just 22 minutes. We learn the truth about Marcy and Andrias, several character arcs receive their payoffs, we witness Sasha, Polly and Anne undergo transformations (some more literal than others), and we witness a huge battle that puts the fate of Amphibia itself at stake. It's a lot to take in, especially if you got into the show late.

However, when it's good, "True Colors" is phenomenal. Andrias is (as stated earlier) an impressively evil villain (and what he does to Marcy will make you HATE him), the revelation about Marcy is well-done even if I wish it happened earlier in the season, and the scene where Anne lets out her true potential is fan-froggy-tastic, both substance and style-wise. Sure, there are things I wished could've been done earlier, but the point still stands. This is the high point of the entire series.

Overall, I feel as if Season 2 of Amphibia was a marginal improvement over Season 1. Characters new and old got their chance to shine (even if one Marcy Wu fell short of my expectations), the writing is just as strong as the previous season, and I was left super hyped for Season 3. Little did I know that it was all downhill from here...

SEASON 3(A): A Frustrated Froggy Famine Near the Show's Finish Line

... I really, REALLY wanted to like Amphibia's third season's first half more than I did. However, between poorer writing, misplaced narrative focus, and out-of-character moments, I left the first half feeling pretty jaded. But before I start ranting and raving about what went wrong, let's take a moment to shine a light on the "half-season's" positives:

• Anne's parents are great additions to the main cast
• Seeing the impact of Anne, Sasha and Marcy's absence on those who they left behind for five months after using the Calamity Box (in other words, Narnia time doesn't exist here)
• Sasha and Grime once again steal the show with one of their spotlight episodes
• Andrias is partially humanized due to his regret over what he did to Marcy and his reluctance to go through with his master's plans for her
• There are still SOME funny moments

With that out of the way, let's start by talking about the writing. Given that I mentioned "misplaced narrative focus" and "out-of-character moments", one would expect the writers to have done a complete nosedive once they put their best work out with "True Colors". Mercifully, that isn't entirely true, but what Season 3A offers isn't up to snuff compared to what had come before.

The Plantars are written less as individual characters and more as a collective unit that's reacting to Earth the same way Anne reacted to Amphibia back in Season 1. This is something that wasn't done in the two prior seasons, so why the writers did this is a mystery to me. Perhaps they were trying to consolidate Anne's found frog family into something that could more easily work with the extended main cast that now included Anne's parents; perhaps it was something else.

Sprig and Hop Pop also seem to be suffering from "flanderization", a process named after Ned Flanders' degeneration from The Simpsons's annoyingly perfect neighbor who was still human and happened to be Christian to a Bible-thumping neat freak. In past seasons, Hop Pop occasionally brought up and/or used his theatre background to his advantage. In Season 3A? It's pretty much his defining trait other than being old.

In Sprig's case, it's arguably worse, as we once again have a few episodes that involve him trying to prove himself to others and be responsible (the second one is somewhat lessened by it being a fun Spider-Man parody). At this point in the series, I found myself starting to loath him due to how limited the plots involving him had gotten. If you can't write a character outside of one stock plot, then it's a sign that character needs to have more to them than just "I keep learning this lesson over and over again!".

At least Polly is consistent with how she was in prior seasons. One thing I haven't mentioned about her is that she's an EXTREMELY quick learner, learning how to fight rather quickly in a late Season 1 episode (believable, given her aggressive tendencies). Here, it's used twice to good effect. First, she becomes a Thai expert from watching Anne's mom's rom-coms; later, she becomes a robotics and engineering expert from watching a series of videos from a pair of IT gals. Compared to Sprig and HP's regression, Polly stayed pretty much the same.

And then we have Anne. Season 3A Anne is fascinatingly flawed for me. On one hand, she doesn't really regress in terms of development (save for a slip-up in "Sprig's Birthday" where she's dismissive of how humble and small Amphibia's way of celebrating birthdays; by this point, she'd probably be accepting of it) and is still mostly herself. On the other hand, though, I feel like the show brushed over the consequences of what went down in "True Colors", an experience that I think should've left her pretty emotionally screwed up... especially after what happened to Marcy.

Part of me wanted to believe that the writers were planning to reveal she had been bottling up her grief over Marcy's supposed fate, but another part of me thinks that some of the suits at Disney TV Animation looked over Matt Braly's shoulder and said "hold up there, bucko; that's a bit too emotionally heavy for the funny frog show". I'm inclined to believe that the Disney execs had a hand in why Anne is so weirdly quiet about Marcy for Season 3A. However, given that we also got episodes showing the impact Anne's five-month absence had on her parents and the larger Thai community of San Francisco, perhaps it was an oversight on the writers' end when they were trying to make the first half of Season 3 less serious than Season 2.

Speaking of which, Season 3A's tone is all over the place. In light of Andrias preparing to hunt Anne down with killer robots (and conquer Amphibia with those same bots), Anne watching one of her closest friends suffer what appeared to be a mortal wound, Anne discovering that she has cool energy powers, Sasha and Grime rallying the Wartwood townies into an anti-Andrias resistance force, and government agents taking action regarding the Plantars' sudden appearance on Earth, you would expect this to be the most serious season yet. Unfortunately, it is not.

Instead, we get profoundly dumb stories like "Hop Pop, Sprig, and Polly as a collective unit fumble around a mall", "an extremely competent yet flamboyant government operative gets outclassed by two middle-age Thai adults", or "a literal mad scientist kidnaps the Plantars under the guise of promising them a way back to Amphibia". Somehow, the Earth portion of the show is less realistic than the part set in a world full of talking frogs, toads and newts. I get wanting to bring things back to terra firma (literally) after how emotionally rough "True Colors" was, but some of these episode concepts are a touch unbelievable due to how absurd they are.

Meanwhile, the actually good stuff is sidelined in favor of the aforementioned nonsense. (I'd say I'm getting Steven Universe flashbacks, but at least Amphibia has some focus left even in its worst season thus far) Sasha and Grime only get one episode in this half of the season (and it's arguably their best yet; this is the turning point of Sasha's arc where she decides to change for good), we only get one episode following up on Marcy's fate after "True Colors", Anne gets some good episodes with her parents, and there's a small plot in a few episodes about Anne discovering a relic from Amphibia on Earth with the aid of a fun science lady voiced by the same actress who voiced Tiana in Disney's The Princess and the Frog.

Regarding the new human characters... they're alright with some notable standouts (for better and for worse). Compared to the townies of Wartwood and Newtopia, a lot of the new human characters feel like they're either 1) caricatures of the people voicing them or 2) extremely basic archetypes with little to flesh them out. One could argue that the latter is true of some of the minor frogs and newts as well, but there's just a generic vibe I got from most of the humans that the show never really shook off.

Notable exceptions to this were Doctor Jan (the aforementioned science lady) and Anne's parents. Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy, next to Linda and Lawrence Flynn-Fletcher (Phineas and Ferb), are probably some of the best to come out of Disney's television animation division. They just felt like extremely authentic, good, loving parents to Anne who were taken aback by how much their daughter has grown and changed since she got warped to Amphibia. Their authenticity might come from the fact that Anne's mom is voiced by Matt Braly's own mom (and apparently, he based a lot of Mrs. Boonchuy's character on her).

Overall, I left Season 3A of Amphibia disappointed. EXTREMELY disappointed. Sure, Seasons 1-2 had issues, but they weren't issues that detracted from the story. This chapter of the story had so many issues with it (characters regressing/being flanderized/not reacting to recent events; lack of follow-up on Season 2's finale, etc) that I chose to stop watching the show entirely. Admittedly, I've seen some tidbits from Season 3's second half and it DOES seem like the show's recovered from Season 3A's slump, but this first half left such a bad taste in my mouth that I don't think I'd be able to stomach the season as a whole without being reminded of that bad first half.

The main reason as to why I'm dropping watching Amphibia is two-fold. Firstly, I don't want to repeat what happened during my watch-through of Steven Universe where I kept watching the show long after its golden days had come to an end, not stopping until the show hit rock bottom and ruined its eponymous main character. Ergo, I've chosen to be more discerning with how I watch modern TV, stopping my watch-through when I notice signs of decline.

Secondly (and this will indicate when I was writing this), Disney's reaction to Florida's HB 1557 bill (the slanderously nicknamed "Don't Say Gay" bill; the bill says nothing about not being allowed to say the word "gay") has disillusioned me from wanting to watch the remainder of the series. As much as I would love to support Matt Braly and his team and watch the rest of Season 3 to see if it got better... the truth is, Disney's made their stand. They'd rather appeal to an extremely vocal minority than support the broad audience who've been there for them for years. They've proven themselves to be ideologically bankrupt, and I'm sorry to say I can't support a company that insists on teaching children about questionable sexual ideas at young ages.

So, sorry, Amphibia. I can't come back, even if it seems like you rebounded from this unfortunate dip in quality.

TOP 3 FAVORITE EPISODES FROM EACH SEASON

On a brighter note, let's discuss my top three favorite episodes from each season (or "half-season" in Season 3A's case). Let's-a go!

For Season 1:

1. "Reunion" (Episode 20): A very, VERY solid contrast between how much Anne has grown thanks to her time in Wartwood compared to Sasha's stagnancy and enablement by the toads. Also, it makes use of pretty much everything that had been established throughout the season's runtime. That's a plus.
2. "Toad Tax" (Episode 10A): A major turning point in Anne's development and the moment when the show starts to water the seeds it had planted in earlier episodes for its ongoing story- that is to say, when the show's story gets going.
3. "Hop-Popular" (Episode 12A): This was the "politics" episode I mentioned earlier, folks. It's absolutely hilarious and wraps up an itty-bitty Hop Pop arc quite nicely.

For Season 2:

1. "True Colors" (Episode 20): While my critiques regarding Marcy's motivation being hidden until here and the pacing being a bit too zippy for my liking remain true, this episode does so much else right that those critiques almost become moot points.
2. "Toadcatcher" (Episode 4B): Sasha and Grime's episodes tend to be highlights of a season, and this one tickled my fancy quite well. Not only does it follow up on their whereabouts and well-beings after "Reunion", but it also pits them agains General Yunan. And as I said earlier, Yunan made one heck of a first impression and ended up being my favorite newbie of Season 2.
3. "Battle of the Bands" (Episode 19B): Just a fun character-driven breather episode about Anne, Sasha and Marcy entering a battle of the bands in Wartwood. Not much else to say here other than I like it a lot.

For Season 3A:

1. "Turning Point" (Episode 2B): As the title suggests, this is the point of no return for Sasha's arc, solidifying her journey towards redemption and starting her down the path of training the Wartwood townies as an Andrias-opposed resistance. If only we got more of this and less of "the Plantars bumbling around a mall and being unfunny"...
2. "Olivia and Yunan" (Episode 7B): A good (if a touch dour) follow-up on what happened to Marcy after "True Colors". Poor girl just can't catch a break...
3. "Adventures in Catsitting" (Episode 3B): One of the few episodes centered on the Plantars that doesn't flanderize them or turn them into a collective mass with few individual traits. It's a cute and fun little romp with a VERY heartwarming moment between them and Mr. Boonchuy.

CONCLUSION

I really, really wish modern story-driven cartoons were able to stay consistently good for their entire run.

Over the last decade, I've noticed that animated series seeking to tell a long, ongoing story have usually stumbled at some point during their run and screwed up the tale they were trying to tell. Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Star vs. the Forces of Evil (or as I like to call it, Star vs. Any Ship that Isn't Between Her and Marco), Voltron: Legendary Defender, and several others I won't mention here are examples of what I'm talking about. It seems as if shows like Gravity Falls were the only serialized toons that were able to actually end well and/or stay good all the way through.

And I think I know why.

Many of the shows mentioned above were either too episodic (therefore spreading out their ongoing story too thinly and making it took hard to follow), mismanaged the balance between big important story episodes and lighter, more "filler"-ish ones, or just plain went off the rails with its story because the writers were writing past the point where the show should've ended without much care for how the real ending would affect the general public's view of the series. Either the showrunner's vision faltered as the show went on or the writers found it hard to commit to the showrunner/creator's vision. Regardless of what happened behind the scenes, a majority of these story-driven cartoons all fall short when compared to Gravity Falls.

As said above, the show didn't waste any of the time it was given, taking every second it had to flesh out characters, add new twists and turns to its ongoing mystery, and to expand its fictitious Oregon tourist trap setting. Yes, there was a big ongoing story, but this story didn't dominate every episode, allowing for more lighthearted, silly one-offs about Dipper and Mabel's misadventures around the Mystery Shack. And most importantly, the show only ran for as long as it needed to. There weren't two seasons because a Disney executive cancelled Season 3; it was because Alex Hirsch looked at the story ideas he had left after a big reveal halfway through Season 2 and thought "shoot, I can just end the show with only two seasons." He realized that all he needed to tell his story was two seasons, and as such, Gravity Falls ended before it went downhill or got stale.

Now, how does all that relate to Amphibia?

Well, I think the show would've been better off ending before it went sour. Seasons 1 and 2 were a blast (my quibbles with some of the pacing in S2 aside), and when you compare how good those were to the middling misplaced focus of Season 3, part of me wonders if the show's story could've been retooled to end earlier. It seems like after "True Colors" at the end of Season 2, the series found itself rambling on and on, as if the writers didn't really know what to do after such a fantastic season finale. I would've rather had an Amphibia with two great seasons than an Amphibia with two great seasons and an aggressively mediocre, messy final season.

Whatever Matt Braly does next, I wish him well in doing. I'm not going to let his first show (or the company that employed him) leave a bad taste in my mouth, and he seems like a pretty chill dude who has a decent understanding of what good writing should be. At least Amphibia has two great seasons under its belt, and with some tighter editing and focus, I'm certain Season 3 could've been on par with the seasons that preceded it.

Thanks for reading, everyone. God bless!