An Honest Review of the Aladdin TV Series, part 3: Episodes 11-20

Haven't read Part 1 yet? Start here

11 – Some Enchanted Genie ****

I don't know whose idea it was to give Genie a love interest, but I am so here for it.

I knew Eden was coming before I watched the show, and I was quite interested to meet her. (She's named for Barbara Eden of I Dream of Jeannie fame, I believe, which is very clever.) I suspected from the title this would be the episode she makes her first appearance in, and it was, and she did not disappoint. A pale green and pink genie, she's sharp and clever and as quick and sassy as Genie himself. And with Genie, his love interest is going to have to be someone who can keep up with him! At least, Genie as he actually is will need a love interest who can keep up with him. The way he's been handled in the television show, I'm not sure he's swift enough for her – but going by Genie's actual real character, I have to conclude that he and Eden are perfectly compatible.

The story opens with Abis Mal stealing Genie's lamp, and even though Genie no longer has to come when someone rubs his lamp (which I'm glad they mentioned, because it can be really hard to tell sometimes in the show!), he's still angry about the theft and wants his lamp back, because apparently it feels like his home. Since Genie was physically incapable of leaving that lamp unless a new master rubbed it for some tens of thousands of years, for him to still want to live there feels to me more like a prisoner finding himself unwilling to leave his jail cell because he's gotten so used to it! I'm not sure Genie would ever want to get inside that lamp again now he doesn't have to....

Anyway, while searching for his lamp, Genie comes across somebody else who is just discovering a genie vessel: a poor little girl named Dahndi, alone and ragged and living on the streets, has just found a beautiful genie bottle, and when she rubs it, out pops Eden, who immediately goes into a routine very reminiscent of Genie's when Aladdin first meets him back in the movie. I must say, the TV show does an excellent job of writing sharp, sassy dialogue for Eden that makes her feel perfectly intelligent – if their writers can write her, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to write Genie! I also want to say I really like their venturing deeper into genie lore. In Arabian mythology, genies are not just wish-granting slaves, although in some stories, including Aladdin's, they had gotten themselves into that position. Genies were an actual race of beings, who had powerful magic which seemed to frighten the humans but could be good, neutral, or evil. They had families and children, and in some cases even married humans. (I am thinking specifically of a story in the Arabian Nights called “The Story of Prince Ahmed and Pereibanou”, and since that's a pretty unfamiliar, complex name, I should add here that Pereibanou was a genie princess who married the human Ahmed.) Knowing this, and seeing for ourselves how genies are capable of falling in love, suddenly throws a whole different angle on Aladdin's promise to set Genie free, when you realize he wasn't just some sentient magical spell created for the purpose of granting wishes. I am especially talking here to all those people who think Aladdin should not have used his third wish to free his enslaved friend and should instead have used it to help the poor and hungry of Agrabah (as if he wouldn't be in a perfect position to do that himself now if the writers would only let him)!

Now, I know I could be asking a lot of questions here, since this story does open up a few potential plotholes. Namely, I could be asking how it's possible that, after we've established genie vessels are so rare that Jafar spent years searching for one locked away in a hidden Cave that could only be opened by a very specific key and only entered by one specific person, that a genie bottle would just randomly appear out in the open on the streets of Agrabah. I still do want to know how Eden's bottle got to where it was, if it was previously so well hidden that Jafar wouldn't have found it long ago and just used Eden to take over Agrabah. But the story was engaging enough to make you forget all of that, and after all there could be some explanation for all this – we'll just leave it to be another story told another time.

The romance is a he-falls-first, with Genie admiring Eden as he watches her, and then when he swoops down to introduce himself, she thinks he's trying to intrude on her territory and initially pushes him away. But Eden has just proved herself very likeable, by bending genie rules to help Dahndi with her first wish. Poor Dahndi, not used to being able to have whatever she wants, wishes for “a sandwich”, and when Eden tells her to think bigger, she tries wishing for “a really big sandwich”, which was somewhere between funny and heartbreaking. So Eden walks her through the alternate wish “I wish to never go hungry again as long as I live”, which leads to Genie and Eden competing to – and eventually bonding over – make Dahndi the biggest and best pizza tower. Eventually Genie asks Eden out on a date, and she accepts.

I think the show missed a great opportunity here, in the far-too-brief moments where Genie's talking to Aladdin about his new relationship, to have Aladdin give Genie dating advice. In the movie, some of my favourite Genie moments are when he's offering Aladdin dating advice (“Tell her the TRUTH!” “Any woman appreciates a man who can make her laugh!” “She's beautiful... wonderful... magnificent... glorious... punctual!”) And it would have just been the sweetest thing if we could have turned that around here, and had Aladdin, who is now in a happy, committed relationship, give dating advice to Genie. But, of course, they haven't exactly shown Aladdin's romance as being that big or important a part of his life, so I guess it makes perfect sense he wouldn't have any good advice for Genie about his. (This is yet another episode where Jasmine never appears.)

The main conflict comes when Abis Mal finds out about Dahndi's genie bottle, and plots to steal it from her so that he can have a real, working genie vessel with a genie inside who will still be forced to do everything he says. This actually leads (after a beautiful, otherworldly genie date sequence which we are sad to see cut short) to Genie thinking Eden had been working with the bad guys all along, and if you ask me, he loses trust in her a little too quickly. Maybe it was because I had more information than he did, but it didn't look to me as though Eden was so obviously working for the bad guys by choice. And this is coming from Genie, who knows what it's like when your enslavement forces you to help evil people! I mean, how would he have felt during the movie, when he was forced to work for Jafar, if everyone had assumed he had secretly been on Jafar's side the entire time??? I'd think he could have at least have waited and reserved judgment until he heard her out.

Eden proves herself when she saves the day with her cleverness, along with some help from Aladdin and from Genie, whom she manages to rescue from Abis Mal's trap by finding a loophole in the wish he made. I must say I admire the way Eden is so good at getting around that genie code that makes it so she has to obey her master – she's a cheeky one, and I am here for it! It also makes her even more compatible with Genie, who bent the rules in the movie to grant Aladdin's second wish when Aladdin was unconscious. Abis Mal is defeated with some help from Dahndi's second wish (Dahndi is quite brave for a little child who was thrown into a battle she knew nothing about with no warning!) And then, Dahndi is left with her bottle back and one last wish to make. Genie encourages her to wish for Eden's freedom so that the two of them can be together. Which would be the perfect ending for them, and, I might add, wouldn't interfere in the slightest with any other happy endings. Aladdin would still be able to regularly see Genie if Genie was married – from the end of the movie I never had the impression Genie was planning to live with Aladdin anyway, but I'm sure Genie's powers would let him visit Aladdin every day if he wanted! And what about little Dahndi, would she end up alone and abandoned? I hardly think so. Eden and Genie would no doubt adopt her, and she could become their first child.

But no. I suppose I really shouldn't have expected the same show that refuses to give us Aladdin and Jasmine as a loving, committed married couple who spend all their time together to give us a happy genie family. Right as she was about to make the wish that would have guaranteed a happy ending for absolutely everyone, Dahndi accidentally lets it slip that she “wishes she and Eden could be together forever”. And – whoops – that's it, there goes her last wish. Eden is irrevocably bonded to her, now more enslaved than ever. Dahndi has no more wishes left to correct her mistake, and now Eden is still indefinitely enslaved while she and Dahndi are forced to stay together, when I am quite certain she and Dahndi would still have been a family if Eden had ended up having a choice and getting to be with her new love interest. Eden even tells Genie she's sorry but Dahndi needs her, and I want to scream at her: "It's not an either-or situation!!!" Wouldn't Dahndi be better off living in a proper home with two loving genie parents, than out on the street with limited shelter and a single slave?? The whole thing felt so disappointing, so unnecessary, so – un-Disney-like! Although I suppose it is in keeping with the same agenda that would keep Aladdin and Jasmine apart for years....

So Genie and Eden decide to just “take things slow” because genies, after all, have an eternity, and they plan to have another date in “a century” which I really hope they were kidding about (I've heard Eden will appear in future episodes, so probably they were). Genie and Eden had better not take as long as all that, not if Genie wants any chance of having Aladdin at his wedding. Or if they want Dahndi to spend any of her childhood in a stable home....

12 – Web Of Fear **

Agrabah is invaded from beneath by a colony of giant spiders known as the Ugboot – at least, that was what I made out from the number of times they said the name, no idea if it was in reference to the popular shoe brand. They destroy a large part of the city, so Aladdin and friends are working to repair the damage and help the injured people – with Jasmine in too much of a “soft” role given her nature, if you ask me. I mean, I don't expect someone with her build and upbringing to do heavy lifting, but I do think her role would be a little more active than standing beside the palace talking with her father about the damage, disappearing from the screen for a long stretch of time, and then comforting a shaken child victim. Of course that last is important (I don't think the first two were particularly necessary)... but I more see her following Aladdin into the heat of the damage, figuring out clever ways to navigate the wreckage, and moving as much debris as she can manage to lift out of the way! Anything to make it out like she has an active role and isn't just the delicate weak princess waiting for the big strong men to do all the work.

So these spiders are apparently the stuff of horrifying legends and scary children's bedtime stories, and Aladdin has a particular phobia around them. Living on the streets Aladdin probably would have heard all the local legends, but I do wonder who could possibly have been directly telling Aladdin scary bedtime stories, in such a direct, frightening way that he developed a phobia. I mean, he didn't have caregivers... but maybe there were storytellers out on the streets who let anybody gather around them. I like that idea. Jasmine is incredibly sweet and supportive when Aladdin gets a little too close to one of the Ugboot for comfort, and tells off anyone who dares to make fun of his fear (when Aladdin got too close to the horrifying creature he fainted). This is the second time in three episodes we've seen Supportive Jasmine... can I hope the TV show has finally figured out how to write her and Aladdin's relationship??

Things get really exciting when one of the giant spiders invades the palace, traps Jasmine in a cocoon of spider silk despite both her and Rajah's best efforts to fight it off, and runs away with her to their underground lair. Everyone believes the Ugboot mean to eat her, and – of course that's what would be happening. That's exactly what spiders do use their silk cocoons for. Now in spite of his paralyzing fear, Aladdin cannot make any choice other than to go after his beloved and save her. And that's a great conflict for this episode, wouldn't you say? Aladdin having to overcome his fear of the Ugboot in order to save his True Love from a terrible death?

But, no. Of course we can't have an actually dangerous colony of predatory spiders in this show. That would encourage us to think of these spiders as bad people, and of course we can't have that. It turns out, out of nowhere, that all that delicious fear and anticipation of danger was for nothing, and that these spiders are apparently vegetarians. Farmers, in fact, who grow their own potatoes – this with no explanation of how or why a creature built like a spider manages to grow potatoes. How does that even make sense, predators and prey are always built differently, according to their vastly different needs.... It was an enormous letdown to see that all those spiders with cocoons on their backs, which I was convinced were tons and tons of captive citizens of Agrabah Aladdin would also have to rescue, turned out to be carrying potatoes of all things. Oh, and Jasmine tells us all this in the form of exposition, we don't even get the excitement of seeing her convinced she's about to be eaten before realizing she's safe.

This exposition is given in form of a discussion with Iago, who is being used once again as the “voice of dissent” so that he can point out all the reasons why Jasmine should not trust the Ugboot and, because it's Iago, we can know right away we're not supposed to agree with him. But Iago was actually making good points here, particularly the one about how the Ugboot had snatched Jasmine out of her home! Jasmine claims they only did that “to show her they mean no harm”, and I don't know, if the Ugboot have enough near-human intelligence to come up with a plan like that, they're also intelligent enough to understand they're committing a violent crime and to be held accountable for it. This makes the third time Jasmine's been taken prisoner/kidnapped and excused it; I'm starting to think she likes being held prisoner in this version of events.... And honestly, Iago was making so much sense, his points sounded so much like concern about Jasmine's safety, I felt like Aladdin should have been on the other side of the conversation here! Just imagine, if Jasmine was all, “The Ugboot don't mean us any harm!” and Aladdin was all, “Uh, Jasmine... they kidnapped you. And you just said they knew exactly what they were doing.” Would be a lot harder to just accept the kiddie moral they're trying to spoonfeed us, wouldn't it? There are better ways to send the message to not be scared of beings who live a different sort of life than you do. After all, spiders are predators, and they do catch tiny insects in order to make meals out of them, so to assume a much larger spider would still be hunting its meals but would seek out much larger prey – like humans – that isn't ignorance or prejudice, that's just common sense.

So instead of the exciting plotline we were promised, now the angry apple merchant who I really don't care for as a recurring antagonist decides the Ugboot have kidnapped the princess (which they have) and must be destroyed, and then they have to convince him not to burn up the entire spider colony – you know, the one we spent the whole episode being built up to fear, but now we're expected to sympathize with it? Hardly the kind of plot twist that will satisfy an audience ready and eager to watch Aladdin rescue Jasmine from a colony of giant spiders ready to suck her juices out and leave her dry, lifeless corpse behind to rot.... Hardly an original storyline, either; I'm pretty sure there was an Elena of Avalor episode with the exact same plot. There is one time I've seen this sort of concept done well: a Star Trek original series episode called Devil In the Dark. In addition to being deliciously frightening most of the way through, that story was not aimed at little children. Far from dumbing down the plotline, it instead asks us to look at the same problem from a different angle, suggesting there's always another side to the story than the one that's only focused on how you yourself are affected. Having a plot twist that showed us the monster's side of things made the episode more deep and complex, not less. And there was no denial that the monster had actually done the things it was accused of. Here it all feels very simplistic. “If the spiders were meat-eaters, they'd be bad, but they're plant-eaters, so they're good.” “If you think the spiders are good, you're right. If you think the spiders are bad, you're a meanie and you're prejudiced.” I can almost hear this said in a little-kid-teasing-on-the-playground voice.

I'm not saying the show should never do plot twists, but even with a plot twist you still need to deliver on what you promised. It's terrible storytelling to promise a thrilling, terrifying rescue with Jasmine's life hanging in the balance and then deliver a sanctimonious kiddie moral. Oh, and also, I have never liked the practise of implying animals, who have a biological need to eat a certain way, can only be redeemable if they don't eat any meat. Why can there not be a story about mysterious scary animals showing us how predators and prey are all necessary to the ecosystem? If they did have to go the route of preaching tolerance towards an unfamiliar group in a plotline that didn't really call for such a message, what they could have done is made it that the Ugboot really were predators, but Jasmine befriended them anyway. It would be believable, since Jasmine does have a pet tiger. She could have treated these giant spiders the same way, as if they're just soft, cuddly animals who happen to need meat to survive. Maybe she could even have some meat-based tiger treats on her, which would satisfy their appetites without needing to eat her and help her to make friends with them. (And make it so they snatched her due to animal instincts, looking for a meal, because the second you make it out like their taking her was premeditated, that's kidnapping.) That would at least be a more satisfying way to do a plot twist where Aladdin ventures into the den in order to rescue Jasmine, only to find she doesn't need it. And then, sure, the end conflict could come from other citizens of Agrabah not trusting Jasmine when she says the spiders won't hurt their citizens now, which would make both sides understandable because after all the Ugboot are meat-eaters, and there could be a message in there about respecting the predator's wild nature. It wouldn't be quite as good as just watching Aladdin overcome his fear of horrible monsters and battling them in order to save his beloved, but it would be infinitely better than the kiddie, cleaned-up moral message we did get.

13 – Mudder's Day ****

The episode opens with Aladdin, his usual four friends he can't seem to function without, Jasmine (thank goodness!), and the guards, travelling through the desert on a caravan Aladdin is supposed to be leading. Only Aladdin has somehow managed to get them all lost, and is starting to doubt his capabilities to manage royal tasks like leading caravans. (Well, he is wearing his rags yet again; maybe if he actually wore royal clothes it would get him in the spirit to do these things!) The guards are all ready to blame Aladdin for everything and Razoul is even subtly threatening Aladdin with his scimitar – is Razoul allowed to do that?? Especially with Jasmine right there?? And Jasmine, continuing this stretch of excellent portrayals from the TV show, is firmly supporting Aladdin and convinced everything he is doing will turn out just fine. Honestly Aladdin and his group are pretty lucky their biggest problem is whether their being lost is Aladdin's fault. Sooner or later they'll have to face the much bigger problem of possible death by dehydration!

But before death by dehydration can become an issue, Aladdin ends up finding a beautiful oasis, which since everyone was getting hot and thirsty is a welcome sight to all of them – even the bad-tempered guards who never seem to like anything! The only one who isn't sure about this is Aladdin, and he keeps obsessing over his map which doesn't show this oasis anywhere until Jasmine finally persuades him to stop worrying and join her in a relaxing swim. I understand that for the sake of interesting dialogue and story flow, you do need to have one character uncertain about the strange new place while the other sees nothing wrong here – but I do wonder how much it was really in character for Aladdin to be so worried. He's not normally the cautious, sensible, check-everything-over-a-hundred-times type!

But whether it was in character or not, Aladdin turns out to be right. The oasis pool Aladdin, Jasmine, Genie, Abu, and Iago were swimming in turns out to be a trap put in place by some mud creatures I believe were named the al-Muddi, who enjoy eating humans. Genie is the one who tells them this, but by then it's already too late. Aladdin, Jasmine, Genie, Abu, and Iago are trapped with no way out in an underground world full of creatures who want to eat them.

I loved the al-Muddi and the very real threat they presented. I especially loved a particular moment near the beginning of their underground adventure, where Jasmine rescues Aladdin from an al-Muddi who had just grabbed him, and briefly thinks she's found a way to deal with them before discovering no, she hasn't, they're much cleverer and more adaptable than that. These aren't just mindless monsters; they have real human-level intelligence, making them that much more threatening. I think this was the first time a creature with human intelligence was allowed to be both competent and evil on the TV show, and I was thrilled as soon as I realized this. I did feel the order of events could have used some work. Much of the running time is taken up with this whole, much-too-long sequence in which Jasmine and Aladdin keep trying to get Genie to fly them out of the danger zone by transforming into a bird, and Genie keeps turning into the wrong kind of bird which won't help them. I think the real Genie would be smart enough to know what they actually wanted without needing specific literal instructions, and besides, doesn't Genie just have the ability to fly in any form??? If he can get Aladdin out of the Cave of Wonders and make it look like the easiest thing in the world, he can do this – and I notice in the movie, Aladdin did not have to instruct Genie on how to get him out of the Cave of Wonders. But then eventually the group makes it to this beautiful underground city, and Aladdin has the idea to knock on the door of this palace and demand whoever lives there help them get home. Since they already know they're in the al-Muddi's world and they're still underground, I don't know if we were actually supposed to be surprised when the ruler of the al-Muddi turns out to be the one living in that palace who answers the door. It was certainly no surprise to me, and I felt like this scene – where the Sultan of the al-Muddi answers the door and promptly captures Aladdin and his companions to have them for lunch – was a great thrilling moment, but might have been even better if it had happened at the beginning of the episode, before anyone knew they were in the al-Muddi's domain. Then instead of wasting time making poor Genie look ineffective, the bulk of the episode could have been about clever Aladdin finding a way to get out of this.

I might also have changed which of Aladdin's companions get captured along with him. Genie specifically said the al-Muddi eat humans, not humans, parrots, Genies, and monkeys. I kept wondering what the al-Muddi's Sultan was going to do with all the non-human friends he captured, and is it even possible to cook and eat a magical Genie?? (To be fair, I don't think he actually was planning to eat Genie; he traps Genie in a separate bottle and I think that was just to keep him from interfering.) This is definitely one of those times when not having Genie around would have been a lot more respectful than forcing him to come and then giving him no role except to goof up. It also felt a little contrived to not have Carpet there, when every other member of the Main Group was around, at the one time they desperately needed some way to fly. And because it was Razoul and his guards who were questioning Aladdin's ability to lead the caravan and creating that conflict in the first place, I would have had them be the ones who get captured along with Aladdin and Jasmine. Then all the al-Muddi's prisoners would be humans, the guards would have a much bigger role in the story, and it would work beautifully to have Razoul and his mean guards actually be there to witness Aladdin's clever plan to rescue everyone – including them.

Because Aladdin does think of a clever way out of this. This is after a pep talk from Jasmine, who is finally matching the energy of Aladdin always protecting and rescuing her. She reminds him he can get out of anything, and I must say she doesn't even seem that worried about getting eaten – she must really have faith in Aladdin to get her out of this! Her encouragement helps Aladdin have faith in himself, and he figures out a way to trick the al-Muddi Sultan into letting him go, with us finally getting a glimpse of Aladdin's silver tongue in the series for the first time. The escape was brilliant, though I have to admit, once Aladdin actually gets out the sequence was a little confusing too. I couldn't figure out exactly where Aladdin ended up after leaving the al-Muddi's kitchen, and whether we were really meant to think he might have to leave all his companions behind. (I know Aladdin would never actually do that, but the scene felt sad enough it might just have been implying it... I don't know.)

In the end, Aladdin not only escapes the al-Muddi (along with all his companions), but also defeats their leader for good, and Razoul is so impressed he admits he was wrong and that Aladdin was the right person to lead the caravan after all. And – much as I don't want to take Razoul's side over Aladdin's, I – don't think anything here actually proved Razoul was wrong. Aladdin proved he has what it takes to defeat the al-Muddi. He didn't prove he knows how to lead a caravan – and once the al-Muddi adventure is over, they're still lost in the middle of the desert with no water! But Jasmine is there to give Aladdin her I-never-doubted-you-for-a-moment kiss, and her undying support I will never disagree with.

14 – Plunder the Sea ***

Aladdin has to investigate a mysterious shipwreck of a vessel that was headed to Agrabah. Or rather, he volunteers to investigate it himself, but instead of being allowed he has to tag along with one Captain Al Bartos, who apparently has a great reputation as a hero of the seas. Aladdin does not appreciate having to tag along on some other hero's quest, and I don't blame him one bit. I didn't really understand this decision – Aladdin has not only saved the kingdom from Jafar, he's spent the last thirteen episodes proving what a great hero he is, and now, all of a sudden, the Sultan isn't sure Aladdin is the right person to trust with the job?? Maybe he heard how badly Aladdin handled his caravan last episode....

And Jasmine – after being so wonderfully supportive for the last three episodes she was in, here her only role in the entire story is to look disapprovingly at Aladdin being upset at hearing Al Bartos implied to be a better hero than him, and mutter “Men!” Seriously, Jasmine?! That's all you have to say?! I can't believe she doesn't get it and is just dismissing Aladdin's feelings as a “man” thing; I get where he's coming from and I'm certainly not a man. So much for a Jasmine who actually supports Aladdin on this show, guess I should have known. It was nice while it lasted....

There's a funny moment in the episode where Iago refers to parrots saying “Polly want a cracker” as being an offensive stereotype, which is just how he would think of it considering how badly he reacted to crackers in the movie – although on that note, I'm not sure he was offended enough. As I recall, in the movie he was so incensed about the Sultan assuming he would like crackers that he literally tortures him with them once Jafar's taken over!

Aladdin and Al Bartos clash right away. It turns out Al Bartos has a very definite idea of what a man “should” be, a very narrow view which I guess is what they refer to these days as “toxic masculinity”. Aladdin struggles with trying to be the kind of man Al Bartos deems good enough, as they trace the shipwreck, eventually finding a giant submarine (inspired by 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I have no doubt) run by – Mechanicles. There's a scene with Aladdin underwater, helped to breathe by Genie, and he's admiring the beauty all around him – and I wondered what happened to his memory of that time Jafar tried to drown him. Wouldn't he have some trigger around the thought of submerging himself again?? Am I the only one who thinks he would?? It would be cool to see him scared at first, and then won over by the beauty of the undersea world. But I love this funny moment where Aladdin and Al Bartos have both been captured by Mechanicles, and the latter is planning to kill Aladdin and get him out of the way, and Aladdin's so invested in proving himself to Al Bartos that he's boasting to him he's the one Mechanicles wants to get rid of. I just love that; Aladdin so anxious to prove himself he'll brag that someone wants to kill him!  There's another fun moment where Al Bartos almost gets them all killed on Mechanicles' submarine, because Genie's come to rescue them and he refuses to be rescued because “It's unmanly”. Iago, who does not have the patience for this, solves that problem quite easily by suggesting Genie can rescue him and Al Bartos can just come along to protect him. Al Bartos agrees so quickly it's pretty clear he was actually scared!

I thought the story was good the way it unfolded and everything, but we also just had a Mechanicles episode in which Aladdin was feeling insecure and trying to change himself not four episodes ago, and I did prefer My Fair Aladdin overall. But I do love the whole concept of Captan Al Bartos and his character; he makes an excellent foil to Aladdin. Captain Al Bartos shares one of Aladdin's main character flaws, the tendency to care too much about how he appears to other people, only Al Bartos takes it to the extremes. He's obsessed with being – no appearing – manly, and is often willing to take a course of action he knows has no chance of succeeding and is sometimes just plain foolhardy, just so that he won't betray the slightest sign of vulnerability, needing help – or even creative thinking! Aladdin, no matter how concerned he is with how other people see him, has never let that stop him from taking the course of action he knew was best. He never worried that he would look less masculine when he ran away from the guards rather than tried to fight multiple huge, trained armed men who probably all had full stomachs. But now, in the company of Al Bartos, who is constantly pressuring Aladdin to live up to his own impossible standards and mocking him when he doesn't, Aladdin's own insecurities resurface. He keeps trying to please Captain Al Bartos rather than doing whatever his clever, nimble mind suggests, and so ends up getting in his own way, becoming less likely to end up as a hero. In my mind, Aladdin had nothing to worry about – every time I hear a list of typically masculine traits, Aladdin has them all as far as I can tell! Jasmine should really have come along for this episode, and then Al Bartos could have seen Aladdin protecting her – that would have shut him up pretty quick. And Jasmine would have challenged the idea that typically masculine traits are the only way to be strong.

I do wish Aladdin hadn't let Al Bartos take credit for everything in the end, when it was Aladdin's idea that saved the day. I mean, I get what they were going for: Aladdin deciding he wants to be nothing like Al Bartos, who is so concerned with appearances he would actively sabotage himself and everyone around him rather than do something less direct and violent that might actually work. But this isn't just about Aladdin. If Al Bartos really doesn't deserve his heroic reputation, and his whole attitude is so damaging to everyone around him, someone ought to tell the world the truth before it's too late. I mean, if Aladdin hadn't been along on this mission, Al Bartos would have ended up captured or dead and Mechanicles would have sucked up the entire ocean in order to do some extreme world ironing. And to have the world informed of that – to have Aladdin regain his status as Hero he seems to have lost at the beginning of this episode – and to have Jasmine see that Aladdin's concerns were really valid and not just "men" - that would have made a really satisfying end.

15 – Strike Up the Sand ***

Ah, Sadira. One of the new characters I knew was coming before I ever watched the show, and none of the others ever captured my imagination quite like she did. She started entering my fanfictions even before I had officially met her in the series, and has since become a regular fixture. And now having actually watched her in the television series, I feel I need to continue her story in fanfictions, because as the series handled her, she was the very definition of wasted potential.

Before I met Sadira in the show, I knew she was a street mouse who had feelings for Aladdin and so was always trying to split up him and Jasmine. I had heard enough to infer she didn't care how she managed to split them up – whether Jasmine was hurt or traumatized, or whether Aladdin really, truly gave consent.  I did not know that Sadira could do magic – this episode introduces the character and shows how she finds the abandoned lair of the Sand Witches, turning it into her home and learning to use their spells. (I can't believe it took me a while after finishing the episode to actually get the name “Sand Witches”, one of my absolute favourite of their plays on words. I love the names in this show!) I thought this was an amazing idea for an antagonist – I mean, that's just about one of the worst things you could do in Aladdin's world, try to come between him and Jasmine! I couldn't wait to see what they'd do with her. But right from the start, several of the decisions made in her introduction episode bothered me.

Sadira is first introduced to us when she's in trouble. She's stolen a watermelon and the guards are chasing her, prompting us to feel sorry for her, to have a first impression of someone sympathetic – maybe, even, to subtly connect her in our minds with Aladdin. The whole thing leads to Aladdin rescuing Sadira with his usual cleverness, pretending to the guards that Sadira is a fruit inspector – although why he doesn't just have the power to order the guards to leave people alone by now I'll never know. His ruse also doesn't work until Genie helps him obtain a badge he can use to prove Sadira really is an official fruit inspector, kind of undermining Aladdin's silver tongue if his stories don't work without outside help. Still, Aladdin shows us how clever he is, and his rescue is probably what prompts Sadira to fall hard and fast for him (it took me an embarrassingly long time to make that connection). And he does resist every advance Sadira makes, not allowing his loyalty to Jasmine to be shaken even a little.  But one thing about the whole idea didn't sit well with me: Aladdin first met Jasmine when rescuing her from stealing a fruit. That was supposed to be their special thing, and making it out like this happened multiple times in Aladdin's life kind of lessens the impact. Are we supposed to infer Aladdin just rescues all kinds of girls from stealing fruit?? How many times did it lead to romantic feelings???

The next choice I didn't like was how Genie reacted to the whole situation. He starts telling Aladdin all the things girls like when men do: notice their hair and outfit, help them with hard tasks, notice their feelings and comfort them when they're sad. This is presented as a humorous sequence in which Aladdin and his friends are walking across the screen, while Sadira keeps appearing in the background obviously trying to get Aladdin to do the exact thing Genie just mentioned. And the visual joke does work, especially since to Aladdin's credit, he doesn't even turn around to glance at the other woman. But please, tell me why Genie, the character who wanted Aladdin and Jasmine to be together so much he was literally ready to give up his freedom for them, almost seems to be trying to encourage a match between Aladdin and Sadira?! The scene, and the visual joke they wanted to set up, would still have worked perfectly if they had only changed the context of Genie's speech so that he was warning Aladdin that Sadira has developed feelings for him, and was giving him a list of signs to look for so that Aladdin could know whether Genie was right. Then Aladdin could be all, “What? What are you talking about? She's not interested in me” – with the evidence that she is going on unnoticed right behind him.

Normally, the show is very good at being consistent with itself. But during this scene there was a point where Iago quips that Genie cannot give Aladdin dating advice because he “hasn't been on a date in ten thousand years”, and I was very surprised that no one pointed out Genie had just been on a date with Eden four episodes ago.

The thing that bothered me most about Sadira's introduction, though, was not anything they did with Sadira, but how they handled Jasmine. Throughout the entire episode so far, we haven't seen Aladdin and Jasmine interact. As in, at all. They're both out in the marketplace together, but not on the same page: Jasmine is trying to buy a new fancy prince outfit for Aladdin, and he doesn't want it. Why he doesn't want it when he loves looking good and showing off, and he was the one who still wanted to marry Jasmine after finding out she was a princess, I have no idea, but the fact remains, the only thing we see them doing together is something they disagree on. And they're not even showing that they know how to have a healthy disagreement and making that part of their love story, no. Aladdin isn't even able to communicate to Jasmine that he doesn't want the outfit. What do we get out of showing Aladdin and Jasmine interacting this way? That they have two completely different, possibly incompatible, ideas for their future life; that they're both perfectly satisfied without the other's presence; that they're terrible at communicating; and even, possibly, that Jasmine is controlling and trying to change Aladdin. Meanwhile Sadira is friendly and eager and agreeable as you please, and she comes from the same world Aladdin understands and almost seems to still want to be a part of (though that begs the question of why Aladdin tells Sadira, in black-and-white moral kiddie language, that “stealing isn't the answer” as if he doesn't know perfectly well what it's like to be so desperate stealing is your only choice). Would it really have been that hard to write the episode so Aladdin and Jasmine both came to the marketplace on the same mission they were both equally excited about? Or to have some playful flirting in their dialogue?? Or to have Aladdin, when he locates Jasmine in the market, slip up behind Jasmine and give her a Twirl?? Or do something, anything, to show these two are a happy, functioning, loving couple?!

Oh, and on top of all that, they have Jasmine expose Sadira to the guards as being a thief, by saying aloud that she cannot be a fruit inspector because her father doesn't have one, all while Aladdin and his gang of guy friends are, annoyingly, making gestures at her behind the guards' backs trying to get her to shut up. The reason I found this annoying is not because I didn't understand what they were doing (although Aladdin should be able to just tell Razoul to leave people alone!!) but because the whole setup puts Sadira in the role of sympathetic victim, and Jasmine in the role of “annoying loudmouthed woman” who spoiled everything for our hero and his new friend.

The trouble with Sadira's intrduction is this. If Sadira is presented to us as a sympathetic potential friend and not as our newest villain, if Jasmine is constantly presented as in the wrong and as an obstacle to Aladdin and his new friend, if Aladdin seems almost to prefer being a street rat to a prince (though in the movie he very clearly didn't!), if we aren't shown anything to indicate Jasmine and Aladdin are in love and happy together – why exactly are we supposed to assume Jasmine is a better choice for Aladdin than Sadira is??

You might think I'm exaggerating. I'm not.  If I were watching this story unfold with no other context for who these characters are, I would have thought it was one of those where the hero meets his dream woman and falls in love, but he already has a girlfriend who's all wrong for him, and that girlfriend is his main obstacle to happiness once he's met Miss Right.

The other problem with Sadira's introduction is, after they've gone to all this trouble to convince us Sadira's perfectly compatible with Aladdin, they start having her do villainous things, making for a very confusing narrative. Instead of telling us Sadira was a nice girl who became corrupted, making the episode all about her downfall into villainy, which could have been interesting, they still seem to want us to see Sadira as a sympathetic victim of unrequited love, no matter how much she does to prove otherwise. Even after Sadira learns to be a Sand Witch, and sends a sand gollum (with a fun anachronistic Cockney British accent) to kidnap Jasmine, and you'd think we'd be leaning fully into her villain arc by this point, she's still treated as an innocent wide-eyed schoolgirl who made a mistake because she went too far in trying to get her crush to notice her. There's actually a very funny moment, which wasn't meant to be funny but it's so absurd I always laugh at the thought of it anyway, where Sadira asks the sand gollum whether there is some “pit of a thousand screams” he can take Jasmine to in order to get her out of Aladdin's life for good. The sand gollum says his function is to crush things and people, and only to crush them, although there was zero indication of that before when he willingly agreed to kidnap Jasmine, which has nothing to do with crushing things. And Sadira goes, “No, don't hurt her! Just get rid of her!” She's already kidnapped Jasmine, snatched her out of her very life and probably caused her a lot of emotional trauma, is planning to dump her somewhere she can never get back from, and the type of place she suggested sounds very much like somewhere where Jasmine would die. But she doesn't want to hurt her?? Um – Sadira, what do you think you've been doing to Jasmine this entire time??

So then the show, in order to prove Sadira has not become a villain after all, comes up with a very contrived ending in which the sand gollum gets tired of listening to Sadira and tries to destroy her, along with Aladdin and all his friends who have showed up to rescue Jasmine (because even though Aladdin was giving every indication of not being in love with Jasmine at the start of this episode, he does at least get right back into protector mode once she's in danger). Then they have Sadira be the one to destroy the rampaging sand gollum, you know, the one that was going to destroy her too if she didn't stop it.  There we go. Irrefutable proof that Sadira is a good guy! No one could possibly argue with that one.

Sadira, in my mind, is a character who needs to be a villain in order to work properly. If her whole thing is having feelings for Aladdin, she can only create conflict in the story one of three ways. One, if Aladdin started being swayed by her attentions, which of course is unacceptable, we're not doing that. Two, if Jasmine were jealous and did something extreme, which could only work for so long before she'd start looking unreasonable and like she doesn't trust Aladdin. Or three, if Sadira was deliberately trying to sabotage their relationship, which would create an endless amount of beautiful conflict for as long as we need it to. And Sadira is good at being a villain! The whole episode is like her origin story, the story of how Sadira became a Sand Witch and came into her own, and part of that is her deciding she can use her new power to get her own way. Take that away, and it's honestly unfair to Sadira as a character!

And how does Aladdin react, once the sand gollum is gone and only Sadira is left to deal with? What words does he say to declare his undying devotion to Jasmine, how he will oppose anything that tries to harm his beloved princess with every fibre of his being? He sums up his feelings in a simple sentence to Sadira: “I like you, but I love Jasmine.”

Um – what?? Why do you like her, Aladdin?! It's not like she was his longtime friend from before the movie or anything, and he'd have some memory of her once being a better person and some guilt at throwing all that away.  Aladdin didn't even know Sadira. He'd met her once, only once, before she proved her true colours to all of them by kidnapping Jasmine. She's a villain, plain and simple, like Abis Mal or Mechanicles – you don't see Aladdin trying to excuse or befriend them. Where exactly was this deep, unbreakable connection that prompted him to still “like” Sadira even after that?! They were trying way too hard to prove to us our new villain wasn't a villain....

As for Jasmine, I would fully have expected her to not only be so shaken by her experience that she couldn't bear to even look at Sadira anymore, but also to consider Aladdin's insistence on still liking her as the highest form of betrayal. I can think of nothing that makes it quite so clear your relationship is over than one party insisting on befriending someone who did the other party this level of deliberate harm. But Jasmine, for no less than the fourth time in this series (episodes 2, 8, 12, and now this), decides once again that being taken prisoner is a completely reasonable thing to do and that anyone who does it is entirely justified. She is as forgiving as Aladdin for some reason is, and even invites Sadira back to the palace with them(!) I have to say, even if Sadira hadn't clearly shown herself to be a dangerous enemy willing to resort to physical force to get her way, how could any couple have a comfortable friendship with someone who they know has romantic feelings for one of them and would be overjoyed if they ever split up??

The story does end with a moment of Sadira by herself, letting us know that no, she has not learned her lesson, and yes, she is plotting to try again. That redeemed the episode somewhat for me, since at the moment, we were still being promised the possibility of a truly threatening Sadira, who would be treated as the great villain she had so much potential to be.

16 – I Never Mechanism I Didn't Like *****

I would never have guessed, based on the opening of this one, that it would become one of my favourite episodes in the entire series.

The episode opens with Aladdin and friends fighting Mechanicles, which isn't a choice I would have made since I'm not fond of stories opening with an action scene before we've had a chance to establish what's going on. Even when I do already know the characters and who I'm rooting for and why, I still don't know what they're trying to achieve or how the battle got started, so I'm left confused and can't get properly swept up in the action. And then they made another open, undeserved slight on poor Genie's intelligence, this time in a way that made it clear this was going to be an important plot point in the episode. I was more than a little nervous to continue with a story that might be all about Unintelligent Genie.

But as it turned out, there was no need to be, with this being one of the best stories the TV series has told yet. Mechanicles decides, in a very entertaining monologue with himself back in his lair after losing his battle with Aladdin, that it would be easier if his intended victims cooperated with his evil schemes. And so he sends a robot as a gift to the Sultan. Aladdin is initially suspicious, but the Sultan gets annoyed with him for trying to protect him from the robot, which seems a little odd when Aladdin was, after all, the one who figured out Jafar was controlling the Sultan and you'd think the Sultan would at least consider trusting Aladdin's judgment on these things. But then the robot's hypnotic eyes come to life, affecting everyone: the Sultan, Jasmine, Iago, Abu, Aladdin himself... everyone except for Carpet and Genie. Hypnosis doesn't work on magic beings.

Under the spell of the robot Gregarious (Greg for short), Aladdin and co start blindly agreeing to everything Greg suggests, no matter how horrible it is, and more than that, they act hostile and threatening towards anyone who dares raise the slightest question. In no time Mechanicles, with the help of Greg, has all of Agrabah basically turned into slaves forced to clean the entire city. I can only imagine how devastating that must have been to the people, to see their Sultan and Princess and (the man who should have been their) Prince, whom they thought they could trust and rely on to keep them safe, walking around condoning this and not offering them the slightest bit of help. I would have liked to see that explored a little more, honestly, because I don't know how the people could have trusted their royal family again after that! Maybe a speech from the palace balcony explaining everything and some act to make amends...  But I absolutely love the whole idea, seeing these characters I would trust completely to do a good job at helping the people suddenly made to turn into – this. There's a scene near the end, once Genie has broken the spell on Aladdin and the two of them and Carpet team up to try and defeat Mechanicles, where Jasmine (still under Gregarious's spell) literally tries to kill Aladdin just because he stood up to Mechanicles and Greg.  As for the Genie plotline, well, that was actually one of the best parts of the episode.  All the while, Genie is torn between saying something about what he knows is wrong, and being afraid to speak up after Aladdin told him, at the beginning of the episode, to always listen to him or else he'll mess up everything. That was the other great thing this episode did – it turns out that, because Genie was the only speaking character who realized something was wrong here, Aladdin learns to trust Genie's judgment. This episode, finally, comes down on the side of Genie having good sense, good ideas, and being quite capable of knowing what to do.

17 – Fowl Weather **

This episode kind of confused me. The set-up kept feeling like the story was going to be about one thing, and then another, so by the time it finally settled I wasn't at all prepared for this type of story and didn't actually want it.

At first Aladdin and Jasmine are helping a young boy water a fig tree during a drought, and it seems to be about them helping the people of Agrabah, which would have been great since we don't see that often enough. They're worried about how they're going to grow enough food for the people if it doesn't rain soon (although later on, it's established pretty clearly that Agrabah, being in a desert, never gets much rain anyway, so I don't know why they don't already have a method for growing food in dry weather. Otherwise how could the city have lasted this long??) Aladdin, Jasmine, Genie, Abu, Iago, and Carpet then go on a journey to get rain for Agrabah from a rainforest, and I thought, okay, this is going to be more of a travelling-and-adventure type story, they're going to discover new places and such. But we hardly get any adventure before Aladdin and friends meet the mythical rain bird Thundra, who apparently owns all rain clouds and determines where they go. She does not like these intruders and refuses to give them any rain for Agrabah, and then she starts attacking them with storm winds. So okay, this new character is attacking our friends and refusing to hear them out, and I thought, “Oh, cool, we're getting a new villain here” and it finally looked like this one would be both capable of destroying our friends and evil enough to want to... but then it turns out Thundra has a thing for Iago. And the episode's direction changes yet again.

And just because Thundra had a thing for Iago didn't mean the story had to change. I love stories where the villain has a thing for one of the main good guys. Aladdin had a plotline like that, a deadly, dangerous villain who had a physical attraction (better described as full-on lust) for one of the main good characters, and at the same time was perfectly willing to destroy every last one of them. You know, Jafar.

But it's clear what they were really trying to do here is introduce a potential love interest for Iago, which I'm not quite as sold on as the idea of a love interest for Genie. (It's interesting how Eden, Sadira, and Thundra all have predominantly green character designs....) Now, they didn't give Iago any super-romantic moments that really wouldn't work for him, they didn't make any interest he had in her feel super serious, and Iago probably wouldn't mind getting with someone who has a dubious moral code. Thundra has a Spanish accent, so I think they were going for the "fiery Latina" archetype more than "villain", but the fact remains, anyone other than Iago should realize there's a huge difference between "fiery" and "trying to kill people".

Which is why it completely baffled me when Jasmine objects so strongly to Aladdin's plan to get rain from Thundra and save Agrabah's dying food supply. He thinks to have Iago distract Thundra, by pretending to return her feelings and flirt with her, while he and Genie steal a rain cloud from her rain cloud lineup. And for some reason, Jasmine is so concerned with Thundra's feelings, so completely convinced Thundra is just a harmless woman in love who deserves their unquestioning sympathy, that she refuses to even try to understand where Aladdin is coming from. I mean – they're really giving these objections to Jasmine?! Right, Jasmine, how could anyone pretend to be in love with a powerful enemy who has shown every sign of being ready to destroy all of you, in order to give another member of your party a chance to retrieve something necessary to your own and the kingdom's very survival? Who would do a thing like that?? Oh, that's right – you would.

I would have been okay with Jasmine making objections if she remembered what a bad experience it had been seducing an enemy and didn't want to put anyone else through it. (“No, Aladdin, you can't ask Iago to do this! You don't know how horrible it is.”) Or if she reminded Aladdin that the plan hadn't worked back when she'd done it and she felt it was too dangerous because Thundra, too, would try to kill them all if provoked. Or even if she just couldn't stand any reminder of that time she'd seduced Jafar and wanted Aladdin to choose a plan that didn't trigger painful memories. There are so many objections they could have chosen that actually align with the brave thing she did in the final act of the movie. But instead, Jasmine's whole objection is that it's “not right to toy with someone's affections” as if Thundra was a harmless woman in love and they weren't in a life-or-death situation where Thundra had just tried to murder all of them. And, if I recall, in the movie Jasmine also pretended to return Prince Ali's affections before turning round and attacking him, and I'm willing to bet that wasn't the only time she'd done that to a suitor. Jasmine doesn't believe it's inherently wrong to toy with someone else's affections. There is no reason here for her to be taking this complete stranger's side over Aladdin's. Once again they're assigning the “typical” female traits to Jasmine instead of the traits that actually fit this particular female.

They have Jasmine object to the plan again in a later scene – when Thundra is literally on the verge of attacking Agrabah because her feelings are hurt, oh but apparently that's Iago and Aladdin's fault – by saying, and I quote: “It doesn't matter the species, men are men!” Really, Jasmine??  I cannot believe they just had Jasmine dump a blanket insult on an entire group of people, including the one she's supposed to be in a happy, committed relationship with... if she thinks men are that awful, what's she with Aladdin for?!  Thundra is the one attacking an entire kingdom because her feelings are hurt, Aladdin was trying to help his people when an essential resource was being withheld. Okay, I admit, pretending you have feelings for someone when you don't isn't very nice (although at the end it's made out like Iago had a little crush on Thundra anyway), but for me that didn't feel nearly as significant here as those other two points.  But, of course, they make it out like Jasmine was right and Iago has to go and apologize to Thundra, who if I recall did not have to apologize for attacking the kingdom or withholding rain from them....

18 – Forget-Me-Lots *****

Did you ever wonder what would happen if Jasmine were under a spell that made her think she hated Aladdin? Oh, and if the spell also makes her think she's a fierce, merciless desert warrior, so instead of just hating Aladdin, she's actively fighting him to the death while he has no idea why she's this mad? I can tell you – it's thrilling, it's devastating, it's wonderful.

The external conflict is that Abis Mal has stolen the Blue Rose of Forgetfulness, a flower that, as soon as you smell it, wipes away all your memories. At this point your mind is open and vulnerable to suggestion, and whatever anyone tells you about yourself, you automatically accept as true. The internal conflict is that Jasmine is upset with Aladdin for forgetting today is the one-year anniversary of their first date. I'll allow a first-date anniversary, even though I really think those could only ever be a thing in a world where it's common for couples to go for many years without thinking of marriage while still being committed enough to want an anniversary to celebrate. Which, I maintain, is not the kind of world Aladdin and Jasmine are living in.... But this plot point actually gave the episode extra bonus points for me, because I think it was the first one to directly acknowledge something that happened in the movie. At first I was really happy the show wasn't tying everything back to the movie and overdoing it, but soon I started to wonder why there were no references to the movie at all, and I think that feeling of being “anchored” to Aladdin and Jasmine's official story really helped me connect to this one. I also enjoyed the reference point for how much time since the movie had passed – but we're only eighteen episodes in, Aladdin and Jasmine have been together for a year already, and they're not going to get married until all ninety episodes have passed?! How many years will they have been apart by then??

Abis Mal plans to use the rose to make the Sultan forget he's the Sultan so he can take the throne, but instead Aladdin winds up with the rose without knowing what it is. He gives it to Jasmine to try and make up for what he forgot (he still can't remember)... and before you know it, Jasmine's forgotten who Aladdin is and is convinced she doesn't like him, and runs away from him when he tries to make up. Then she's found by Haroud and Abis Mal, and Haroud (who has to make all the good decisions for Abis Mal) decides to make Jasmine, while her mind is blank and vulnerable, think Abis Mal is her father and that she is a fierce desert warrior. Haroud reasons no one at the palace will want to hurt Princess Jasmine and so having her with them will guarantee their victory. Jasmine believes it and agrees to help them take over the palace the next day, and while Haroud comments on how they've successfully changed "sweet Princess Jasmine", she ironically feels more like herself in her enchanted desert-warrior persona than she sometimes does in this series when she's meant to just be normal!

I must say Jasmine, the Scourge of the Desert (as they called her) is a delight to see. After being badly underplayed and never presented with the right level of commanding presence, to have her effortlessly on top of everything and knocking aside anyone who stands in her way was just so amazing. Jasmine makes for a formidable warrior, and while normally I don't like when female characters are given ridiculous amounts of fighting skill they could never reasonably have, here it works because 1) the Agrabah guards don't want to risk hurting Jasmine and aren't fighting at full strength, 2) the power of suggestion could do wonders for Jasmine's abilities, and most importantly 3) I don't think anyone was trying to send a message of “women perfect men useless” in that day and age. Besides giving her this fighting ability really did make her feel so much more Jasmine-like than when she's forgiving her kidnappers or taking her enemies' sides over her family's and friends'.

Abis Mal's plan backfires (is it me or does this happen a lot?) as Jasmine also stands up to him, and she quickly proves herself to be a formidable opponent for their weak-willed enemy, which I absolutely love. (Between this and episode 7, I would not be surprised if Abis Mal started being scared of her!)  I found myself really wishing Jasmine would carry on with her Scourge of the Desert persona even after the spell on her was broken, that her warrior self would become a recurring thing. It would be great seeing her develop this powerful side, and this time without the side effects of trying to overthrow her father and kill Aladdin! That was all so wonderfully devastating to watch. That moment when Jasmine hesitates, thinking she knows the Sultan from somewhere, and Haroud jumps in and puts his hand over the Sultan's mouth before he can tell Jasmine yes, he's her father... Aladdin coming to the palace convinced he's got to save Jasmine from the clutches of Abis Mal, without having any idea why she responds to his rescue attempts by attacking him, except if she's still mad about whatever it was he forgot, until he slowly realizes that wait a minute, no one holds a grudge this badly... it was great. We get a great reference to True Love breaking a spell in Aladdin's world, and the themes of forgetting tie the internal and external plotlines together beautifully. I did not like Aladdin referring to the night of the Carpet Ride as the night he fell in love with Jasmine. Jasmine fell in love with Aladdin on the Carpet Ride; he was already in love with her, from the moment he first saw her in the marketplace. Normally I wouldn't quibble about a little thing like that, but they're already trying to force Aladdin and Jasmine's relationship to go at this impossibly slow pace by taking their immediate wedding away from them, and I will not have them taking Aladdin's love-at-first-sight moment too.

There is one little thing I noticed, towards the end of the episode where Aladdin's trying in earnest to remember what he forgot the day before so he can bring Jasmine's memory back. He's going through important dates in his head, and he says “It's not her birthday”, just a throwaway line that we're not supposed to read any more into. But – let's go back to the movie for a little timeline, shall we?  When we first meet Jasmine, the Sultan mentions that her birthday is three days from now. I feel like that's an often-overlooked point, since her birthday is never brought up again and isn't a huge plot point like, say, Aurora's. That night, Jasmine runs away. The next day, when she meets Aladdin in the marketplace, gets to know him, and ends the day thinking he's dead, is two days before her birthday. Aladdin's whole adventure in the Cave of Wonders must take place between that day and the next.  So the next day is when Aladdin makes his first wish, returns to the palace as Prince Ali, and takes Jasmine on the Magic Carpet Ride – one day before Jasmine's birthday. Which means Jasmine's birthday was the day after the Magic Carpet Ride, and was presumably just not acknowledged because of everything else going on. Jasmine's birthday was the day after the Magic Carpet Ride. And according to this episode, it was the one-year anniversary of the Magic Carpet Ride and is now the next day. Meaning that today was in fact Jasmine's birthday, and Aladdin had just forgotten that too. Oh, boy... here we go again....

19 – Scare Necessities ***

Why is Aladdin, living in his happily ever after and having achieved everything he wanted in life, suddenly supposed to have no money now??

Iago's once again getting frustrated with Aladdin's inability to provide him with a decent lifestyle, and once again I don't blame him – and it must be twice as hard for poor Iago, since he knows what he's missing! I'm amazed Aladdin doesn't seem to care at all. He's trying to buy a present for Jasmine, but isn't able to afford the locket he knows she really wants, and has to settle for an old, smelly stuffed animal he knows she wouldn't really want. He doesn't even have the option of stealing her a locket anymore, since that would get him in bad with the Sultan – honestly, I've said it before, it seems to me that in this version of events, Aladdin is actually worse off now than he was before.

Anyway, in the shop, Iago and Abu discover a strange furry creature kept shut up inside a box by the shopkeeper. Abu and Iago steal the box and this creature – which is very cute, sort of like a grey bunny rabbit with short ears – ends up coming along when Aladdin goes to give his gift to Jasmine. It turns out the bunny rabbit thing, a timid creature, has the power to make objects appear, any object that anyone nearby might have been wishing for, whenever it gets scared. It seems that's a defence mechanism to help it escape from danger – now there is some cool worldbuilding, creating a magical creature and then giving it a purpose for its abilities just like a real animal would have! It's a good thing, too that Jafar never found out about this cute, cuddly thing....

Jasmine likes the creature and wants to keep it as a pet, and she shows off the kind, animal-lover side of her nature beautifully, taking such good care of the creature that it would have no chance of being scared. But Iago and Abu conspire together and steal the creature in the night, so that it can give them all the luxuries Aladdin still cannot – and much as I don't condone kidnapping or deliberately causing someone this amount of fear, I can't say that I blame them.

Soon Iago begins to form a bond with the rabbit-like creature, whom he affectionately dubs “Squirt”. Squirt is never scared by Iago's antics, so poor Iago is constantly left without the good things he wants so badly while Abu is happily munching on one banana parfait after another provided by Squirt. (And not sharing, naturally.) Soon enough, of course, Jasmine, with help from Aladdin and Genie, comes after them wanting her pet back, but there are other, less savoury people around who want to use Squirt's powers. The old unpleasant shopkeeper is not happy her wish-granting creature has been taken from her, and the thief from back in episode 3, Amin Damoola, makes a second appearance (and proves he hasn't gotten any better at stealing, though he still comes across as pretty dangerous). I love when the new one-off characters recur, it makes the world feel so real – though I admit, I never did care for future appearances of this unpleasant lady shopkeeper, since every time she appears there's reference to Aladdin not having much money.

Jasmine has an excellent moment where she refuses to let Squirt's old owner, who kept him in a box and never treated him well, take him back. In the end, it's Iago who figures out how to help Squirt, and while I do wish Squirt could have stayed with Iago and Jasmine (they both had such great dynamics with him!), I do think what happened was ultimately for the best.

20 – Sandswitched **

This was another episode I had heard of in advance, so I knew the basic premise: Sadira casts a spell over Agrabah to make everyone remember her as the Princess, the Sultan's daughter, and Aladdin's fiancée (who should totally be his wife by now); and Jasmine appears to everyone as some street mouse. Only the spell doesn't work on the animals, and now Iago, Rajah, and Abu have to work together to set things right before Aladdin and Sadira's wedding. (Yes, I did say they were having an immediate wedding; we'll be getting to that, don't worry.) My main thought when I first heard this idea was that I really really hoped Jasmine would not be affected by the spell and would still remember who she is, because that would make it all the more devastating and really drive home what Sadira had done. Sadira snatched Jasmine out of her very life and left her someplace she has no experience with and could very likely die; she's going to trick Aladdin into holding her, kissing her, and even marrying her (we all know what they'd be doing on their wedding night) without true consent. And it would drive home just how terrible all this is, if Jasmine who is going to be affected by this worse than anyone remembered.

I wasn't actually surprised to find out the show decided not to go that route, and honestly, at first I didn't mind that much, because it still added a good layer of complication when Jasmine refused to believe she was actually a princess. Jasmine as a street mouse comes off as positively mean – she does perform one act of kindness, but her overall attitude is just mean – which I think is quite an interesting take on her character. Maybe without the protection and security she grew up with, she would be always on-edge and would never have developed her softer, kinder side. I really liked getting to see Jasmine from a different angle, and the show could still have played up in other ways just how horrible what Sadira was doing really was.

But it really never does. I think a large part of the problem was the episode focused entirely on the three animals and their quest to find Jasmine, which did work up to a point as we see a very interesting dynamic of Abu, Iago, and Rajah working together. (It's always nice to see Rajah in a major role!) But while all this is going on, Aladdin and Sadira are spending the day together – and the episode barely shows us a glimpse of it. Nothing where Aladdin realizes he and Sadira have entirely different tastes in activities or incompatible moral codes (which could then later be contrasted with how similar his and Jasmine's are). Nothing where Aladdin is put off by anything Sadira says or does, or notices any red flags. Actually there's very little in the episode about Sadira having no idea how to act like Jasmine or navigate palace life! (There was one thing I really liked, a running joke where she keeps calling head guard Razoul by the wrong name, and he gets consistently more annoyed with her each time. I was very disappointed to find there was no payoff for this in the final act, like Razoul getting so upset with Sadira that he ends up helping Jasmine or something.) Part of the issue is that the episode opens with Sadira casting her Sandswitch spell, which is fine I guess since we already know all the characters and don't need a setup section to introduce anything. But this way we don't get to see any of Aladdin and Jasmine's relationship to compare it to Aladdin and Sadira's later on, so all we have to go on is the last 19 episodes... which don't exactly give us the most convincing picture of undying love. And then we have... Aladdin and Sadira's wedding. When Aladdin's with Jasmine, he's been putting off the wedding as long as possible and she's supposedly just fine with it, not impatient or feeling unloved or even consumed by overpowering lust. But then Sadira comes on the scene, and she demands they get married right away, so that Aladdin can be all hers as soon as possible. And we don't see the discussion where they decide to do it, but... everything indicates Aladdin's perfectly fine with it. There's even a scene where we hear some of the guards comment on this: Aladdin and the princess were happy to put off the wedding this long, they say, but now all of a sudden it's urgent? And the guards are absolutely right, why is no one addressing this!!! So, what, when Aladdin's with Jasmine he can't be bothered to commit and she doesn't even care, but when he's with Sadira he's more than willing to get married immediately?! How, exactly, am I supposed to take away from this that Aladdin loves Jasmine more than Sadira?! It's a classic case of “if he wanted to, he would”.

The only time we see anything close to incompatibility between Aladdin and Sadira is when she's trying on poofy wedding dresses and Aladdin is getting bored watching her. And – if that's the biggest problem you ever have in your relationship, you've hit the romance jackpot and stop complaining right now. Using this as their example of Sadira not being right for Aladdin also feels – oddly sexist, honestly. It's the common stereotype of the woman enjoying herself shopping while the man gets bored, but the sequence invites us to sympathize with Aladdin and laugh at how absurd Sadira's being, without giving any support to the female side of the situation. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that Sadira had just stolen Jasmine's life, I'd say she has even more reason than most to enjoy these fancy dresses, considering what her life normally is!

The way they handled Jasmine remembering her feelings for Aladdin, and then him remembering his feeling for her, actually left me with quite an unpleasant taste in my mouth. So, at first Jasmine refuses to believe she is actually the princess, and is very annoyed with the animals for interrupting her important work. (Because Jasmine only remembers herself as a street mouse, she's already a skilled pickpocket and there's nothing to remind us that Sadira forced Jasmine into a dangerous situation she wasn't suited to. They could even have done something with muscle memory, have Jasmine believe she knows how to pick pockets but her fingers have never done it before and keep messing up! But no, everything we see suggests Jasmine would have been just fine if Sadira's plot had worked and she'd had to stay out here forever.) But the minute Jasmine sees Aladdin, something deep at the back of her memory is triggered and she realizes she must meet this person. I really liked that part, the idea that, no matter how deeply her memories were buried or how badly they'd been altered, the love was still there and would always be stronger than any spell. But Jasmine agrees to follow the animals to the palace to meet Aladdin, and for the rest of the episode, she doesn't stop once to ask herself why she's so convinced she knows this person that she's sneaking into the literal palace. She never stops to suggest this is crazy, or gets cold feet and tries to turn around and go back to the nice safe streets. Towards the end she's so convinced she needs to be with Aladdin that she's determined to stop his wedding to Sadira, but – why? She doesn't remember she's Aladdin's girlfriend-who-should-totally-be-his-wife, she has no possible way of knowing Aladdin isn't really in love with Sadira, and she hasn't spent any time with Aladdin in which they could have built a relationship all over again. At this rate the episode might just as well have had her remember who she was the entire time.

One thing I really did love in this episode was how they handled the Sultan. There's a brief scene where he runs into Jasmine (and for some reason doesn't question why a strange girl wearing rags is in his palace!), and in a really sweet moment he wonders if he knows her from somewhere. Even though Jasmine says he doesn't and the episode doesn't nearly show us how heartbreaking that is, he goes on talking to her and basically implies he wishes she were his daughter, and we can just tell some deep-down part of him knows. The paternal love in this episode was spot-on.

If only the romantic love had been handled as well. Inside the palace, Aladdin at last sees Jasmine and they have one moment of looking deep into each other's eyes before Sadira orders Jasmine and the animals thrown in the dungeon. That's it. One moment is all the episode gives them. No conversation that could trigger memories in Aladdin's mind about how much more Jasmine seems like the girl he fell in love with than Sadira does, or lets him know how compatible Jasmine is with him after Sadira has been feeling “off” all day. No. We're expected to take that one single moment as enough to sway Aladdin's commitment away from Sadira – the girl, I presume, he thinks is the one he saved from the angry apple merchant and took on the Magic Carpet Ride and saved from the deathtrap of Jafar's hourglass. At the end of the episode, when Aladdin walks away from his wedding to Sadira at the last minute so that he can kiss Jasmine, it ends up feeling less like True Love won the day and more like I have to start questioning Aladdin's ability to be faithful.

As far as Genie goes... I know he's never particularly well-written in this series, that's nothing new, but I honestly don't know when I've seen him written worse. I don't think Genie should have been affected by the spell in the first place, being made of magic and all – especially when that stopped him being affected by Greg's hypnosis not four episodes ago! He's an ancient magical being who exists far outside the realm of just Agrabah; there is no way he should be affected by a little spell cast by one human on one city! It makes him feel reduced, like he's some ordinary human instead of a genie. Of course I knew right from the start he was still going to be affected, because if he wasn't there would be far too few characters left who don't remember the truth. I knew they would take advantage of that to give Genie even more opportunities to be portrayed as stupid (yay....) And I already noticed in Sadira's introduction episode how it felt oddly like Genie wanted Aladdin and Sadira together. But here – he's pushing for Aladdin to just marry Sadira no matter what he feels, suppressing any attempt of Aladdin's to explore his increasing feelings about Jasmine (can you imagine the friendship moment if Genie helped Aladdin explore the little bit of Jasmine he saw, and they realized together that she and not Sadira had to be the girl from Aladdin's memories??) And then Genie sabotages Jasmine and the pets' attempts to get to Aladdin before he finishes marrying Sadira, in the most underhanded way possible, to the point where it surpasses annoying and becomes almost suspicious. I mean, why would he have to be sneaky and underhanded about this at all; why wouldn't he just confront Jasmine and the animals and tell them in a Genie-like way that they aren't on the guest list?? He's literally grabbing Jasmine away from the marriage ceremony and covering her mouth as she attempts to get Aladdin's attention. That is not the way you try and remove an annoying upstart from your best friend's wedding so that said upstart can't stop him from marrying his dream girl. That is what you do in a scenario like Forget-Me-Lots, where Haroud covers the Sultan's mouth so that he can't tell Jasmine he's her real father and create a conflict in her memories. That is what you do when you're trying to suppress the truth. Otherwise, what would be the point? If Aladdin's really committed to Sadira he'll marry her no matter what Jasmine does, and if he's swayed away from his wedding this easily, he shouldn't be getting married anyway. Honestly, most of the time I hate Disney fan theories that try to make it out like one of the obviously good guys was secretly a villain (as if that wouldn't have been revealed in the movie!) but here, if you told me Genie knew the truth all along and was just trying to sabotage Jasmine because he was tired of her and wanted Sadira to be with Aladdin... I'd probably agree with you.

So Aladdin steps away from his wedding and kisses Jasmine, which is a really bad look when you consider he didn't know or even suspect that wasn't his real bride he was about to marry, but I knew that kiss was going to break the spell, and I was all prepared for the aftermath. We have to see Aladdin, Jasmine, and the Sultan returning to normal; Sadira's frustration as she sees her spell is broken; Genie realizing what he'd almost done and apologizing profusely. We need the Sultan's touching reunion with his daughter who could have been separated from him forever, anger and relief from Aladdin as he realizes how he'd been tricked into touching and kissing some other woman all day and how much worse it would have gotten after the wedding, and a big declaration of love from Aladdin to Jasmine. And of course Sadira's punishment.

But no. The final scene was so confusing to me at first – why are we suddenly out in the gardens and Aladdin and Jasmine are happy; what happened to the interrupted wedding?? Turns out that once the spell is broken, you just go back to the original timeline and don't remember anything about what happened while the spell was in effect. Which means that not only can Aladdin and Jasmine never work through and heal any traumas they might have picked up from being almost forced to marry someone he didn't want/left out on the streets to fend for herself – the whole thing is being treated as not deserving of any consequences. Sadira gets off scot-free with no punishment apart from her sheer frustration at being foiled again. I would say poetic justice is a pretty universal form of story language. We get a sense of satisfaction when what happens to a character at the end is in direct proportion to how bad – or good – their actions were. So if Sadira snatches Jasmine out of her life, forces her to forget and be forgotten by all the people who love her and could have protected her, leaves her to spend the rest of her life alone in a dangerous environment, and goes off with Aladdin who could not consent to anything they would be doing together for the rest of his life – if Sadira gets away with all of that and suffers no consequences whatsoever – what is the story telling us about how serious her actions are??

I wanted to like this episode, I really did. But I cannot get over that throughout the entire thing, they couldn't think of anything, not a single solitary scene, to show us either that Aladdin finds common ground with Jasmine even when he doesn't remember her, or that he sees red flags in Sadira and begins to regret being engaged to her even without the added motivation of Jasmine. This episode should have been the perfect celebration of Aladdin and Jasmine's love, and shown us just how strong their bond is. Instead I find myself wondering what Aladdin would do on his wedding day to Jasmine if some other strange, beautiful woman showed up and looked into his eyes. The final scene does attempt to show us some romance, and has Aladdin and Jasmine playfully flirting by the garden fountain while she splashes water at him – but it's much too little, too late.

So we had some great stories, and some that were more than a little disappointing. Click here for part 4 (Episodes 21-30) !