21 – Lost and Founded *****
This episode gives us some cool insight into the history of Agrabah, as the city prepares to celebrate “Founder's Day” to commemorate when the Sultan's ancestor Hamed founded the city and became its first Sultan. I really liked that backstory and – unless there's something about the usual formation of kingdoms I don't know about – see no reason why it couldn't be canon. I mean, sure, I did wonder about Hamed's not being technically royal at the time, but then, all royal families have to start somewhere. You don't just get beamed down from the sky onto a throne; someone along the line had to actually form the kingdom and claim sovereignty!
Watching the citizens of Agrabah prepare for Founder's Day, all cheerfully greeting one another (in a way that felt kind of out of place for the unfriendly city of the movie), I realized this was the first time I'd ever seen a holiday celebrated in Agrabah of any kind. Do you know what I would love to see next? Aladdin and Jasmine celebrating the holidays that would be familiar to them in a predominantly Muslim country. Do you know I don't think I've ever come across a single Aladdin story that does that? I remember seeing a fan-made Instagram post one time, with a caption all about Aladdin and Jasmine celebrating Eid – I want to see that! I want to see the unique history of this particular kingdom, yes – but I also want to see culture!
Iago, by the way, is trying to earn a little money by selling jars with Sultan Hamed's face painted on them, and once again any attempt of Iago's to get money has to be presented as a bad thing and be thwarted, so once again Aladdin stops him, this time because he doesn't want the holiday turned into a business opportunity. Apparently Aladdin has never been in any modern-day shopping mall around Christmas... but seriously, all debates about the commercialization of holidays aside, I think the show was really going too far this time. Iago has every right to try and earn his own money with a legitimate business, and what he's doing is no more wrong than selling jars with Santa Claus painted on the front!
Anyway, the main story begins when Abis Mal steals some sort of time-portal magic, and transports himself back in time to when Hamed, who back then led a group of wandering nomads, had just arrived at the site of his future kingdom. Aladdin pursues Abis Mal in his usual brave heroic way, and to my great relief and delight Jasmine is right there with him, and comes along on the adventure as they go through Abis Mal's time portal and follow him into the past. Well, I suppose they couldn't really get away with Jasmine not being here, since they're meeting her ancestor on this adventure!
It is impossible not to like Hamed. He's just this round, sweet, comfortable guy, very like the Sultan and yet, I thought, not so exact it was like they didn't bother coming up with a new character. Jasmine obviously feels drawn to him, she even gives him a big hug out of the blue at one point – and no wonder, he probably reminds her of her father when she was a little girl! What I found interesting is that, while Hamed is unsure about his dream of building a city and Aladdin, Jasmine, and Iago are trying to convince him to go ahead with it (Iago has this very funny line about how Hamed should make almost the entire palace into the bird quarters), there's no indication that Abis Mal has done anything to convince Hamed not to build a city. My takeaway is that Hamed felt uncertain all along before he started building his dream, and that Aladdin and Jasmine didn't really need to try and talk him into it because this wasn't anything Abis Mal had caused to turn out differently, it was just Hamed's own natural fears.
But meanwhile, Abis Mal still is causing trouble. He stirs up notions in the mind of an ancestor of his own, who worked in Hamed's group of nomads as I think a camel driver, and is named – what else? – Abnor Mal. Abis and Abnor create a deadly plan to remove Hamed from the entire timeline, so that history can rewrite itself with the Mals ruling Agrabah. We only ever get to see a small glimpse of Agrabah under the Mals' rule, and I wonder what would have happened to that line of rulers once Jafar put his evil takeover plan into action. Abis Mal doesn't exactly strike me as strong enough to defeat him – and it's not like Aladdin would have had any motive to fight for that royal family! No Jasmine for him to form a connection with – oh, and speaking of no Jasmine, it's so wonderfully devastating, I absolutely adore this part. So when Abis and Abnor Mal remove Hamed from the timeline – well, Hamed couldn't have had any descendants anymore, they'd never have been born and just wouldn't exist, so... Jasmine vanishes. She doesn't die; she's just gone as though she never existed. Aladdin has such a wonderfully heartbroken reaction to this, and his determination to bring Hamed back to his own timeline no matter what really felt like it was fuelled by an overwhelming grief at the thought of living in a world with no Jasmine. The entire time he's gripped in a furious determination to save Hamed and bring him back to his proper timeline, you can tell saving Jasmine is really what's on his mind.
The climax includes a really fun showdown in which Aladdin and Hamed and Abis and Abnor are all battling in the middle of a bunch of time portals, and they're all getting touched by different timelines and turning into different types of people across different time periods. Abis and Abnor, of course, are turning into dangerous things like soldiers in tanks, while Hamed makes a very sweet cook brandishing a ladle (uncertain whether said ladle counts as a deadly weapon), and Aladdin is hotter than ever in the forms of a rock star and a knight in shining – but very heavy – armour. It would have been nice if Jasmine could have been in the battle too, but I guess the two-on-two thing does work to keep the sides even. Besides if they had put someone else into the battle, they would have automatically gone for Genie and then we would have had to put up with even more of his being written as incompetent for the sake of keeping him around but not diminishing Aladdin's heroism.
Meanwhile Hamed has a vision of Agrabah as a thriving, happy paradise where children play on the streets, and is filled with a renewed desire to make his dreams reality. I wonder what gave him that renewed hope in the original timeline, since, like I said, it didn't look to me like his uncertainty was caused by any of our time travellers. I also wonder what he would say if he knew his great-great-great, however many greats, granddaughter, would one day almost get her hand chopped off due to the strict laws about thievery in his thriving paradise....
22 – Moonlight Madness **
I really did want to like this episode. After all, the idea of Jasmine being upset because Aladdin isn't spending enough time with her, and him trying to make up for that but complications happen, is something I've explored myself in my fanfictions (once I found out this never being together was apparently a problem they ran into – I certainly wouldn't have thought of that on my own!). This could have been a celebration of Aladdin and Jasmine's love lasting even through the rougher patches. But all I could feel, watching this episode, is like I was watching twenty-one minutes of “Aladdin and Jasmine's relationship doesn't really matter”.
At the beginning Jasmine asks Aladdin why “the guys” – Genie, Abu, Iago, and Carpet – are always around when they're together, and honestly I think she has a good point, because the show always does prioritize these four characters over anything between Aladdin and Jasmine, and we almost never get to see anything that is just Aladdin and Jasmine. I understand this type of series wants its cast of funny characters they can draw on for a consistent source of laughs, but that shouldn't be at the expense of the important relationship between two serious characters that drove the entire plot of the movie. I was impressed the show did, in a sense, call itself out for this, and yet neither Aladdin nor the show seem to be putting in any effort to correct the imbalance. Aladdin doesn't seem to understand where Jasmine is coming from, he doesn't seem to think there's a problem (doesn't he want more time for her too??), and he can barely talk to her about it at all with “the guys” being silly around their whole serious conversation. (I can't help but wonder if the real Genie would have noticed the problem and cleared the sidekicks out of the area so that Aladdin and Jasmine could have a real talk.) When Aladdin tells Jasmine they can go on a date together and it'll be just them, there is no sense he really wants to; it's like he's only agreeing to the bare minimum to stop her being upset. And Aladdin doesn't put any effort into planning this one single make-up date which is apparently all he could offer to Jasmine either. (Seriously, they could have ended the episode with him scheduling a weekly date night.) Jasmine says, “See you tonight”, but Aladdin never specified a time for this date, so “tonight” was Jasmine's decision and he's leaving her to plan her own make-up date, meant to help her feel less neglected, entirely by herself. Really makes a girl feel wanted, doesn't it? What's that saying: “If he wanted to, he would”?
And then, Aladdin hears tell of a mysterious treasure on an island that can only be retrieved at the full moon – which just so happens to be that very night. And I swear, he seems positively disappointed that his date with Jasmine means he cannot go after this treasure! (Did I ever mention he could have both romantic love and all the treasure he wants if he would just man up and marry Jasmine already?) Does Aladdin explain the situation to Jasmine so they can decide together what to do about it? Does he decide to wait just one more month (not really that long in the grand scheme of things) and plan a treasure hunt for then? Does he ask his friends to go to the island for him and see if they can find the treasure? No, he tricks Jasmine, pretending like he's taking her on a solo date to this island but really sneaking all “the guys” along with them, denying her the one thing she told him she needed for their relationship to thrive. Aladdin then proceeds to leave Jasmine all by herself for long periods of time so that he can instruct his (apparently super incompetent) friends on how to look for the treasure. Oh, sure, they were acting like Aladdin was just trying to do both at once and failing at it, but I'm not fooled. The treasure hunt can still happen, just as it needs to, if Jasmine is along and she and Aladdin have romantic moments interspersed; a one-on-one date with Jasmine cannot happen if Aladdin's focus is divided and he spends half the time sneaking off to talk to someone else. Jasmine actually does find out “the guys” have come along about halfway through the episode, and if you ask me she forgave Aladdin way, way, way too easily. Poor Jasmine, after all she's been through rejecting suitor after suitor, refusing to choose anyone until she felt truly loved and cared for – she had such high standards, and now she ends up stuck with this?
Of course, none of this would matter if Aladdin learns his lesson and agrees to treat Jasmine better by the end of it - so does he? It turns out there's a curse guarding the treasure, which the unpleasant shopkeeper lady from back in episode 19 refused to tell Aladdin about because the literal Princess's fiancé-who-should-totally-be-her-husband couldn't afford to pay her enough for all the information (rolls eyes). There's also a mysterious beautiful girl on the island, and at one point she ends up falling onto Aladdin's lap and Jasmine sees them together and thinks that's why Aladdin keeps running off, to be with this girl, and that he's cheating on her. I don't know why they needed to add in a plotline about Jasmine thinking Aladdin was cheating on her when she already knows he's neglecting her; their relationship is in trouble whether it's gotten to the point of infidelity or not. It kind of shifts the focus away from Jasmine's legitimate concerns and onto something she was wrong about. Although, for a time, it looked like the show was going to do something with an eye-opening moment where Aladdin realizes he's been neglecting Jasmine so badly she actually sees him cheating on her as a believable option. That could have worked. And in the end, Aladdin decides not to take the treasure, and they play this as Aladdin choosing love over treasure in the end. But the conflict of the episode was supposed to be Aladdin neglecting Jasmine in general - usually for his friend group - and not Aladdin neglecting Jasmine specifically for a treasure hunt. He also isn't choosing love over treasure, because Aladdin's taking or not taking the treasure at this point doesn't affect Jasmine in any way. Besides, it turns out the treasure is tied to the curse in such a way that if anyone had taken any of it, the mystery girl would never have been able to break the curse, and thus save both herself and her own True Love from being trapped forever inside horrible enchantments. It felt very much like the only reason the story ended with Aladdin unable to take the treasure was because of their whole “money is bad” narrative that never allows any of our good guys to become any richer, which destroys the whole theme of this episode because now there's no longer any conflict about whether Jasmine or the treasure hunt is more important. Aladdin cannot, as a decent human being, complete this treasure hunt without dooming two innocent people who have nothing to do with him and Jasmine. He would have made the same decision if he and Jasmine had a perfect relationship, or if they'd broken up, or if he'd never met Jasmine. But because Aladdin was only able to save this cursed couple because he went after the treasure, it almost ends up saying that Aladdin deciding to go on this treasure hunt, instead of giving Jasmine a proper one-on-one date, was ultimately a good thing.
And then once Jasmine sees the romantic happy ending for this other couple, she immediately forgives Aladdin and tells him that “the night was romantic after all”. No it wasn't!!!! All that happened is that she saw Aladdin wasn't cheating on her – which was never the issue – and going out of his way to help strangers – which Jasmine presumably already knows he does. Meanwhile, the actual problem – Aladdin never spending any one-on-one time with Jasmine – is never addressed or resolved, or even brought up again. The other couple is not used to show Aladdin what a healthy relationship actually looks like, or to shock him into realizing how much it would hurt him if Jasmine were trapped in a curse like that, or to open his eyes in any way. Instead the whole adventure is used as a shield to cover up Aladdin's wrongdoing, so he doesn't have to face any consequences for his actions or even learn to do better. Aladdin learns absolutely nothing from this adventure – except perhaps not to take mysterious treasure, which I figure he already believes since he's always stopping Iago from having any - oh, and that he can treat Jasmine any way he wants because she won't care. While Jasmine learns, I suppose, that Aladdin is already doing perfect and to shut up about her own needs, even though what she was asking for is literally the bare minimum for a healthy relationship to survive. Well, I'm not falling for it. Aladdin doesn't get a pass, and whoever decided how this episode should unfold doesn't get a pass either.
Is this, really and truly, the type of relationship Aladdin and Jasmine are likely to have, based on what we see of them in the movie? Is this really what they want us Aladdin fans to believe their canon relationship is?! I know, the show writers were probably just thinking: this show is aimed at little kids, we can't write an episode about solving relationship problems or else it won't speak to our viewers. But... then why bring up the subject of relationship problems in the first place, if you don't think your show can address it properly?? All I took away from this episode is that Aladdin and Jasmine need immediate marriage counselling.
23 – The Flawed Couple *****
What do you do as soon as you've got more than one recurring villain? You find out what happens if they team up, of course! The twenty-third Aladdin episode gives us the thoroughly enjoyable meeting of Abis Mal and Mechanicles.
Initially disliking each other, and ready to fight for the privilege of destroying Aladdin (I wonder what Jafar would have said about that?), the two men eventually realize they can work together and combine their talents in an elaborate scheme to destroy Aladdin for good. Mechanicles as usual is using his own mechanical bugs, and Abis Mal as usual has gotten hold of a magical artifact: a collection of mood stones which, instead of reflecting your mood, affect the mood of anyone near them so they cannot feel anything but the emotion assigned to that stone. The mood stones were fascinating, and one of my favourite parts of the story – what would happen if no matter what was going on around you, you could only respond with one single emotion and never feel any other? You wouldn't be able to respond to anything and pretty much wouldn't be able to function – and we see that play out beautifully, as one by one Aladdin's friends (and Jasmine; she actually comes along this time) get mood stones attached to them by surreptitious mechanical bugs, so that even as Aladdin's trying to lead them all out of Abis Mal and Mechanicles' trap, one of the group can only feel amorous, another only envious, and so on. I thought this was actually a really good exploration of emotions and the important role they play in helping us read our environment – we see more and more, as the episode goes along, that no matter how much danger shows up, anyone who has been touched by a mood stone is helpless, unable to even acknowledge it!
The only thing I found a little strange is that one of the mood stones – the purple one, which makes you feel superior and stuck-up – is introduced at the beginning as though it's going to be particularly important later on, and I felt that when it did show up again it didn't really have that much more of an impact than any of the other mood stones did. For me, the standout mood stone was the one that hit Aladdin. He's only hit with a mood stone at the very end, and it makes him act so entirely different from how he normally would in the face of danger, it was fascinating. I think seeing him act like this helps us appreciate what he's like normally so much more. Then we get to see love being more powerful than any of these mood stones – which is such a good point, because after all, moods like joy, sadness, and fear come and go, but love is everlasting.
This episode took a surprisingly long time before Aladdin actually appears, so we know the villain crossover is solid because it kept me invested even without our main hero around. I really hope we get to see more villain crossover episodes. So far, at the time I write this I haven't seen Mechanicles again (I'm up to episode 39 right now), so I wonder if we're meant to assume he died in this latest scheme while Abis Mal went on to fight another day? I hope that didn't happen, because I really love Mechanicles as a villain. Future Layla will tell you....
24 – Rain of Terror ****
I'm still not sure how I feel about Iago having a love interest, but I must admit, I didn't mind Thundra coming back for another episode. She and Iago have a good dynamic, Iago isn't super romantic or committed or anything like that, and they seem to balance each other out in a weird, disagreeable way. And I guess it makes sense that if Iago is going to be interested in a girl bird, it would be one who initially came across as a villain!
Another thing I like about this episode is that, if Thundra's introduction episode was disappointing because we were promised a villain and then didn't get one, at least this time around there was a real villain for Iago to fight. Thundra's old rival, Mancho (Muncho?), a snakelike creature except that he has hair, used to control the rain before Thundra, and if Thundra seemed unscrupulous when she was introduced, I guess Mancho must be full-on evil! Now Mancho is just waiting for an opportunity to take control of the rain back from his old enemy, and when Thundra goes on vacation for a couple days and leaves Iago in charge as Rain Bird, Mancho gets his chance. (Honestly, Thundra's job looks overwhelming, sending all the rain everywhere in the world entirely by herself. She needs to hire some staff!) It was really fun seeing a story in which Iago gets to save the day – although the way he does it is awfully similar to how Aladdin defeats Jafar at the end of the movie. That was probably supposed to be a little nod to the movie, and to be fair Iago was there when Aladdin defeated Jafar and would have seen his plan, and I can imagine Iago having a particular talent for storing up any successful scheme he's ever seen and filing them away for future reference. But Aladdin's defeat of Jafar was supposed to be a display of his talents, which was really significant since Aladdin spent half the movie trying to be something he's not. It feels here like they were trying to do something familiar from the movie, without understanding why in the movie it was so relevant – but it does still work.
One interesting thing about this episode is that it doesn't have a single appearance from Aladdin. Iago, Genie, and Abu (I forget if Carpet was there as well) were all on vacation visiting Thundra, and the only mention of Aladdin we get was Genie writing to Aladdin and Jasmine back in Agrabah at the very beginning, to tell them how their vacation is going. I'm pretty sure the sole purpose of that part was so we could have some mention of Aladdin, and not wonder where the heck he is the entire time! Honestly, that was okay, because it's kind of fun how different episodes of this series focus on different characters. But don't think I haven't noticed the whole thing is a little one-sided. They can give us countless episodes without Jasmine (one of our more serious, dramatic characters), but can't seem to manage a single solitary story in which our funny side characters aren't present, even when it doesn't fit the plot. I would really like to see the show realize not every scenario calls for comedic side characters, and they don't need to rely on them to hold the audience's attention. I like the idea of an episode that's just Genie, Abu, and Iago – if we also had a few that were just Aladdin and Jasmine!
25 – Dune Quixote *
I think the message of this episode was: “Don't be jealous of people trying to steal your significant other, it doesn't matter if they're using force and trickery and literally have a history of not caring about your safety or his free will, you have to let the other person do whatever she wants, because if you don't you'll be jealous and that's bad.”
Either that, or it was “It's okay and funny to emasculate men”. It doesn't really matter which. I hate both messages equally.
This episode begins with Aladdin once more rescuing Sadira after she's been stealing, and I don't know why he bothers after everything she's done to him and Jasmine. I guess we don't know how much Aladdin knows about what Sadira's done to him and Jasmine... he completely forgave her for everything at the end of her introduction episode and then his memories of her next attack were completely wiped. That all made things very confusing in this episode because it was impossible to tell how much Aladdin actually knows about Sadira and her true nature at this point. Anyway, Sadira tries to kiss Aladdin and then immediately convinces him to come to her lair for a drink, and she does this by saying, when Aladdin hesitates, that Jasmine is “keeping Aladdin on a leash” and telling him what he can and cannot do. And several things about this immediately make Aladdin look like a terrible boyfriend (who should totally be husband). First of all, Aladdin shouldn't have even said the reason he couldn't kiss(!) or have a drink with Sadira was because Jasmine wouldn't like it. How about, “I don't want attentions from another girl”? How about, “Sadira, if you really want to make up for what you did before and be friends, you'd better stop making moves on me right now; and I'm not joining you for anything unless my wife is included”?! He should not have even hesitated, which is as good as giving Sadira an opening; he should have been one-hundred-percent, crystal clear. Am I supposed to infer that if it weren't for Jasmine being angry, Aladdin would enjoy Sadira's attentions? Second of all, Aladdin knows his relationship with Jasmine. Seems to me the only way he would be that triggered by Sadira saying Jasmine keeps him on a leash is if Aladdin already was feeling controlled by Jasmine; after all, you can't push someone's buttons if there's no button to push. Am I supposed to assume he actually does feel like Jasmine keeps him on a leash??? And third of all – look, I'm all for platonic male-female friendships being an accepted thing. I could possibly accept Aladdin going to have a drink alone with a girl if there were absolutely no feelings of attraction on either side, and if any and all romantic partners were fully aware and okay with it. But accepting an invitation to have a drink with someone who has shown herself to want way more than friendship, who literally just tried to kiss him one minute ago, without even stopping to tell Jasmine where he's going, never mind see if she's okay with it, and willingly give Sadira another chance to try again (he can't be that naive as to think she won't)... that's already wandering into “cheating” territory. Jasmine should be able to trust Aladdin not to give Sadira any opportunities – without keeping him on the “tight leash” Sadira spoke about! I never thought I'd see the day Aladdin comes so close to cheating on Jasmine... But wait, it gets worse.
So Sadira, after forcing a kiss on Aladdin which of course is not addressed, casts a spell on him which basically cuts him off from reality and traps his mind in Sadira's fantasy, in which she is a princess and he is her hero who saves her from a dragon, and is supposed to end with her kissing him. (Her fantasy looks awfully Medieval European by the way, and I really wish we could have gotten to see a Middle Eastern romantic fantasy. But to be fair, Sadira is Caucasian, so it's possible her family was European back when she had one, and that the stories she learned from them resonated with her more than the ones of her current country. I guess what I really wanted was some indication that her fantasy's setting would be unfamiliar to Aladdin and the other characters, rather than just being treated like a “typical fairytale”.) Jasmine finds out and arrives on time to rescue the hypnotized Aladdin from being transported into Sadira's fantasy realm – although I thought it would have been a much more interesting story if it had actually taken place in the fantasy realm, if Jasmine had explored it trying to find Aladdin before Sadira forced him to play out romantic scenes with her without his knowledge or consent. Instead, apparently, Jasmine's rescuing Aladdin causes the spell to go wrong and now Aladdin is stuck running around the real world unable to distinguish fantasy from fact, believing he is a fierce dragonslayer and armed only with a ladle he believes is his sword.
Now comes the really annoying part: according to Genie (Genie again; I swear the TV show version of him just wants Aladdin and Sadira to end up together!), the only way the spell on Aladdin can be broken is by a kiss from Sadira, and that means he and Jasmine have to help Sadira play out her fantasy with Aladdin, all the way to the end when she kisses him. Really. After so many episodes lately showing how the power of True Love breaks any number of spells, now they hit us with this?! The whole point of the “True Love's Kiss breaks the spell” trope is to demonstrate the power of love; it doesn't work anymore if the kiss comes from someone you would never agree to kiss in your normal state! Not only that, but the whole story is basically framing Jasmine not wanting Aladdin to be forced into intimate settings without consent as bad (that's what made the spell on him get stuck), and Sadira playing out her fantasy with Aladdin as good (that's the goal all our heroes have to focus on for the rest of the episode). So... what am I supposed to take from this, that Jasmine should have just let Sadira do whatever she liked to Aladdin and then everything would have been fine?? That protecting your significant other from sexual assault is wrong?!? I mean, let's take away the cute fairytale trappings for a moment and set the same story in the modern world, shall we? Let's see what it looks like (if you have any triggers around descriptions of attempted date rape, just skip the following indented paragraph):
Aladdin and Sadira are both at the club when Sadira spikes Aladdin's drink with Rohypnol. Aladdin becomes weak and unable to defend himself, and Sadira gets him on the floor, but fortunately, Jasmine shows up just as Sadira's about to get on top of him. Jasmine pulls Aladdin away from Sadira, calls a cab, and takes him home. But the next thing Jasmine discovers is that the Rohypnol won't wear off. Aladdin is stuck in a weak, drug-induced state. And the only thing that can make him better, according to Dr. Genie, is if they bring Aladdin back to Sadira and allow her to finish raping him.
You see what I'm getting at here. You can tell a lot about what a story is saying by which actions have positive or negative consequences, draw your own conclusions.
So now Jasmine and Sadira have to work together to make Sadira's fantasy play out – along with Genie, who seems only too willing to help them create this scenario in which his friend has to be given a non-consensual kiss. Meanwhile, our hypnotized Aladdin who is wandering through the desert thinking he's a great knight armed with a sword does – nothing. I would have found it really interesting to follow Aladdin through his “fantasy hero” journey, failing at first as he overestimates his talents and tries to fight people with a ladle, until finally he relearns the skills he already has and ends up as the hero he normally is. It would have made more sense for the story to be focused on this, given the title! But the way the story plays out instead, with Aladdin barely there except to constantly need rescuing from the two girls while unable to do a single thing for himself – it felt needlessly emasculating. I mean, we all know Aladdin is actually a very strong and competent hero, with a lot of victories under his belt both from the movie and from the show itself – and he's already faced down a giant evil cobra-sorcerer, so you can't tell me he wouldn't really have been able to handle a dragon! Normally the show is so good about showing us Aladdin's heroic side, and it seems like the only reason they suddenly stripped it away this time is so the two girls could have a chance to shine. And I really hate when stories do this – as if women can only be strong when all the men around us are useless! How insulting is that?? (I need hardly mention how Genie's competence level was handled here. Take three guesses and the first two don't count.)
The show is clearly throwing Jasmine and Sadira together in an attempt to patch up their “rivalry”, as if said rivalry was some silly schoolgirl thing and not Sadira first kidnapping Jasmine, and then stealing her entire life away, because she's obsessed with Jasmine's “fiancé” (who should totally be her husband by now). Having Jasmine and Sadira work together at this point feels seriously weird, like the show is trying to put them on an equal footing in their desires for Aladdin, like Jasmine has to learn to "share" Aladdin the way a schoolchild might learn to share the playground swings at recess. The princess we've connected with and loved and spent a whole movie longing for her and Aladdin to end up together, and the random antagonist invented for the show who was shaping up to make such an excellent villain if only the creators would let her, are now all of a sudden supposed to be Betty and Veronica fighting over Archie. It also simply felt like an extremely boring place to take Sadira's character, especially as it was happening much too soon. Jasmine didn't really know Sadira in one episode and never found out she was involved in the next – we've never gotten the chance to see their dynamic as enemies! How awesome would it have been if we got to see Jasmine fighting Sadira? Not necessarily physically, but actively working to defeat her. Because if they wanted an arc about a villain learning her lesson and becoming a better person, it was not handled well. There was never a point where they were willing to acknowledge Sadira as a bad person, so there's no sense of any satisfying journey where she changes her ways, just a sense of someone at the TV studio who loved the new character too much to let anyone admit she was a bad guy. So they have Jasmine and Sadira work things out, instead of playing up on how obsessive Sadira is and letting her be a true villain – but some characters work better when you lean into their evil and don't try and redeem them. In Sadira's case, we've barely scratched the surface of all the wonderfully wicked things she could do in her quest to get Aladdin for herself. Aladdin and Jasmine would have to fight harder, each time she tried something, to keep their relationship alive. If you used her right, Sadira could be the perfect way to highlight Aladdin and Jasmine's love, precisely because she wants them to break up! There's a bit near the end of this episode, just for an example, where Jasmine and Sadira are making their final plan to save Aladdin, and something goes briefly wrong leading Jasmine to (possibly) think Sadira has betrayed her. And I thought how much more interesting it would have been if Sadira actually had. What if Sadira was so obsessed with making Aladdin hers that she would rather let Jasmine die even if that means Aladdin will have less chance of survival, because then at least Jasmine could never be with him again? That would have made an amazing obstacle, and would have made such a good point contrasted against Jasmine, who is even willing to work with her rival Sadira if it means saving her beloved Aladdin. Of course, in order to do that, we'd have to actually acknowledge that just because someone has feelings for you does not obligate you to "let them have a turn". That's not how relationships or consent work.
And even beyond my personal thoughts about these two becoming friends instead of leaning into their enmity, if that is the route the show really wanted to go, I don't think it was handled very believably, and I think that was because of the show being so male-focused. Jasmine and Sadira have no real bonding moments. They're in the middle of either fighting or making plans the entire time, which gives them no quiet moment to sit and talk and get to know each other better. And perhaps the show creators thought their little-boy audience wouldn't want to watch a scene like that, but if they want these two to make friends, that is a crucial part of female friendship. Maybe two males would be able to fight a spell and a mechanical dragon together and that would give them all the bonding they needed to create a strong, lasting friendship; well, two females could not. They would need a lot more verbal connection that Sadira shaming Jasmine for not knowing how to use a lockpick! (Even little details like that make me feel disgusted, given the context, because everything here seemed to be aimed at telling me I shouldn't automatically love Jasmine the princess and actual Aladdin character more than Sadira the TV show rival.)
So then, once Sadira kisses Aladdin and frees him from the spell, she's apparently learned her lesson and she apologizes to Jasmine and promises never to do it again. Okay, I see, that's the lesson you're going for. When it comes to your boundaries, when someone wants something of yours that you aren't willing to share - just let them have it once, and then they'll be satisfied and we promise you won't have to deal with them ever again. Oh, sure you won't. Sure, Sadira's going to learn never to go after Aladdin again because she was allowed to have her way with him once. That's totally how people work when they've gotten a taste of something they want. They definitely won't learn this behaviour is okay with you and keep doing it.
And then, at the end, when Aladdin has just woken up from a horrifying spell that could have gotten him killed, and is probably seriously disoriented and will definitely need love and support once he realizes what an embarrassing, vulnerable situation he was just forced into, what does Jasmine do? Stand beside her man and give him the love and support he needs right now? No, she invites Sadira on a women's-only shopping spree. She runs off with the girl who kidnapped her, stole her life, and tried to sexually assault Aladdin, and who hasn't had nearly enough time since her apology to prove she really means it or is really going to improve. They even tell Aladdin “sorry, women only” like they're trying to exclude him, like this is his punishment for not being able to be a hero and protect them on this adventure. So... Jasmine is punished for trying to protect Aladdin by having to help Sadira kiss her man, Aladdin is punished for... being put under a spell(??) by being excluded and denied the help he needs, and Sadira is rewarded for causing all these problems in the first place by being allowed to complete her non-consensual fantasy, then being completely forgiven for everything she's ever done to these two, and treated to a shopping spree with a friendship she didn't earn. Okayy... sure....
There's also a part where Sadira says maybe she can find a hero of her own, and Jasmine has the utter nerve to say to Sadira “Are you sure you want one?” I get that this was just supposed to be a funny way to sum up everything going wrong in this episode, but the thing is, Jasmine is not going to be thinking just within the confines of this episode. She, of all people, knows what a great hero Aladdin is, and how wonderful it is to be “dating” one. She didn't think it was so awful to be involved with a hero when Aladdin came back to save her kingdom from Jafar! I really get the sense this episode resolved itself like a “typical” story of this nature would – a story involving an actual weak, cowardly man, and two girls the audience know and love equally well and see as having equal claim to said man. But Aladdin and Jasmine were never meant to fit into those archetypes.
I honestly have to wonder if the whole purpose of Sadira was someone at the TV studio trying to write a plotline like Archie, Betty, and Veronica. Maybe they thought it would add a little spice if there was a love triangle, a new character who could mirror a typical young female fan's feelings for Aladdin, only they couldn't have their main hero and role model for young boys actually cheat on his girlfriend-who-should-totally-be-his-wife, nor could they show a bunch of Aladdin fans Aladdin considering a relationship with someone other than Jasmine. So the only way they could do anything with this new character is if she put spells on Aladdin so he would get involved with her but still be blameless because he didn't know what he was doing. But, of course, the minute Sadira tries anything non-consensual or otherwise outright harmful, it completely changes the dynamic. So then, instead of either rewriting the character to be genuinely harmless, or accepting they've come up with a villain and going with that, the show creators try everything in their power to convince us that Sadira was still innocent anyway. They never give her any consequences, and hope she will therefore be received as if she never deserved any consequences. Which ironically stops Sadira from being as likeable as she should have been, because there is nothing more annoying than being told how we should feel about a character rather than allowed to come to our own decisions. It also holds this great character back from reaching her full potential, because sometimes, what makes a character so great is being evil. Some characters work because they are villains, that's exactly what makes them so interesting and important to the storyline and the heroes, and even if they did still want to redeem Sadira eventually, that only works if you admit your character did something that needs redeeming. Either way, stopping Sadira's villainy now is only stopping what could have been such a wonderful recurring threat in its tracks.
26 – The Day the Bird Stood Still ****
This was a really good episode for the most part, and if I didn't take some exception with the way it opened and how the whole premise was set up, I wouldn't have anything bad to say about it.
The story opens with Iago sneaking into the Sultan's private quarters in the middle of the night, slipping past him while he's asleep in his bed and making his way into his private bathroom. I love the way we get to see more of the palace than we do in the movie, which never had any occasion to show us where the Sultan sleeps or bathes. And there was something endearing about Iago sneaking into the palace in the night for that innocent little taste of luxury. What bothered me was that he had any reason to sneak in the first place, and the way everyone else reacted.
Yes, I could see Aladdin, living as a Prince at the palace like he totally should be by now, giving Iago his own luxurious quarters but warning him to stay away from the Sultan's, but Iago sneaks into the Sultan's private bath anyway because it's even better. I can see why the Sultan was angry, what with his privacy being invaded. And I can see why Aladdin was angry, what with his bird who's already done some pretty bad things to the royal family of Agrabah disrespecting a man whose good opinion is so important to him. But it seemed a little unreasonable to me that neither one of them seemed to understand at all how hard living on the streets was for Iago. Aladdin dreamed of living in the palace, that was what kept him going through all those difficult years as a street thief, and the Sultan probably wouldn't survive a day out on the streets, it's so shockingly different from anything he's ever known. Wouldn't these two understand just a little how hard it must be for Iago?? If Aladdin is going to force Iago to live out on the streets in a filthy hovel because he can't be bothered to follow through on his commitment to Jasmine, I think Iago has every right to be so desperate he'll sneak into the palace. Actually, if Aladdin were living at the palace, he'd be perfectly justified to tell Iago that some rooms don't belong to him and are out-of-bounds, but if Iago is just told the entire palace is out of bounds, he'll probably feel he should have a right to use the palace facilities, and if he'll get in trouble no matter where he goes, why not go straight for the best? If Iago is seriously living on the streets, under the promise that one day the palace will be open to him again, this doesn't even feel greedy. It just feels like Iago misses his old home and is badly in need of a proper bath! You'd think this could open up a discussion which eventually leads to the Sultan realizing how unfair he's being to Aladdin by not insisting he come to the palace and live with them, and Aladdin realizing how unfair he's being to the animals too. But it doesn't, and the main significance of this argument is that Iago tries to pin his wrongdoing on Aladdin, and Aladdin's subsequent lecture on Iago's moral code sets up the difficult choice Iago must make later on.
So then the main plot comes, with the Sultan receiving a letter from Abis Mal claiming that he has placed a curse on the Sultan that will turn him to stone, and will only give him the antidote if he hands over the throne before sunset, when the curse will take full effect and become permanent. Typical Abis Mal, he explains in his letter exactly how he performed this curse - by putting it in the Sultan's bath oils - and also sent the letter without making absolutely sure the Sultan had taken his bath first! So of course, the Sultan hasn't bathed yet and is perfectly safe – but Iago has, and now he is the one slowly turning to stone.
So Iago spends the episode in a desperate panic, and Abu is very amusing teasing Iago about whether or not he will really miss him if he does turn into stone. Iago at one point begs the Sultan to just hand over the throne to Abis Mal so that he can survive, and while the Sultan does refuse for the sake of his kingdom, he sounds awfully hesitant and sympathetic considering Iago once tortured him with crackers. I kind of thought the Sultan was more proud of his status running his kingdom than that, and would at least be offended! Aladdin and Genie take it upon themselves to find an antidote before it's too late, which means catching the dangerous and untameable Rock Ifrit, whose scales are the only thing that will cure Iago. The Rock Ifrit was portrayed more like a wild beast than the evil spirit Ifrits are meant to be in Arabian mythology (they're actually a type of genie!), but this was only the first time the series shows us an Ifrit, and the others acted more like magical spirit beings, plus every time they do appear, they are malignant as Ifrits should be. So I do think the people creating the show did their research and understood what an Ifrit is. I think it's really fun seeing their take on what Ifrits are like.
Meanwhile, Abis Mal is talking with Haroud, saying how he'd be confident in his plan if it wasn't for the Genie always ruining everything for him. I'm not sure why it's Genie he thinks ruins things for him, what with the show going out of its way to portray Genie always ruining things for Aladdin. You'd think he'd be thrilled Aladdin always uses a helper like TV show Genie instead of someone more competent! Saying Aladdin is the one who always ruins his plans would make much more sense – and honestly, Jasmine has already physically attacked or defeated Abis Mal on more than one occasion; why isn't he more scared of her? Oh, I know: it's because he knows the odds are pretty good she won't even show up most of the time. Jasmine is in this episode, but she has no role apart from supporting her father when she thinks he's been cursed, and her presence hardly signifies. She plays no part whatsoever in Aladdin's quest to find the antidote that will save Iago before his time is up.
When Abis Mal finds out Iago has been touched by his curse, he strikes a deal with him: bring him Genie's lamp so that he won't be able to interfere, and Abis Mal will give Iago the antidote. This leads to a great moral conflict in Iago, and he does have a nice moment of redemption at the end of this story, after the episode gets really exciting carrying Aladdin, Genie, and Iago to a point where things look almost hopeless for them. I only wish the injustice of Iago's living situation had been addressed, and that brave, adventurous Jasmine would have gotten an active role suited to her personality – otherwise, I wouldn't have anything bad to say about this episode.
27 – Of Ice and Men **
The screen is dark. Jasmine has her eyes shut (or Aladdin is covering them; can't quite remember). He tells her to open them/uncovers them, and she gazes around in wonder at the beautiful wintry landscape she finds herself in. Aladdin has found the perfect surprise location for their next date. Finally, I thought, we were getting an episode about Aladdin and Jasmine spending quality time together. Maybe Aladdin really did learn his lesson from back in Episode 22...? And... then “the guys” show up. And “the guys” all start having a snowball fight, in which fun, spunky Jasmine doesn't even participate. What is she doing if not snowball fighting? Standing there waiting for Aladdin to remember the trip was for her?? Staying in the background like some quiet proper princess who doesn't like getting wet?? Or worse, like some subservient wife?? We'll never know, because for the entire snowball fight the camera doesn't cut to her once.
I have to admit it... from that point on, I think I just lost interest.
And it's not like the story didn't have potential. I mean, the first bit of action is nothing we haven't seen before, Iago spots an ice palace and is excited to go inside and see if there's any treasure in there, but of course the only treasure inside is made of ice and so would melt, and so he doesn't get any of it... blah blah blah... but then they meet a Snow Ifrit, and I admit, that part was promising. The Snow Ifrit acts fun and silly and harmless, and I guess Aladdin still doesn't know that an Ifrit is an evil spirit, because he invites him to come back to Agrabah with them. The Ifrit's name is Frigid, but with the emphasis on the second syllable, so it sounds like an Arabic name but is spelled like “frigid”. Pretty clever! This time around, the Ifrit looked and acted more like a magical being than an animal, standing on two legs and talking in fluent human speech, and it makes sense Aladdin wouldn't have connected him to the Rock Ifrit in the last episode because they looked and acted so different. I think it's cool how in this world different Ifrits are associated with different natural elements.
Even at the time, Aladdin's invitation is treated as a bad decision which needed a little more thought, and that prediction turns out to be very true when Frigid covers all of Agrabah in snow and ice. Although, I must say, while I liked the way everyone in Agrabah enjoyed the snow at first but then started realizing it was too much, they could have leaned much more into the dangers of snow in a city built for survival in a hot desert. By the time our heroes realized there was danger and they had better stop Frigid, the episode had already spent so much time not feeling dangerous that there really wasn't enough time to properly feel the excitement. I also have to say, while Frigid was written quite well as an antagonist at the end of it, becoming cold and unyielding and bordering on dangerous in his mania to cover everything with snow, refusing to hear any criticism or suggestions... he didn't feel quite as threatening as he could have for most of it. I don't mind if he's a surprise villain, or if he puts on a nice demeanour that drops later on, but that wasn't how he came across. It was more like he was genuinely fun and harmless, and yet he was always threatening at the same time, and... I don't know. It was just confusing. There were times his demeanour reminded me a little of Olaf! (though that couldn't have been intentional since Frozen wasn't out yet.)
I also felt like, considering Aladdin was making a mistake but meant well, Jasmine wasn't doing a very good job of standing by his side and supporting him about it. Even before Frigid did anything to prove it was a bad idea to invite him, she felt like she was alternating between distancing herself from Aladdin and scolding him about it until he finally realized he'd been wrong. And that's with his having a very sweet moment of catching her before she can lose her balance on the frozen throne room floor and helping her to the safety of a cushion, so he's putting way more effort into this relationship than she is (although is he really, though? If he can't even manage to take her on a solo date??) The way they got rid of the Ifrit was pretty clever – although they did have to add in a part where Genie messes up, just so Aladdin would have to improvise at the last moment, of course. So – we get Aladdin neglecting Jasmine, Jasmine refusing to support Aladdin, Iago denied the right to have money, Genie being incompetent, and a villain who should have been threatening but written as though he wasn't, all in one episode. Oh joy....
But there is one moment I did like: when Aladdin's planning how best to get rid of the Ifrit, and they all know it's a dangerous mission, and Iago goes, “If you die, can I have your hat?” I don't know why that line stuck out to me so much, but it did. I love it; it's so funny. And Aladdin's hat really is iconic!
28 – Opposites Detract ***
This episode opens with another great instance of Aladdin's heroic nature, as he goes out of his way to rescue a frightened man named Zin from a hungry pack of wild dogs. Against Zin's wishes, Aladdin and his friends follow him back to his own country, which is based on China – it's so neat the way Aladdin gets to do world travels in this show! – and is having problems with a rampaging dragon. This dragon used to be a good dragon that protected the people (which is nice since Chinese dragons aren't supposed to be evil the way European dragons are), but something happened to throw its yin-yang out of balance – something which I figured out way before Aladdin and his friends did, although to be fair we get to see clues, in the form of interactions between Zin and his rather dangerous twin brother Zang, that Aladdin and friends don't see.
I think I might have been more invested in this story if it had had a little more to do with Aladdin and his friends. They're investigating the problem in this kingdom and trying to help Zin, but I felt there weren't really any personal stakes here for any of the characters I knew and loved. Well, there is a B-plot where Iago makes a bet with the others that if he can keep his temper for a whole day, he gets to keep his share of the shipment of silks Aladdin is there to pick up. (Seems to me, if those silks are really Iago's to keep and aren't needed for Agrabah's economy, this is an unfair thing for him to bet, considering how little chance he gets to have nice things!) And that did tie into the resolution of the main story in a very clever way, showing us how Iago's negative traits are not negative in all circumstances – an excellent point to have in a story about yin and yang being out of balance! But other than that, there was really no connection between this problem and Aladdin. Perhaps if I hadn't been told the answer to the dilemma in advance, it might have helped – at least I would have been solving the mystery with Aladdin, instead of mentally telling him not to do such-and-such because I knew something he didn't. It might have helped me feel more connected to him and his mission.
Incidentally, I wonder if Aladdin was planning to use any of his share of the silks as a peace offering to Jasmine. Once again, she isn't with him, and the Princess Jasmine I know (or any woman in a romantic relationship, for that matter) would be getting tired of this....
29 – Caught By the Tale ****
This was a fun episode, all about Aladdin's growing Hero status in Agrabah. He's even beginning to inspire a new generation - it's like the Disney Prince version of this Five Minute Princess story, called “A Royal Friend”, where Cinderella meets a little girl names Emma and inspires her to be like a princess too. It really gives you a sense of all he's accomplished and the legacy he'll leave behind... and, this story made me see just how badly Aladdin needs some truly dangerous villains.
Genie, Abu, and Iago (I think Carpet was there, too? Maybe?) meet two children playing on the street, Calim and his big sister Yoni. (I think that would be how you spell her name? “Yoni” in Hebrew is a boy's name, short for Yonatan which is a form of Jonathan, so that would be like if her name was Johnny.... Maybe in this case it was meant to be like a form of Joanie or something? Maybe it's a feminine name in Arabic? Maybe I just misheard the name every time they said it....) Anyway, so Iago and Genie start to tell the children stories about Aladdin and his heroics, Iago's being exciting, scary, and most likely true, and Genie, thinking the children are too young for scary stories, invents slow peaceful ones that put the children to sleep (and would probably put me to sleep too!) And all the stories which involve Aladdin fighting anyone show him battling Abis Mal, clearly establishing him as Aladdin's main arch-nemesis.
Meanwhile, in real time, Abis Mal and Haroud are right there in Agrabah, trying to find a secret lair with a treasure inside. For a long time I didn't realize they were actually around because I assumed, when I saw them, that it was just another story! So that was a little confusing, but luckily I figured it out quickly enough.
Eventually Abis Mal and Haroud decide to get Calim and Yoni to help them retrieve the treasure, because they are small enough to fit into the hidden lair. They trick them by saying the children could be just like Aladdin if they did something heroic like this. (There's a funny part where Abis Mal is trying to tell an Aladdin-versus-Abis-Mal story but cannot stand to make Aladdin look superior to him in any way, he can't even stand to say Aladdin's hair looks nice, and so he adds more and more embellishments to make himself look good and Aladdin look bad until Calim and Yoni don't even believe him anymore!)
Of course, Abis Mal and Haroud betray Yoni and Calim and trap them in the lair, and Genie, Iago, and Abu have to come to their rescue, but the children are also pretty clever at figuring out an escape route for themselves. Meanwhile Abis Mal has gotten the treasure – a battle helmet which can freeze people in their tracks – and of course decides to use it to take over the throne of Agrabah. So Genie, Abu, Iago, Calim, and Yoni head to the palace for a final showdown, and at the end of an episode full of stories about him, Aladdin finally shows up in the flesh to defeat the enemy with his renowned cleverness and bravery. Yoni immediately develops a crush on him, which I thought was a very believable reaction.
In the final scene, Aladdin is entertaining the two children, in his rundown hovel of all places, which is no place to entertain guests any more than it's a place for the Great Hero of Agrabah whom we presume is still planning to marry the princess one day to be living. I mean, it kind of gives off the air that he doesn't really care about the quality of his living space, and from there that he doesn't value himself very much... and in an episode which is all about what a great hero he's become, no less. If Aladdin had entertained them at the palace at least Jasmine might have actually shown up. It was very weird, in this story, that we see Jasmine in the form of a giant sock puppet (Genie's stories were told with the help of said sock puppets), so she's clearly an important enough character in Aladdin stories that Genie had a puppet of her, and yet she wasn't considered an important enough Aladdin character to show up in the actual story. I mean, at the end of the episode Abis Mal is attacking Jasmine's father in Jasmine's home and Jasmine's boyfriend-who-should-totally-be-her-husband is fighting back; I think Jasmine would want to be involved in that! But Genie, when he brings out the Jasmine puppet, describes her as: “Jasmine, the feminine yet action-oriented princess”, which is honestly a better description of her than some of her actual portrayals in these episodes....
I enjoyed seeing all these stories of Aladdin's heroism finally culminating into a real-life incident. It really goes to show us what a great hero Aladdin has become since his life before the movie! But... the only villain anybody ever talked about Aladdin defeating was Abis Mal. He seems to have become Aladdin's new arch-nemesis since Jafar is gone, and – well, suddenly you have to wonder if it's really Aladdin's talent that's causing him to win so many times. As the saying goes: A hero is only as strong as the villain he defeats. How do we know Aladdin's particularly clever or heroic from any of this; it's not like Abis Mal is that hard to defeat! If Aladdin is going to keep up his reputation as a hero, he'd better start defeating some much badder bad guys....
30 – Elemental, My Dear Jasmine *****
For a long time watching this episode, I wasn't entirely sold – though looking back on it, much of that was because I was on the edge of my seat, unsure where they were going with this and what the outcome would be. Which I guess meant that I was thoroughly invested. By the end of it, I had to count this among my favourite episodes.
The story begins with Aladdin and Jasmine on a day at the beach, and of course, Genie, Abu, Iago, and Carpet are all there too because apparently Aladdin cannot function without them. This was the sort of story where it would really have made sense for it to be just Aladdin and Jasmine for once (both in terms of writing and in terms of what the characters might have done in this scenario), but whatever. The first sign of conflict is when Jasmine asks Aladdin if he had ever been with other girls before her, and Aladdin says he's been with tons. Jasmine of course becomes upset, and the whole exchange left me feeling a little weird. I mean, of course we all know Aladdin wasn't completely oblivious to female beauty before – he was definitely attracted to those brothel girls during the One Jump Ahead sequence, for one! Although I personally do not think he ever actually slept with those girls, not because I don't know “the facts of life” or am deliberately avoiding them, but because those girls are working in a brothel and Aladdin can't even afford to feed himself. (I will not say there was no desire for more physical contact on either side, though; I do think Aladdin and those girls were into each other.) And of course, I know Aladdin's having been with other girls wouldn't really affect his love for Jasmine – except I can't help feeling like in this case, it kind of does. Aladdin is a Disney Prince, he knows his True Love when he sees her and will then do whatever it takes to be with her. He only had to meet Jasmine once before he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her! If Aladdin had any other girlfriends, how long did he stay with them before he realized they weren't The One? If he'd been with any other girl longer than a one-night stand, how could he have known Jasmine was any different? How does Jasmine know she's any different? If Aladdin has been with other girls in the past, and eventually broken up with them, and we're insisting he hasn't married Jasmine in all this time... how does Jasmine know eventually he won't get tired of her too??
Anyway, this isn't even the main issue the couple faces. Jasmine is splashed by a giant wave and gets all messed up, and apparently Genie, Abu, Iago (and possibly Carpet too, I forget, it's hard to tell with him) think the appropriate thing to do when a very glamorous and appearance-conscious woman gets messy is to laugh at her. And then their laughing makes it impossible for Aladdin not to laugh too. This is why Aladdin needs to stop turning all his dates into “guy time”; I don't care how necessary the show creators think it is to have “funny side characters”. The laughter might not have been a big deal in and of itself, if Aladdin and friends were at the same time checking if Jasmine was okay and maybe offering her a towel, maybe if all of them were trying to control their laughter and it was out of sensitivity to Jasmine's feelings and not just out of a fear of making her mad... but for all five of them to not have any other reaction than to just stand around laughing? That just feels mean. So once Aladdin starts laughing, Jasmine storms off and Aladdin finally realizes he was out of line – so maybe she should do this more often, if episode 22 was any indication. Although at one point, I'm sorry to say, there is a scene in which Aladdin is talking with “the guys” about Jasmine's having stormed off on him, and instead of having even one of them try to understand why she did it, “the guys” are basically saying Aladdin deserves unquestioning obedience from Jasmine, that women should basically worship at men's feet or whatever. I'm honestly amazed that even in the 90's that was considered acceptable, much less humorous, and it certainly didn't age well. And Aladdin, the only one in a steady relationship, who should always have Jasmine's back especially when he's upset with her, is just taking it, he's not saying a word in defence of Jasmine, or of women in general. (He could at least have threatened to tell Eden and Thundra what sort of opinions Genie and Iago were expressing here.) They're treating it like this sort of conversation is normal, like it's supposed to make Aladdin feel better about himself, but honestly, for a man to let his friends talk badly about his woman behind her back seems like a giant red flag to me. Honestly, the way they're portrayed sometimes – always around to the point of detriment to Aladdin and Jasmine's relationship, often subtly unsupportive of their future together – I sometimes think the show has turned Aladdin's loyal, loveable friends into a pretty toxic group.
Anyway, as soon as Jasmine is alone, she gets swept into an enchanted place underwater, where she is able to breathe, and she meets a mermaid named Saleen and her hair-dressing octopus friend Armand, who at first seem to want to help Jasmine. At this point there are a few Little Mermaid references and in-jokes, and I have never enjoyed this sort of thing. First of all, there's allowed to be more than one mermaid story in the world, even from Disney, and second, it feels very tacky, also desperate: “Hey, we're the studio that made The Little Mermaid; you know we make great films, so you'll like this story now, right? Please??” If I like this story, it will be on its own merits thank you, not because they tricked me into thinking it was like The Little Mermaid (which, apart from the presence of a redheaded mermaid wanting to be with humans, it really wasn't).
Although I guess you could say Saleen was a little like Ursula/Vanessa. Saleen quickly shows her true colours, trapping Jasmine in her underwater world while she heads aboveground to trick Aladdin into falling for her instead. I have always loved this type of plot structure, where the main character has a fight with someone on their side and they separate, and the minute they're alone some threat comes up and gets them. Kind of highlights the importance of loved ones and letting others help you, you know. Iago, who always seems to be given the role of “voice of dissent” whether we need one or not, encourages Aladdin to get with Saleen because he thinks she looks rich. (Probably Iago is so sick of Aladdin putting off his wedding to Jasmine, and thus his better life, he's hoping Aladdin will be more willing to commit to this one!) Aladdin rightly points out to him that Jasmine is rich, too, and even though Aladdin is of course not with Jasmine for her money I'm glad he pointed it out anyway, just to put things in perspective for Iago. Iago then replies that Saleen flaunts her wealth, and I guess Aladdin gave up on arguing with him there, because I noticed that he could easily have responded with another “so does Jasmine” – you know, the girl who wears that amazing heavy chunky gold earrings and necklace and that huge blue gem on top of her head? Saleen was only wearing a string of pearls! I'm a little put off by their choice not to point this out, to be honest – it's almost like they're trying to make sure we see Jasmine as a girl who is modest and unassuming about her wealth and it doesn't mean that much to her, as if that's the only appropriate way for a positive character to feel about her riches.
Saleen, I am very pleased to say, in this episode alone was everything Sadira should have been: openly ruthless, cold and wicked, and treated as deserving of a proper defeat. She literally wants to take Aladdin from Jasmine to see if she can, like it's a game she's trying to win, and Aladdin's love for Jasmine is simply the challenge that makes the game interesting enough to be worth playing. I must say, to Aladdin's credit, he resists Saleen exactly as I would have hoped, never once coming close to succumbing to her charms. The episode manages its conflict very well without that, because Aladdin has no idea what's happened to Jasmine and she's trying to escape from her underwater prison and warn him, and Saleen's using every underhanded trick in the book to make sure Jasmine fails and Aladdin never finds out what happened to her. (Her methods involve spilling and wasting Agrabah's water, and for a desert kingdom that really drives home her cruelty.) For a good while it looks like escape for Jasmine will be impossible – it was incredibly hard to watch, and I mean that in the best way!
Anyway, at last Jasmine manages to contact Aladdin and let him know where she is, and Genie figures out Saleen is a powerful water elemental, which is good because that gives Genie his intelligence back, and also explains why his powers wouldn't be of much use here without making it out like he wouldn't know what to do with them. Jasmine realizes what they need to do to beat Saleen, and Aladdin has to use his silver tongue to get Jasmine out of this, which we don't see nearly enough of in this show. Jasmine has been very clever and determined throughout this episode, both in finding ways to contact Aladdin and in tricking and fighting Armand, whom Saleen employed to keep Jasmine prisoner while she made her plays for Aladdin. Now during the final climax, both Aladdin and Jasmine get the chance to fight off Saleen and rescue each other, and the battle stretches so close to the end of the episode I started to worry that our heroes wouldn't manage to defeat Saleen and the episode might become a two-parter. Spoiler alert, it didn't, but that just drives home how dangerous and powerful an adversary Saleen is. (Wasn't I just saying how Aladdin needs to fight some more dangerous adversaries?) Then, when the episode threatens to end off with a joke, which would have undermined all the wonderful tension and the beautiful displays of love we just got to see, instead the last thing we see is a kiss and a declaration of love from Aladdin to Jasmine, in which he also sort of makes up for laughing at her appearance earlier.
Obviously, this is one of my favourite episodes largely because it's so Aladdin-and-Jasmine centred. The evil, dangerous villain didn't hurt either, and I wouldn't object at all to future appearances by Saleen, or just to similar plotlines with different underhanded women. (Or underhanded men, trying to get at Jasmine!) I do think the episode could have worked with mostly just Aladdin, Jasmine, and Saleen, with one or two appearances from just one or two of Aladdin's guy friends. (In which they don't make sexist comments!) Having at least a few episodes like this would show us how Aladdin's love life is just as important as “the guys”, which would make Aladdin a far better role model and be much more true to how he is in the movie anyway. This episode ended up really leaning into the importance of Aladdin's love life, it really showed us the strong bond between Aladdin and Jasmine, and even the tension between them at the beginning only made their love feel even stronger as the story went on. By the end of it, with Aladdin and Jasmine back together and their love stronger than ever, I was completely sold. Now the only question remains, will this incident open Aladdin's eyes to how he's been treating his girlfriend-who-should-totally-be-his-wife?
We will soon see... Part 5 (Episodes 31-40) coming soon!
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