31 – Smoulder and Wiser *****
Another favourite episode, this one carries on the excellent Aladdin/Jasmine dynamic from Elemental, My Dear Jasmine. It almost felt, for a time, like the lesson I'd been hoping Aladdin would finally learn about valuing Jasmine really did sink in.
The villain of the day is Abis Mal, and this time he's gotten his hands on a magical candle that will summon a Fire Ifrit (our third Ifrit, and this one comes across very much like an evil spirit!). Abis Mal plans to blackmail the Sultan into handing him the throne of Agrabah or else he will have the Fire Ifrit destroy everything. The Sultan, I am pleased to say, does not bow to these threats and instead calls on the man who saved Agrabah so cleverly in the movie – I speak of course of Aladdin. I was so happy to see the Sultan is giving Aladdin proper recognition as someone who saved his throne and his daughter, and here it actually feels like any fears Aladdin has about displeasing the Sultan are unfounded. I am also happy to report that Aladdin was found inside the palace as though he lived there, and I don't remember anyone doing or saying anything to imply he and Jasmine weren't married.
But Aladdin isn't quite able to be the help he usually is. At the beginning of the episode, he's being the Hero of Agrabah as usual and trying to get the candle away from Abis Mal and Haroud, and so Haroud, in one of his many clever moves that Abis would probably be lost without, pretends to hit Aladdin with a Curse of Clumsiness. We are told almost right away that this isn't a real curse, but the psychological effect is so strong that Aladdin is suddenly tripping over his own feet at every turn. I loved the exploration of how strong the power of suggestion can be, and it made for a truly fascinating obstacle Aladdin has to overcome in order to do what he normally does and save the day.
I loved the false curse, but what I loved even more is how finally, after all this time, we're back to Supportive Jasmine. We don't see exactly how she finds out about Aladdin's “curse”, unfortunately, because I would have loved to see a sequence where he initially tries to hide it from her (as I'm sure he would), and her figuring it out anyway and showing Aladdin that he can't hide things from her, nor does he need to. But I can still imagine those things happened. We do see her trying to help him find a cure, reassuring him in the meantime, and best of all, never showing the slightest sign of annoyance at him for something that is beyond his control. Aladdin in turn is openly appreciative of Jasmine's support. Funnily enough, Jasmine, Iago, and the rest are looking for a book on curses in Jafar's old secret lair, and the episode just cuts right from Aladdin being “cursed” to Aladdin and co in the lair, not showing us any hesitation or fear or anything! I'm surprised they were all able to go into a place like that without any fear or negative flashbacks. You'd think they'd all be a little traumatized by the memory of Jafar – including Iago at this point!
So once the Sultan comes to tell Aladdin about the latest threat to the kingdom, Genie takes everyone underground to confront the Fire Ifrit (Jasmine comes too, and after all the times she wasn't included I must assume she just slipped in with the rest before anyone could stop her!) Battling the Fire Ifrit isn't easy, and Aladdin is being so little help, and so much of a hindrance, that Genie eventually hangs him up on a rock to keep him out of the way.
And then Jasmine gets in the Ifrit's way. She tries to stop him, I forget exactly how... but she makes him so mad that he promptly ignores everyone else, pins Jasmine down, and prepares to destroy her. While Aladdin is right there watching, but cannot get down from his rock. And this. Is. Brilliant. Jasmine is about to be destroyed before Aladdin's eyes by an angry evil fire spirit, and Aladdin is stuck dangling from a rock. Ask Aladdin what is his worst fear, I bet you anything it would involve seeing Jasmine about to die and being unable to go help her. And once he sees Jasmine about to die a slow and horrible death, Aladdin's love for her proves to be stronger than any curse, real or imagined. He gets himself down and saves her, with his usual grace and agility, and the mental spell is broken. Did I mention this was brilliant?
So then they figure out the curse was never real to begin with (I must say in a way that felt more “convenient” than truly satisfying, like Aladdin had to find out the truth now because the runtime was almost up), Aladdin defeats the Fire Ifrit, and Genie gets his small poetic revenge on Abis Mal. All very nice. But let's be real, they could have done anything with the ending and I'd still have been on a high from that beautiful Aladdin-Jasmine plotline.
32 – The Game ***
I love how this episode took one tiny moment from the movie – Genie losing a game of chess to Carpet, or was it checkers, I can never remember – and turned it into the premise for a whole story.
So apparently Carpet beating Genie at any game they play is a consistent thing (that was what I'd imagined too!), and Genie gets so discouraged he says to himself he would do anything to beat Carpet at a game just once. I guess all those centuries of granting wishes didn't teach him to be more careful about saying these things! He's overheard and approached by two small, floating people, a brother and a sister, who called themselves wizards but reminded me more of leprechauns. They definitely had that mischievous fae energy.
The two wizards whisk away not only Genie and Carpet, but also Aladdin, Jasmine, Abu, and Iago, to compete against one another in a number of bizarre, dangerous games, generally without telling them what the game is going to be and thus not giving them any time to prepare for it. (They formed two teams, I believe Genie, Jasmine, and Abu versus Aladdin, Carpet, and Iago.) But it becomes increasingly clear as the episode goes on, these “games” are really more like pointless suicide missions – and the wizards have no intention of letting any of them quit.
I really love the premise, but I did feel something was lacking in the execution, and couldn't quite put my finger on what. Perhaps the focus was spread too thin between all six members of Aladdin's group, or maybe it was more because our main six are all trying to accomplish a goal given to them by somebody else, with no real meaning to them. Perhaps some more focus on Genie's desire to finally beat Carpet in a game would have helped here – maybe he could have refused to quit even as everyone else is starting to notice how bad things are, because he's finally winning? Now, the story did start to get really great again, I want to say a little more than halfway through the episode, when Jasmine nearly falls off a mountain they're being forced to climb and the wizards physically prevent Aladdin from going to rescue her because – of all the reasons – she isn't on his team and he isn't supposed to be helping the other side. Genie's clever method for finally rescuing Jasmine, Aladdin's blatant refusal to have anything to do with the game after that, and the wizards' increasingly cruel measures to make sure the game will continue whether their players are willing or not, all made for an absolutely brilliant sequence.
The other thing I felt interfered with the emotional engagement was – considering how ruthless they were in insisting everyone play a deadly never-ending game, the story refused to portray the two wizards as bad guys. Oh, I don't need them to be evil, just emphasize their scary lack of regard for who they hurt - like the group was caught by a tricky pair of fae! Even after they were willing to let Jasmine die and then deliberately endangered Abu and Iago so they could force Aladdin to keep playing, the wizards were ultimately treated as fun-loving beings who got carried away, and their “defeat” in the end didn't harm or inconvenience them whatsoever – or teach them anything about consideration for others or valuing people's lives! Aladdin and Jasmine even say at the end of the episode that they never want to play a game again, a statement which I thought was brushed off far too easily considering they've just told us they've been traumatized. The way Genie got the wizards to stop bothering him and his friends was clever, he gives them an Aladdin video game to play instead, totally something Genie would do – and believe me, I do appreciate Genie being presented as smart in this episode – but it felt almost like, “Yes, you can play games, that's fine, but why not try this game instead?”, which sounds more like a lesson for a rowdy child than a malicious fae-wizard. I thought the children watching this cartoon were supposed to identify with, and learn lessons with, Aladdin and his friends, not the villains... Are the villains really so much more relatable than Aladdin and co all of a sudden???
33 – Snowman Is an Island ****
This episode kind of felt to me like episode 2: Bad Moon Rising remade, with the focus on Genie this time instead of Jasmine. Which I kind of appreciate. You probably got the idea that I didn't like Bad Moon Rising all that much, and by all that much I mean not even the slightest bit, and it badly needed to be redone or else just tossed out of the episode lineup and never spoken of again. I felt like this episode took the same basic premise, applied it to a different character, and actually gave him some believable motivation that didn't involve any character from our movie with its running theme of freedom choosing to be trapped under someone else's control forever. I don't know if the people who made the show actually realized Bad Moon Rising didn't work and decided to do it again but better, but I appreciate the results either way.
Jasmine isn't in this episode at all – which is not a good thing, especially after all the good work episodes 30 and 31 did to reestablish her as an important part of Aladdin's life! I really think that despite any progress made, Aladdin is never actually going to learn anything about neglecting Jasmine, and this consistent pattern of neglecting her, suddenly treating her like she's important, and then neglecting her again, will continue for the entire 90 episodes. Aladdin cannot learn his lesson because the people making the show cannot see that Aladdin is neglecting her; I think they genuinely believe this behaviour is normal.
Carpet's not here either, which felt a little plot-convenient, because he's always, always there whether he's needed or not, except for this one particular time when the entire story couldn't have happened if Aladdin and friends could have just flown over this huge fortress which blocks their path home. As it is I have to wonder why Genie couldn't just fly them all over. Maybe he just didn't want to because Aladdin was being rude to him about his antics, which if I recall was not at all how Aladdin felt about him in the movie – but then, Genie's antics in the movie weren't used to continually inconvenience everyone either. This fortress is in the middle of some lonely, snowy mountains Aladdin, Abu, Iago, and Genie are trekking through (we're not sure how they ended up lost in these, or where Aladdin was on his way back from this time that he didn't take Jasmine along to), and just like with the water in episode 14: Plunder the Sea, I wonder why there is not a single mention of Aladdin being unnerved or even having a full-on trauma attack from being lost in the snow. The last time he was stranded in snowy mountains was when Jafar sent him to the Ends of the Earth to die! You'd think that sort of thing would affect a person.
But once the group gets inside the fortress, things get interesting. The fortress is owned by a bored, fierce Yeti-type creature who sits on a throne and needs to open the door at the other end of his fortress if Aladdin and friends want to have any hope of passing through and getting back home. So Genie goes into his comedy act, to entertain the Yeti in exchange for passage, and here he's allowed to really shine, with his antics finally coming out full-force in a setting where they're entertaining and helpful (as they should always be!) rather than silly and inconvenient. The Yeti likes Genie's act so much he allows them all safe passage through to the other side of his fortress – or most of them. Genie decides to stay longer, finally having someone around who appreciates his humour and isn't just annoyed by it. Poor Genie. He deserves to have his humour always portrayed as something the other characters enjoy and appreciate – even if that would mean not having him along for every adventure so you never have to put Genie in a role where his only purpose is to mess things up for everyone! Can you see the similarities here between Snowman Is an Island and Bad Moon Rising yet? Aladdin and friends arrive at a palace in a strange new land, its ruler is always bored, Aladdin and friends must cheer up bored ruler in order to achieve a certain goal, one member of Aladdin's group hits on exactly the right thing and manages it. So given all those parallels, you've probably already guessed what comes next: Genie finishes up his act, tries to leave and rejoin Aladdin... and the Yeti overlord won't let him.
So this episode is a lot better than Bad Moon Rising because Genie never once thought about leaving his own life and freedom behind forever just to entertain this Yeti. He only meant to stay for a little longer, and now he's trapped in a glass bottle, which the show establishes several times is an effective way to contain a Genie. Not to mention Genie's talent that impresses the Yeti, and his motive for staying behind in the first place, are things we already know about Genie from the movie, and apart from the Genie-annoying-Aladdin dynamic it all feels like the same character we know and love placed into a new situation. It's a lot better than assuming the only woman in the group would be self-sacrificing and motherly!
And the episode doesn't just work as a much-needed remake of another episode; the conclusion is really good in its own right. We get an exciting rescue - they can actually do a rescue here, because Genie is not thinking of staying behind and sacrificing himself and all the good he could do in the world for the sake of this one bad-tempered ruler. We also get a touching moment where, after being annoyed with him earlier, Aladdin assures Genie he would never leave him behind. There's some great moments of Aladdin coming up with clever plans and Iago and Abu working together to trick the Yeti, and we get to see Iago's ability to mimic voices, which I don't think the show has ever used before. I was almost forgetting he can do that!
There's also a tiny brief moment where Iago mentions Jasmine, which is honestly worse than none at all. It honestly feels a little grating, like they're throwing it in our faces that sure, Jasmine exists and is important, but too bad, we don't feel like showing her.
Then, of course, we have our moral, which the Yeti overlord learns about overcoming his boredom. I am not sure about this habit of making the antagonists learn the lessons the children watching the show are supposed to pick up on.... Well, at least the lesson this Yeti learns was not a damaging one, unlike King Mammoud learning (along with Jasmine) that his own needs do not matter and he should neglect himself and give more and more to others out of an empty cup. And Genie's feelings towards the Yeti, in the end, were nuanced, and easier to understand than if he'd felt like he had to become the Yeti's parent for no reason. The story wasn't perfect, but it was very enjoyable and certainly a lot better than its predecessor.
34 – The Animal Kingdom ***
Aladdin and friends are on their way home from another mission (I'd have said maybe they're continuing their journey home from last episode, except if it is the same trip, Carpet has rejoined them?), and once again there is no sign of Jasmine. Aladdin runs into a group of talking, humanoid animals who have their own secret city, and deeply mistrust humans to the point they think Aladdin must be locked up or destroyed. I thought the city of animals was a pretty cool bit of worldbuilding, much as I normally love the way Disney has their animals move like real animals and doesn't resort to having them wear clothes and live in houses. (The Lion King was the first Disney movie I saw as a grown-up, and it absolutely blew me away for this reason.) But this city is a pretty cool expansion on a world where we already have Iago, a parrot who can talk intelligently but still moves like a parrot; and Abu, who cannot talk except for mimicking a few words but he and Aladdin always seem to understand each other perfectly. (There is a far-too-brief mention of the animals being surprised they cannot understand Abu's monkey speech, and it would have been really interesting to explore that more.) I would have loved to see how Rajah or Jasmine would have fit into this episode. Would the animals have thought Rajah was mad and dangerous because he acts like a normal animal? Would they see him as a traitor for how protective he is of his human? Would they also call Jasmine "man", since that was their way of referring to humans; do they know the term "woman" or would she be a "she-man"? Would the animals think of Jasmine as Aladdin's "mate" and cage them separately lest they breed and create more humans? Just how furious would Jasmine be at her and Aladdin being caged at all? But sadly, neither one was deemed important enough to appear.
The animals were all Australian, koalas and kangaroos and such, adding yet another part of the world to Aladdin's growing repertoire. The Queen of this land is a kangaroo, and in the episode Iago addresses her as “the Kangaroo Court”, making me wonder if the writers chose that specific animal just so they could do that one joke! Unfortunately I don't remember the Queen's name – there were two other characters named Sidney and Brisbane, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if hers was an Australian city too... I think it began with a “K” sound, but it was too short to have been Canberra.... Anyway, I love how Aladdin's becoming a real world traveller, and I appreciate how they settled on one particular country to draw on for this kingdom, which makes it feel more grounded. But I am a little sad the animals didn't have Australian accents!
I did think the human-hating thing was a bit heavy-handed, especially as they didn't actually “go there” and tell us about any of the actual reasons a kingdom of animals might have to hate humans (hunting for pleasure, deforestation, etc.) and just left it that “man had been bad to them”. Kind of a little too cleaned-up on all sides for my tastes. If you're going to explore a theme, whether the story is literally about animal rights or is meant to be a metaphor for xenophobia, I want a little more exploration than that! I have to say I'm not entirely sold on how the episode unfolded, with Aladdin trying so very hard to convince these human-hating animals that he actually isn't so bad. I do always love seeing Aladdin being his brave, strong, kind hero self, and here it's even more impressive because he's injured. He tackles almost the entire episode with a broken arm, and to top it all off he broke it rescuing one of the animal children (or should I say joeys?) - could he be any more loveable! The thing is, I was only invested in the conflict at all for Aladdin's sake. The animals had done nothing to get me to care about them or want them to have good relations with humans. They spent the whole episode threatening a character I love, and after all, I'm one of the very type of people they would have deemed evil and needing to be destroyed on sight! It's kind of ironic that here, in a story meant to be exploring the possibility of peace between two groups who have a long-standing enmity, they only ended up making me decide I couldn't really like the other group. I couldn't help but think the conclusion, where Aladdin and the animals finally do make peace, was perhaps a little too neat, since when you're like the animal kingdom citizens, you're going to find reasons to hate the other group no matter what they do. And we see evidence of this all throughout the episode – towards the end Aladdin literally saves an entire school from drowning and they still don't trust him, and I'm sitting there thinking, “That wasn't the climax? If that doesn't do it, what will??” I do wonder if the conclusion would have been more believable if we'd gotten a bad human character – someone who was trying to hunt the animals to place their heads on his mantlepiece, or wanted to destroy their home and build something only humans could use, or something like that. I feel like the contrast would have helped: we would have gotten a much more nuanced exploration of our theme and seen for ourselves why the animals hate humans so much, and if Aladdin then had to work to stop this bad human, the animals would have seen for themselves how some humans really do care about their fellow living creatures and don't approve of those other humans' actions. That might have explained more believably why their perspectives would suddenly change. (They do use Iago for contrast as an example of animals not always being good, but honestly, all the poor bird was trying to do was collect some jewels no one seemed to want!) The episode ends with a message of hope for eventual peace, but honestly I would have been perfectly satisfied if it had ended with Aladdin just escaping these animals and going back home – I'm sure they wouldn't have followed him, they're too scared of straying outside their safe city. That might have been a more realistic place to take this episode, given the dark, heavy themes they were exploring, which I know the series doesn't tend to get into but hey, you were the ones who brought it up. But I have to admit, part of me does kind of appreciate the way they wrapped up this whole complex conflict in a neat little bow.
35 – Power To the Parrot **
To me, the most important part of this episode was how finally, after thirty-four episodes including one in which Jasmine specifically calls out Aladdin for never doing anything alone with her and then has her wishes completely ignored, Aladdin actually says that he's going on a trip and not taking anyone except Jasmine. I think I almost fell out of my seat, honestly. And I won't pretend I wasn't expecting some catch, just like last time; I was just waiting for him to cancel and stay in Agrabah to take care of a threat which comes up early on, or else decide last-minute to take his friends with them too! This should have been such a happy moment for me - the show creators finally, finally realize Aladdin and Jasmine actually need to spend couples time together - but by this point I didn't trust them to actually prioritize this. It would have made so much difference if we had some indication the show writers understood they had something to make up for – if Aladdin had had one line, in his conversation with Iago where Iago's upset he's not invited, and said he's been neglecting Jasmine for long enough and isn't going to do that any longer! On the surface, they were finally giving me what I wanted to see, by by this point I didn't trust them to actually do it.
And sure enough, there was a catch, just a different kind. Aladdin and Jasmine do end up going on this trip alone together, yes, but the episode doesn't show us so much as a single glimpse of what their trip was like. The entire focus of the story is on what Genie, Iago, and Abu are doing back in Agrabah. We don't get to see what sort of adventures Aladdin and Jasmine have on their own, or how they spend their quality time, even as a B-plot. All we see is one brief glimpse of the two of them flying off together, in which Aladdin is unable to enjoy himself because he's worried about Agrabah left in the hands of Genie, Abu, and Iago. And if that's all we see, it gives the impression their entire date must have been like that, because we have no context for anything else. It suggests he must've been barely able to pay attention to Jasmine if this was such a huge weight on his mind! Having Aladdin and Jasmine on their first-ever mentioned solo date and not showing us any of it also carries the same problem Snowman Is an Island does in mentioning Jasmine without showing her: it indicates this part of Aladdin's life story is of no real importance and they can't be bothered showing it to us because they're sure we won't be interested. And beyond that, what are they doing to Genie's character, to everyone's group dynamic, if Aladdin can't even enjoy a romantic trip with his girlfriend-who-should-totally-be-his-wife because he's worrying about leaving his friends unsupervised?! How is he supposed to have a healthy relationship with Jasmine if he can't trust his friends without his supervision long enough to have consistent solo dates, and how is he supposed to have a healthy relationship with his friends if he can't trust them?! You'd think he and Jasmine had children and he couldn't find a babysitter!
The actual plot, which we get instead of, not alongside, seeing Aladdin and Jasmine on a solo adventure/date for the first time, and will probably result in them never risking going on one of those again, is that Genie and Iago get into an argument about who is a better help to Agrabah and who would do a better job of helping the city using Genie's powers. This leads to Genie transferring his powers to Iago for a day just to make a point, and after a brief attempt to use them only for selfish means (there's a side plot in which he gives Abu the Midas touch), Iago starts to do some genuinely good things with his new abilities. And yes, I count his deeds as good even if they were at first motivated by a desire to prove he can be benevolent. Doesn't change the fact he's carried away on a sea of generosity: he creates a river to help a pair of struggling farmers, provides tables of free food for the entire city, and showers everyone with an endless supply of valuable gems. You'd think the idea here was that having Genie powers was genuinely making Iago a better person (bird?). Iago-the-Genie's character design is really neat too, the way his wings become Genie hands and he has a wisp at the bottom instead of a tail, floating in more of an upright way than his usual birdlike posture, all in a very cohesive design. I was impressed.
I was not impressed with Genie starting to feel discouraged about the amount of good Iago's done for the city. He's unhappy because he never thought of giving Agrabah all these benefits, and – well, honestly, why didn't he, if it was that important to him? If he really wanted to help the people of Agrabah, well, he could have done something at any time considering what Iago's doing now is all with Genie's powers. If he cares so much he can resolve to start helping the people too from now on, instead of moping about it! If he feels bad now it's entirely his own fault.
And you know who really should have thought of helping Agrabah sooner, but who we somehow never see doing anything like this? Aladdin. After all that time he spent growing up on the streets, giving away the only food he had to people who needed it even more than he did, tossing handfuls of gold coins to the people as soon as he had some, now closely connected to the royal family even if we must insist he's not part of it yet, and in this version of events with a powerful Genie still in his lamp ready to do whatever he asks – how on earth is he not using all the power at his disposal to help the people of Agrabah?! This reminds me of a story I read in my Disney Princess colouring book, where Jasmine finds Abu giving food to the two little starving children from the beginning of the movie, and decides she wants to help feed the people of Agrabah too. Just like in this episode, a huge free feast for everyone is set up – and just like in this episode, Aladdin isn't anywhere to be seen, doesn't contribute anything to this feast, and in fact is not even mentioned. How is it that two different after-Aladdin stories made by two completely different groups of people from two completely different Disney categories could have the same idea about providing free food to the starving people of Agrabah, and yet none of them think that Aladdin, our kindhearted, generous Aladdin who knows what it's like to live and struggle out there, would be the one to do it?! Either Aladdin's gotten super powerless since the end of the movie, or super selfish, and neither one is a good look.
None of that will be explored in this episode, though, because of course that would be presenting having more money and resources as a good thing. Instead Iago overdoes it, floods the city, and wrecks the economy. Oh, and Abu's Midas touch works on absolutely everything, so he can't eat anymore because all the food he touches just turn into gems. I admit there is something clever about a relatively simple show teaching us how gems would become worthless if they were infinitely easier to get than the food and necessities you wanted to spend them on, but the trouble is, this show does tend to present everything in simple terms and so it doesn't come across as a child-friendly exploration of how the economy works so much as a straight-up moral lesson about how “bad” it is to be doing financially well. To drive the point home, one of the angry citizens of Agrabah even tells Iago this state is “worse than being poor”, just to make sure we get that message that we never ever want to try and be rich or even just improve our financial situations. You'd almost think the episode was cautioning us never to try and help people!
Then when Iago begs Genie to take his powers back and fix everything, we go right back to the other extreme. Genie, who had just been moping because he never thought of doing anything good for the people of Agrabah, takes them right back to the status quo, getting rid of everything Iago added. No more river to help the farmers (who for some reason are happy about this – of course they are, gotta send that message), no more free food tables either I presume. Neither of which are bad ideas if you don't overdo it to the point the economy is ruined! No one is thinking of any way to improve life in Agrabah that wouldn't make everything worse. It's a very all-or-nothing mentality, that basically promotes never taking a risk, trying new ideas, or trying to improve any aspect of your life or the world around you for fear of disaster. Heaven forbid we should have Aladdin show up at the end and come up with some idea that would work long-term; heaven forbid letting us see some of Aladdin's trip with Jasmine and perhaps using it as a B-plot in which they find the key to some solution. And so the moral becomes exactly like so many other stories I encountered growing up: Stay in your place, don't aim for anything beyond what you already have, never try to improve your life or reach for anything, just be grateful you have anything at all. Very different from the message I got watching the movie, you know, the one where a poor street rat is allowed to join the royal family and there is every indication he is a prince now....
36 - The Sands of Fate *****
This was a super-cool episode – exciting premise, great execution. It all builds up to showing us how much of a hero Aladdin has become (similar to Episode 29, only we get to see him defeating actual difficult threats this time). The story opens with Aladdin and friends out in the desert (no Jasmine again; where is she!) where they watch a caravan going by: several men on horseback and an elephant carrying an important-looking chest. The caravan is attacked by marauders – I loved the inclusion of dangerous warriors as something you could run into in the desert surrounding Agrabah! – and while they're battling, the caravan holding the marauders off but the marauders just about to get at the important chest anyway – suddenly, everyone disappears.
Aladdin is at a loss and doesn't know what to do about it – of course he wants to help the caravan, he's Aladdin, but what do you do to help someone if they've just disappeared without a trace?? We also get a mention here that Aladdin loves sunsets, and I love that little bit of character development – who says that a masculine character can't enjoy beautiful things?? (Although I bet he'd enjoy the sunset even more if he could share it with a certain person named – oh, what was it again – Jasmine.) A mysterious mystical figure comes and tells them the legend of the Riders of Ramone, who once upon a time set off to deliver an important treasure but were attacked by marauders and failed. Ever since, they were cursed to repeat that same day, that same mission, over and over again forever – or until a hero comes to help them.
Aladdin of course immediately determines to help them. Even though he has no idea how they can do this, he's not about to leave these poor cursed people to their fate! Iago of course is being the Voice of Dissent and basically no help at all again... and the plans begin.
For the rest of the episode, Aladdin and friends try plan after plan in an attempt to save the Riders of Ramone, very Groundhog Day in its premise but still very much its own thing. Even though we get a lot of repetition, with the same sequence of events the Riders were forced to repeat being shown over and over, it never becomes repetitive or boring – because each time the scene repeats, the stakes are being raised. As Aladdin and his friends stick around the Riders and their curse too long, one by one they begin to get sucked into the Riders' timeline and reality. Aladdin is the first one to reappear as a Rider of Ramone instead of as himself, with no memory of who he was before, and slowly the others begin to be changed too. Abu and Carpet actually end up on the side of the marauders, with no memory that they're Aladdin's friends and don't really want to fight him, which was a really nice bit of added tension. Having Aladdin and his friends become Riders and marauders helps make sure the stakes are personal – it can be hard to care in some of the episodes where Aladdin is not personally invested in the problem of the day – and it really ups the tension with the ticking-clock factor, because if all Aladdin's friends get stuck in this time loop, there's no one left to help them. (Unless of course Jasmine came looking for them, but in a timeline with no Aladdin, her story would be completely different now, wouldn't it? That wasn't explored, but this just goes to show how many cool new ideas this episode could open up.) The episode once again shows us that you can trap a Genie by getting him into a bottle, which once again hints to us that Genies are not actually made to be trapped in vessels and do not actually belong there.
The episode ends on a note of how Aladdin and his friends are destined to be heroes, which would have been even nicer if Jasmine had been included in that. Or if there had been anything to tie in Aladdin's heroic destiny with his happy ending in the movie, where he gets to be a prince and marry Jasmine. Like if there had been some mention that he's in a better position to help all these people now because of the better resources being a Prince gives him. Without that it's sort of like – the happy ending the movie gave Aladdin isn't good enough, or doesn't count, and they wanted to rewrite it to suit themselves, you know? Otherwise, it was a very inspiring ending for a very exciting story.
37 – The Citadel ***
This episode is a standout because it introduces us to another new villain, Mozenrath, who, assuming neither Saleen nor the al-Muddi leader will come back for another story, is the first recurring TV show villain who gets to be both truly threatening and genuinely evil. Mozenrath is young, just about Aladdin's age, also Aladdin's height and build, and I've heard he's supposed to be something of a shadow self for Aladdin, though I haven't seen any evidence of that just yet. Certainly Mozenrath has a pet he carries around on his shoulder and can communicate with too: a cool floating brown eel-type creature who speaks in half-formed hiss-words and whose name is Xerxes. Mozenrath is said to be incredibly powerful, and Iago actually does with him what I wished he had done with Mechanicles, making a comparison between him and Jafar. In this case we're not comparing Mozenrath's goals to Jafar's, but rather his power – Mozenrath talks about a powerful evil sorcerer he defeated, and then Iago remarks that even Jafar steered clear of this sorcerer, which threw me for a moment until I changed the image in my mind from “Jafar cowering in fear at the thought of this sorcerer” to “Jafar prudently deciding not to pick a battle he couldn't win”. Now, comparing your new villain character to Jafar immediately gives him big shoes to fill, especially in a series where so far, they have been steering clear of making any of their villains too dark. I'm not sure I'd have made that claim unless I knew I was prepared to live up to it, since otherwise you could be spending every scene with Mozenrath trying to see if the comparison was justified!
Aladdin first meets Mozenrath when he attacks Agrabah with his magic, pretty much just to see what Aladdin will do. We get to see some more Aladdin heroism and some ungratefulness towards Aladdin from the head guard Razoul. When Mozenrath decides Aladdin is a strong enough hero for his purposes, he asks him to come along and help him, Aladdin refuses because – obviously, he's not into helping villains – so Mozenrath decides to persuade him by kidnapping Genie (which you can apparently do by stealing his lamp while he's asleep in it, not sure how that works for an extremely powerful magical being who's supposed to be free now.) Because Mozenrath comes to Aladdin's hovel which he's still living in for some reason, he ends up taking Aladdin, Abu, Carpet, and Iago along to his secret fortress to do his dirty work, and we're left once again for an entire episode without Jasmine. If we don't count Jasmine being summarily dismissed from the storyline while she and Aladdin are finally having a solo date, this makes five episodes in a row in which Jasmine is not present and plays no important role. And I really wanted to see how Aladdin's shadow self would feel about Aladdin's love interest, too!
"The Citadel", we can see at this point, refers to Mozenrath's hideout, and if it were me I would probably have chosen a different title, just because this one doesn't seem very evocative; it doesn't really tell us what the story's going to be about and - unless I'm missing something - doesn't involve a clever pun like a lot of the other titles do.
Mozenrath wants Aladdin to help him collar this beast from another dimension, called a Thurdak (hope I spelled that right). I remember the name vividly because for a long time, I thought the characters were saying “third act” and were breaking the fourth wall about what was going to happen later in the story! Aladdin doesn't have much choice but to collar the Thurdak, because it eats magic or anything made out of magic – and that includes Carpet and Genie. If Aladdin doesn't at least find Genie and get him out of the fortress on time, Genie could die – pretty cool, introducing one of the few things in this world that could be dangerous to a genie. There was a very scary moment where the Thurdak eats half of Carpet, and I was chilled seeing how they went there – but then Genie was able to fix him with his own magic a little too easily, which lowered the stakes a little too much. I did really enjoy seeing Aladdin's cleverness playing off of Mozenrath's, even if I couldn't see why Mozenrath was any reflection of Aladdin, and it was one of those stories where I wondered if Aladdin was going to give up and let Mozenrath win this round – but no, Aladdin always has a plan, and his incredible cleverness comes out ahead of Mozenrath's to save the day after all.
I am still not entirely sure what I think of Mozenrath. I feel like I still don't know him very well - who he is, what makes him tick, what his evil motivations are. But he definitely has potential. I do know we're going to see him in future episodes, so time will tell....
38 – Poor Iago ****
You've probably figured out, by this point, that I am not fond of the running joke the TV series has about Iago trying to get himself a little money, because he's living with Aladdin who for some reason is still poor, and constantly being thwarted. When I saw the title of this episode, I figured it would be entirely about this running joke and was fully prepared to not like it at all – but actually, the story went in a completely unexpected direction, and one I really enjoyed!
The story opens with Iago and Abu plotting to rob the Sultan's gold dust stash from the palace. I love seeing more of Abu as Iago's “partner in crime”, even if he did seem a little too hesitant and Iago had to push him a little too much. Of course they are caught, but the really important part is that Iago gets himself covered in the gold dust, and it seems to have affected his mind as well as his appearance. He calls himself “Greed” and tries to go out into the streets and preach greed to the people. But you can get into a lot of trouble out there as a pure-gold bird, and after his antics nearly cause his death, he decides to go completely the opposite route and take a vow of poverty.
There's something very amusing about Iago perching in front of a crowd in the city, making speeches about why they should take vows of poverty like him, and he says something like, “What are rich people but poor people with money?” which is not only funny but actually sums up the theme of the movie pretty well when you look at it from the opposite side. How was Jasmine any different from Aladdin, except that she had more money? It also ties nicely into the Arabian Nights, where holy ascetics (or rather fake holy ascetics, pretending for their own malicious purposes) were a running thing and even appeared in the original Aladdin.
There's another line in this episode very like it, which comes from Abis Mal of all people. He and Haroud are in the city, against Haroud's better judgment, so that Abis Mal can shop for a new hat, and Abis Mal makes a remark about how the whole reason people bow down to the Sultan is because he wears that particular big Sultan hat. In addition to this just being a funny line, it ties in perfectly with the movie, where Genie gives Aladdin an impressive, expensive outfit and suddenly, no one is calling him “riff-raff” or “street rat” anymore!
Meanwhile, Iago manages to recruit one loyal follower: Akbar, a big thief we've met before in several previous episodes, including 23 and 29. He always talks about himself in the third person and gives off the air of your typical “big, dumb guy”, but this is not the only episode where I suspected he's actually more intelligent than he lets on. While Akbar is on Iago's side – and it's a good thing, because Iago is creating enemies everywhere he goes! – Abis Mal and Haroud become convinced Iago is actually the Golden Bird of Babaganoush (did I mention I love the names in this show?) which legend says will lead anyone who follows it to treasure. So Iago is now being pursued by Abis Mal and Haroud; the royal guards, who are sent to arrest Iago before he causes too much trouble but are angry enough to do more than just arrest him; a horde of angry merchants, whose businesses Iago has interfered with; thugs who want the treasures Iago “borrowed” from the royal family to give away to the poor; and Aladdin, running around trying to catch his parrot before he gets himself into too much trouble. I did think Aladdin was perhaps a little too inactive in this episode, running after Iago in a vain attempt to contain him without showing much of his usual bravery or cleverness, and though Jasmine is in the episode we only see her for a couple of brief glimpses. They designed a really nice new outfit for her, too, and here she only gets one brief scene to wear it in!
Anyway, Iago manages to solve his own problems, in a clever way which also ties right in to his ability to be dishonest and not feel any guilt about it. He manages to pin the whole thing on Abis Mal and Haroud, and says he can't believe the more honest citizens of Agrabah fell for it, though honestly I'm not sure why he couldn't believe that – I'd have a very easy time believing any trouble in Agrabah was caused by those two! Iago decides at the end that he is going to be a greedy bird after all – which I appreciate, because it was almost, sort of, like Iago accepting this part of himself and the show acknowledging that's okay. And really, there is nothing wrong with Iago wanting to have a little bit of luxury!
39 – The Secret of Dagger Rock ***
Finally, finally. It only took us thirty-nine episodes to get to this point! We finally get an episode that opens with Aladdin and Jasmine flying off on a date together. I actually double-checked the screen to see if “the guys” would be tagging along as usual, but nope, it really was just Aladdin and Jasmine, plus Carpet for transportation! I could hardly believe it. Yes, the date was cut abruptly short a minute later so that we could begin the main action – but I would expect that no matter what; this show is about the Main Action. At least we finally got to see that dating Jasmine is in fact something important to Aladdin, something he actually does when he's not busy with adventures - though I would have liked to see the moment where Aladdin actively realizes he needs to make time for Jasmine. Otherwise it feels glossed over, like they're saying Aladdin's neglecting Jasmine wasn't actually a problem that needed fixing, like they expect us not to notice this is the first time we've followed Aladdin and Jasmine on a solo date and the second time one was mentioned in thirty-nine episodes.
So, almost immediately, Aladdin and Jasmine fall into a trap set by Mozenrath - the trap shows off Jasmine's animal-lover side very nicely, and the whole thing is made even more villainous since Mozenrath would exploit that. Mozenrath kidnaps Aladdin and tells Jasmine that he wants Genie as the ransom.
It was very interesting watching Mozenrath meeting Jasmine for the first time. Like I said, I'd heard before that Mozenrath was supposed to be like a mirror to Aladdin, almost his shadow side, so I wondered whether Mozenrath would be attracted to Jasmine too, only in a far creepier way and not caring about her consent, though I also realized they probably wouldn't do that in a very obviously geared-towards-kids show. (Gosh, I'm glad the movie wasn't cleaned up like that!) But – slightly disappointingly – there was no sign of Mozenrath being interested in Jasmine, although he does seem to like taunting her quite a bit. He keeps going on about her being a princess and clearly underestimates her ability to do anything, which in turn makes Jasmine furious, all the more so since she actually can't do anything to resist his spells or stop him taking Aladdin. If there's one thing worse than being taunted, it's seeing proof over and over again that those taunts are accurate.
Jasmine goes home and the Sultan forbids her to go out after Aladdin, instead sending out guards after him even though Jasmine points out that's exactly what Mozenrath's expecting and he's promised to destroy any rescue party sent out. Of course, it still makes perfect sense for the Sultan, traditional man and caring father that he is, to send out a rescue party anyway and forbid his daughter to risk herself like that – and it's also no surprise that, when Razoul is chosen to head the rescue party, he grumbles to himself about “risking his life for a street rat”. (Particularly this street rat, I would imagine.) And following this trend of everyone being perfectly in character, Jasmine of course still decides to go rescue Aladdin herself, along with some help from Genie who joins her.
Back at Mozenrath's lair (at Dagger Rock, hence the name of the episode, which just like the last Mozenrath episode doesn't seem to be the most evocative name choice), Aladdin is dangling from the ceiling in these cool ropes of magical black goo. He and Mozenrath are pretty much having a battle of wits while Mozenrath waits for his ransom and Aladdin waits to be rescued – and Aladdin does not seem nearly as scared as you might expect given the circumstances; I swear he is enjoying this! Like even getting captured is worth it to him if he can get the best of his enemy. You'd think, too, that Mozenrath might get tired of bantering with Aladdin and, I don't know, put some of that magic black goop over his mouth so he doesn't have to hear his plan undermined any longer. I know they were probably just writing the scene so young viewers wouldn't be too scared by it – Aladdin's not afraid, and Mozenrath's not really hurting him, so we don't have to be afraid either – and I won't pretend their dialogue wasn't enjoyable... but I want to be a little afraid if Aladdin's been kidnapped by a promising new villain who is supposed to match Jafar in power and skill! Honestly, it turns out feeling very much like a scene that would have inspired any fanfiction tagged “Aladdin x Mozenrath” on A03.
Aladdin is convinced Jasmine will be coming to save him and that she is strong and capable enough to succeed, and he keeps telling Mozenrath so, like he's genuinely trying to convince him to take her seriously. And here I don't quite get Aladdin's thinking. Yes, it is really cool to reverse their usual roles and have an episode where Jasmine gets to rescue Aladdin for a switch. Yes, Aladdin would totally be proud rather than threatened at having such a strong, capable girlfriend-who-should-totally-be-his-wife – I see a glowing, “that's my woman” type of admiration. And I know the show was probably just making each character say what they were thinking outright, and not risking too much subtlety that could go over the heads of a younger audience. But still – considering Aladdin really cares about Jasmine, and if she fails he'll lose both her and Genie, and he certainly knows she's not invincible, especially against magic – why is he trying to take away Jasmine's one advantage, the fact that Mozenrath does underestimate her? What does he think will happen if he does convince Mozenrath that Jasmine could defeat him?? Does he want Mozenrath to be on his guard and Jasmine to end up getting herself killed???
This scene, by the way, is where we finally get some answers to the question that has been bothering me since first hearing about the way the sequel content handles Aladdin's future rank and love life: Mozenrath says Aladdin “gave up” the chance to be Sultan. This, I guess, is why we're supposed to believe he's still living in his hovel with minimal income and only seeing the love of his life on rare occasions. At least now we can absolve the Sultan of any blame - it seems nothing short of cruel for him to deny Aladdin houseroom at the palace – but that doesn't make it any better! What kind of ending is that to a rags-to-riches story?! I believe I have since heard an idea that Aladdin gave up the throne so as not to outrank Jasmine – but I don't think that idea works in their cases, for two reasons. First, Jasmine's story arc was never about being unsatisfied with her power; it was about freedom. Jasmine was very much able to make the most of the power she already had: "Release him! By order of the Princess!" "When I am Queen, I will have the power to get rid of you!" Her complaints about her life were all about lack of personal power, the power to live her life as she chose, not lack of power over others. And all sources agree that since the end of the movie, Jasmine is able to go wherever she likes now – becoming the main ruler of Agrabah would only put those restrictions right back onto her, more rules she has to follow and responsibilities that would keep her from the freedom she craved. Becoming Sultan of Agrabah is not a satisfying ending to Jasmine's story – but it is incredibly satisfying for Aladdin, if after being ridiculed and ignored and deemed worthless his whole life, after being the lowest of the low, he became the highest of the high. Not to mention he can help others in his old street rat life rise (something he cannot do if he's stuck in a hovel). Aladdin's story needs that ending of his rising in rank, or else the whole rags-to-riches tale and message about his being worthy regardless of his past don't work anymore.
And my second reason: no matter what Aladdin's title is, or what Jasmine's is, Jasmine will always be the one who was born into royalty. If Aladdin is the Sultan, and Jasmine is Queen (or Sultana, but she says Queen in the movie), she's still the one who's been royal her whole life, and that kind of balances them out. There's no way Aladdin wouldn't allow her the freedom to be in charge of as much as she wanted anyway, and they'd probably end up as equal rulers. (They'll never be equal at all if Aladdin keeps running away from Jasmine's royal life and refusing to share it with her.) But if Jasmine is Sultan and Aladdin is Prince Consort, she will forever be higher than him. There will always be a power imbalance (never a healthy thing in a marriage). Aladdin will have hit a glass ceiling (I think in our anxiousness to make sure a woman doesn't hit a glass ceiling, we've forgotten that our poor character can also hit glass ceilings). And worse, it will forever confirm his misbelief from the movie that Jasmine is too high for him.
Meanwhile, Jasmine and Genie's plan is to take the places of two of the guards in Aladdin's rescue party, so most of the episode centres on humorous mishaps caused by Jasmine's pretending to be a man. It almost felt like the TV show was riffing off Mulan, except I don't think Mulan was out yet. (Maybe it was in the works?) I have to say, this type of plotline makes a lot more sense for Mulan than it does for Jasmine. Jasmine always strikes me as the type of very feminine woman who could never pass for a man if she tried (she could have at least taken off her cat-eye liner!) Although I admit, this did make for some funny moments, like where Jasmine loses her fake beard along the way and basically insists she never had a beard to begin with, in such a strong voice that the guard who was questioning it just believes her. Other incidents, like where Jasmine can't make the guards listen to her suggestion because she's using a soft, agreeable, “feminine” voice, felt a lot less like Jasmine. Jasmine is always strong and commanding; she was just written not to be for this one scene so that the joke the writers thought of would work. It felt like the show creators chose a plan with the most obvious potential to be funny, not the best plan from the characters' point of view or from a storytelling perspective. From the characters' perspective, Mozenrath had promised to annihilate any rescue party the Sultan might send after Aladdin, so Jasmine isn't exactly being subtle or avoiding Mozenrath's detection by... joining that very rescue party! She said the guards wouldn't have a chance because Mozenrath's expecting an army – well, she's doing nothing to subvert those expectations, she's just putting herself in danger without doing anything to get the guards out of it, or to increase Aladdin's chances. I was very surprised Jasmine's plan didn't involve getting to Aladdin ahead of the rescue party, or to stop the rescue party from heading off, in order to keep everyone safe.
And from a storytelling perspective, for an episode that was meant to be focused on Jasmine's strength, I felt a little disappointed in the way they actually went about showcasing her talents – or rather, not showcasing them. Having Jasmine pretending to be someone else, and having to fight the way the guards do, doesn't really show us Jasmine's talents the way it would if, say, Jasmine snuck into Mozenrath's lair wearing her prettiest smile and proceeded to make Mozenrath think she was in love with him and wanted to help him win. Or even if Jasmine had used her Scourge of the Desert persona from back in episode 18! It feels a little weird to me that Mozenrath had been mocking Jasmine for being traditionally feminine, and then in order to show us he was wrong to underestimate her, she proceeds to fight him by... being traditionally masculine. She even exchanges her pretty princess dress from the first scene for a guard's uniform and her usual pants, and I would have loved to see Jasmine defeat Mozenrath in full princess wear. I think, to carry on with the Mulan comparison, that someone missed a fundamental difference here: Mulan starts off her movie unable to embrace who she truly is, gets a lot of valuable training and experience through pretending to be a man, but then saves the day entirely as herself. Jasmine is already incredibly sure of herself, her time pretending to be a man was played mostly for laughs, and though there is a moment where she's revealed to be a woman and from there completes her mission as herself, there was no real character significance to it.
Sneaking along with the guards was also more Genie's idea than Jasmine's, and it's Genie who easily defeats Mozenrath's army when he sends one after them. So they could very easily have made this a story about Mozenrath underestimating Genie, who is actually much too strong to be easily captured, and that would've worked great and I would've loved that. But for a story about Mozenrath underestimating Jasmine... I don't know. Something was missing.
Something was missing from Mozenrath too. He tells Jasmine at the beginning of the episode that he would make Aladdin “feel pain” in the case of any rescue attempt, which I thought was brilliant because it's a big enough threat that no one will want to risk it happening, but Mozenrath can still carry it out without losing the leverage of a living hostage. But then the rescue attempt comes, and all Mozenrath does is send a bunch of undead soldiers to fight them (which are then very easily defeated by Genie, so it doesn't end up feeling like Mozenrath is that powerful of an enemy). And he never even thinks about torturing Aladdin. It doesn't help that we haven't ever actually seen Mozenrath use powers big enough to defeat a guy Jafar wouldn't dare challenge.... for all his potential, Mozenrath is really starting to feel like he isn't that big of a threat.
When Jasmine actually does get to Mozenrath's lair, now out of her guard disguise and dressed as herself, she falls prey to Mozenrath's spells a few more times. This should have been the point where we see how Jasmine's story arc has affected her for the better, but it almost feels like they're saying, "See? Mozenrath was right. Jasmine isn't strong enough to defeat him; not unless she's surrounded by a lot of big tough armed men, anyway." It's only at the very end that Jasmine thinks of a way to defeat Mozenrath, which, like Iago's defeat of Mancho in episode 24, was very reminiscent of Aladdin's defeat of Jafar at the end of the movie. But unlike in the movie, where Aladdin defeats Jafar using talents he's been established as having the entire time, but which Jafar is bound to underestimate, here Jasmine's sudden success seems to come out of nowhere. She couldn't stand up to Mozenrath the entire time, and she clearly didn't learn how to stand up to him throughout the episode. But in the end when we need Mozenrath to be defeated because we're almost out of runtime – she pushes him. She pushes him and he falls and lands inside his own evil spell. But what does that have to do with Jasmine? Anyone could have pushed him! Aladdin could have pushed him. Carpet could have swooped around his legs and made him trip. Abu or Iago could have run around underfoot until Mozenrath fell, if they had been there. One of the guards could have pushed him if any of them ever thought of any battle manoeuvre besides running around swinging their scimitars. Genie could have come to the lair pretending to be turning himself in and then pushed Mozenrath himself. If Jasmine had slowly come closer and closer to Mozenrath, either turning on the charm or angrily demanding he let Aladdin go, all while he's thinking mocking thoughts about pampered princesses and not even trying to move out of her way or stop her, and then she had pushed him, well, that would have shown us exactly why you never underestimate an angry princess. The more I think about it, the more I think I would have loved to see Jasmine seduce Mozenrath and then throw him off a cliff in fury.
So Aladdin and Genie are safe, and Aladdin says “My hero” to Jasmine, and somehow the delivery sounds less like he's a strong man who is proud of his equally strong wife, and more like he's suddenly become weak and his only chance was having her rescue him, which is a far less attractive look. (But you'd think, if he's that sure of Jasmine's strength, he has no excuse anymore to keep her away from half of his adventures!) Genie interrupts Aladdin and Jasmine before they can exchange a thank-you/I'm-so-glad-you're-safe kiss (of course), Jasmine isn't in trouble with her father because he's proud of her too (even though her victory was so much a matter of chance I'm amazed he didn't give her the angry parent “you could have been killed” speech). We then cut to Abu and Iago in order to complete their side plot which turns out never to have relevance to the rest of the story.
I really hate to complain about this one, because they really did try to make an episode about Jasmine being strong and capable, and they even went so far as to show that Aladdin does prioritize spending time with her. I really do appreciate that... but that just makes it all the more upsetting when they don't have Jasmine succeed, because she's Jasmine, where everyone else would have failed.
40 – In the Heat of the Fright ****
I think the show was on a mission at this point to introduce some newer, scarier villains, because not three episodes after our first introduction to Mozenrath, this episode gives us our first story with Mirage. She's an evil cat goddess who lives in this really cool outer-space-like world full of floating asteroid things, called Morbia. (Her name is Mirage, but I keep thinking of her as Bastet, the actual Egyptian cat goddess! And to top off the irony Genie actually does make a joke about Mirage possibly using a fake name. I wonder...?) She lives to cause trouble and when she sees Aladdin thwart her plans to burn down a small farming village, she decides this hero's spirit must be broken – either because she doesn't like heroes ruining her plans or just because she thinks destroying goodness is fun, I wasn't clear on which. Most likely it was a little of both.
Aladdin's on a mission to chart a river for the Sultan when he first meets Mirage, and I like the addition of the river and the farming village to this world, which gives us a little more insight into how Agrabah gets its food and, I guess, into what is actually happening during those droughts mentioned in earlier episodes. (I guess the river dried up; it wasn't at all clear when we didn't know about the river and I'm busy wondering how a place that hardly ever gets rain anyway can have droughts.) I guess I can excuse Jasmine not being along for this mission, since she might have found it boring and Aladdin was too busy working to have given her any attention – though that didn't stop him bringing all his usual guy friends, including Genie who keeps trying to distract him and is once more being portrayed as more of a hindrance than a help. (In a surprising twist, here it's Iago who is actually helping Aladdin do his job!)
I would have loved some more exploration of Iago's knowledge of villainy, which is touched upon all too briefly before the subject is dropped. There's a moment in the episode where they question why anyone would want to attack a peaceful farming village that provides food to all the desert cities, and I'm sitting there thinking that's exactly why someone evil would want to attack a farming village, because if you cut off someone's food supply you have control. Iago starts to explain about Mirage being “evil incarnate”, but he never gets any further than saying that evil simply likes to destroy good. I really wanted a longer and more complex discussion of how villainous minds work, from our resident ex-villain sidekick! Did they think the topic was too dark for kiddies, or would put ideas in their heads?
Mirage's powers aren't explored fully here, which makes her feel all the more interesting since now I'm curious to see the full extent of what she can actually do. She has a number of pet fire-cats which feed on fear, and can be defeated in pretty much the exact ways you would expect something that is made of fire, and is a cat, and feeds on fear, could be defeated, but actually it was still interesting and exciting watching Aladdin and friends figure it out. (There's a moment where Genie extinguishes their fire in a way that looks like a complete accident, but I must choose to believe he knew exactly what he was doing, because if I have to see much more of Incompetent Genie I will go crazy.)
Now, being named Mirage, it's unsurprising that one of her main powers is to make people see things that aren't really there, and in one truly thrilling moment she tricks Aladdin into separating from his friends and following her, by assuming the shape of Jasmine. Now this is a reference to Jasmine that doesn't just rub it in my face how she isn't really there, and I think that's because this reference is used to show us how much Aladdin loves Jasmine and how he'll be distracted from absolutely everything else if he sees her. Especially if she then starts glaring at him and running away for no reason! Honestly I thought Aladdin took that strange behaviour way too calmly – although the show does portray the two of them fighting so often, and getting along so rarely, maybe they really did figure Aladdin would just think this was normal. Now, what we see and Aladdin doesn't is how “Jasmine's” eyes glow like evil green cat eyes and her face is not just angry but vindictive, which made for some super-cool anticipation as we don't know how far Mirage will get before Aladdin finally realizes the truth. The fact that Mirage can take on Jasmine's exact appearance and voice, and know exactly what her relationship to Aladdin is, without ever having met her or even heard about her before, tells us much about the extent of Mirage's powers. She must have pulled all that information straight out of Aladdin's mind, so there's no telling where her powers end! Now, I must say, I did think Aladdin's emotional reactions were far too mild here, given what he thought he was seeing. I'm already not sure Aladdin would take it so mildly if he thought he saw Jasmine glare at him and run away with no provocation – and then if Aladdin thought Jasmine was standing there telling him she'd changed her mind about him and he'd never be good enough for her? If she were basically voicing his worst fears, the exact things he was convinced she'd say and kept telling himself in the movie?? There's no way he would just be kind of mildly surprised and hurt! He would be heartbroken, devastated, crushed. Did they think their child viewers wouldn't be able to handle a display of strong emotions or something?? I must say, while Mirage's trick was enough to transport Aladdin into Morbia (is that how her powers work, I wonder, once you fall under her spell she can transport you to her own world?), I think if her ultimate goal was to crush Aladdin and break his spirit - well, there's really nowhere she can go from here, is there? If that didn't do it, I doubt anything will.
Actually, I felt throughout the whole episode there wasn't a ton of focus on Aladdin's emotions, and a lot of the time he seemed to be just “there”. I actually felt a little confused as to who the focus was meant to be on, because while Mirage's plan was to find out Aladdin's fears and break him (which she does really easily, only it doesn't break him somehow), the internal conflict of the episode was about not Aladdin's fear but Genie's. Basically, they've now decided that not only is Genie an idiot, he's a coward too. Lovely, right? It would have been very easy to give Genie a real reason to be scared of Mirage, and still do the same message about true bravery they were building up to: Mirage is a goddess. How hard would it have been to establish that goddesses are more powerful than genies, or even just that Genie has no idea if his powers can stand up against hers? He could be scared of being trapped in the clutches of evil again, which he knows all too well from the time Jafar held his lamp. And honestly, some of the things Genie does don't even feel cowardly, just reasonable – like getting Aladdin out of that village early because he saw Mirage was coming. There's nothing cowardly about getting yourself and your friends out of danger, so the only strange part is why Genie couldn't just tell Aladdin why they were leaving, and they make it clear that was because he was ashamed of being afraid. And that honestly doesn't make sense for his character either because in the movie Genie was very openly emotional and never once ashamed of it.
I do think the story could have been made clearer if Mirage had been specifically feeding on both Genie's and Aladdin's fear, or if they'd established that one was having problems with fear and the other knew about it. Like if Aladdin knew Genie was worried that his powers would be useless against a goddess's, or Genie knew Aladdin was still insecure about being good enough for Jasmine. Or even both. That way we could clearly tie the inner and outer conflicts together, instead of “outer conflict: Mirage is trying to make Aladdin afraid; inner conflict: Genie is scared and ashamed of it.” I look forward to seeing more of Mirage, and I hope as we go along we'll see more and more of her powers revealed to us. (I'm a little worried her abilities are being deliberately kept vague, not so that they can use the power of what we don't know to make her even scarier, but so that child viewers won't be too scared of her!)
Looking forward to seeing more of our new villains and (hopefully) some more consistently good Jasmine content - Part 6 (Episodes 41-50) coming soon!
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