Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Hooty’s Door Review

(What’s this?! A new post?! Yeah. I wrote this for Tumblr, but I realized I could also place it here. Funny how you can write so much, not thinking too hard, and then remember you are writing.)

So I just watched the newest Owl House and it was one hell of a doozy of an episode. So much happened in like 20 minutes, but I think talking about it might help processing what the point of this episode really was.

The basic plot rundown for everyone, to keep it fresh, is that Hooty wants to help Luz, Eda, and King with their individual problems. His interference actually helps them all, but he believes that he’s only making things worse. On the Hooty side of things, it shows that he’s slightly smarter and more aware that we really give him credit for but the end scene shows he’s also as obliviously dumb as we usually think. Each one has a problem: King not knowing what kind of demon he is, Eda running herself ragged to find power to help fight Belos, and Luz continuing to fright about her future now torn between the Isles (emphasized through her crush on Amity) and the human realm (emphasized by wanting to build the portal home.)

With King, it’s a short little ditty about how King doesn’t need to 100% know who he is right away. As he grows up, he’ll find out more about himself and who he is even without someone just giving him answers right away. We see he gains a shockwave-like power through loud yelling, induced by an emotional response. It’s a nice little moment, especially how King reacts when he sees how upset Hooty is.

The next two are far more indirect, however. With Eda not sleeping, Hooty uses magic cookies to have her get some sleep. This heightens her dream state, causing her to flash back to scenes in her youth that stick out due to her curse. The first shows a young Eda bidding her father farewell before a trip, but when he pulls a form of party popper that sets off fireworks, this frightens her and turns her into the Owl Beast which badly injures her father’s eye. We don’t see the direct aftermath, but we know this was traumatic to Eda and part of why she ran away from home.

Next, she flashes to Raine, where we find out the two indeed dated at one point. However, because Eda lies about her curse, Raine breaks up with her and chooses to join the Bard Coven. This triggers Eda’s curse, but we don’t see the outcome other than that Eda would rather suffer in silence away from people she loves out of fear that she might harm them like she did her own father.

Eda then sees the Owl Beast from its own perspective, long in the past. A mysterious witch, with a moon figure where her face should be, attempts to capture the Owl Beast. She succeeds and reduces the creature down into a scroll, the scroll that Lilith will use to curse Eda. This confirms that the Owl Beast is its own independent demon that, for whatever reason, was forcibly turned into a curse to be sold showing that it, too, is a victim as much as Eda is. Bound by the red string of fate, Eda decides to hold it and end the back and forth between the two in her mind. If only for a minute, they share a quiet moment before Eda wakens to find herself as a foxy harpy lady now that she is truly coming to terms with her curse. She sees Hooty, and tries to thank him for making her face her fear, but he thinks he failed and freaks out again.

Finally, he helps Luz. Realizing that Luz will never make progress on either of her goals without finishing one first, he attempts to help her ask Amity out. It goes about as badly as you’d think, with Hooty kidnapping Amity and dropping them into a “Tunnel of Love” to convince Luz to just ask her. When Luz refuses to admit her feelings, out of fear of rejection, Amity accidentally drops that she likes Luz while Hooty once again freaks out. Using their newly found powers, Eda and King manage to calm down a rampaging Hooty while Luz is forced to finally ask Amity out, and we get a cute scene after with hands being held and the two still being scared.

The most obvious thing to come out of this is that Luz is starting to finally figure out what future she wants. She wants to see home again, but also she wants Amity to be in her future regardless of what happens. Slowly, but surely, we see that Luz’s roots are both in the human realm and in the Boiling Isles. Both have become part of her, and she doesn’t want to abandon either. With her and Amity finally becoming named dropped girlfriends, they can focus on figuring out how Philip built his portal back to the human realm. But this, in general confirms that Luz wants the demon realm and the Boiling Isles to be part of her future no matter what happens. The only question for her now is connecting it to how she wants the human realm to fit in. Also, in general, the fact that they are girlfriends and they say that word is beautiful. It happens in pure TOH fashion, forced to happen by circumstance. Or is it? We see that the rampaging Hooty created a heart in the stone where they confessed their feelings for one another, implying that this too was part of his plan to get Luz to confess.
The scene, in general, also flips the trope that a confession needs to be this huge grand thing. Or in terms of an episode, an entire episode dedicated to it. It shows how Luz and Amity are both far too nervous to actually admit their feelings, and that there would never actually be that PERFECT moment to do the PERFECT confession. Luz and Amity‘s own self doubts mean that their would never actually be an episode dedicated to a confession, because it requires Hooty going absolutely nuts to force Luz into just pulling the bandage off. Again, it’s done perfectly in a way that only TOH can bend tropes.
We see this as well, adding that Philip successfully integrated witch magic and human science in his attempts to build the door. Just a note on how Belos may do the same thing to build his own science-magic hybrid stuff.

Overall, this was another great episode. It had tons of little details in it that we’ll continue to see sprinkled out. Hooty ends by saying “all the mysteries are solved” but in reality, none are. We’re just moving steps forward to see where the next die will land. As always, The Owl House proves to be one of the brightest series airing right now in tons of different ways. Each part of this episode brings characters to face something that they need someone as hard headed and blunt as Hooty to make them confront. And it’s done extremely well, and doesn’t take away from these reveals. I look forward to seeing what’s next.

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