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fly-pow-bye · 6 years

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Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Aliver”

Written by: Haley Mancini

Written & Storyboarded by: Benjamin P. Carow, Caitlin Vanarsdale

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

The big finale...of Season 2, anyway.

Note: There's a bit of confusion on what season some episodes belong to, mostly due to non-US Cartoon Networks airing episodes early. Not So Secret Service aired among a bunch of other Season 2 episodes in other countries, but is considered a Season 3 episode in the US. This episode and Never Been Blissed are considered by Foxtel in Australia as Season 3 episodes, but Cartoon Network US puts them in Season 2. I'm going with Cartoon Network US's order.

This episode starts on Monster Island, which was proven to be a very interesting locale with its lush jungles and variety of monsters. It turns out to be the locale of a rather timely reference to a once very popular show that existed since the early 2000s. I know Survivor still exists, but it's a show that's been parodied to death. Will this show in Current Year Joke do anything fresh with the concept? Let's find out.

Not only is it Aliver, it's Aliver Superhero Edition, so all of the contestants are superheroes. They decided not to desecrate the Justice Friends, even the original Powerpuff Girls didn't use them very well, and decided to make four new superheroes specifically for this episode. I'm sure they'll all be very memorable, and I should know, because I predicted two and a half of these heroes' names from just one screenshot.

Jarhead - By far the most creative of the four: a living jar with a face who apparently stole the body of Action Hank from Dexter's Lab. The flavor text reveals that he's also the captain of the "B Team", but there's no indication on who is in it, or whether there's even an "A Team". Maybe it's his superhero group: a group of vigilantes falsely accused of a misdemeanor in Vietnam. He also seems to hate trees, as he does a kick that sends one flying across the island.

The Acro Twins - They're the Wonder Twins, minus the transforming into water and animals part. It will become clear that they couldn’t think of much for these twins to do.

Superdad - After being shunned by everyone in Townsville, Major Man decided to get chin surgery, lose most of his hair, and become a father to one and a half kids. He's able to stop that tree with his powers of flight and super-strength he only shows in the intro.

Princess Morbucks - An ordinary girl they only added to the show because her Daddy owns the network.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup - They're here, too. While they don't do anything to the tree, they do get to uppercut a monster into the air without a hit flash. A sadly rare sight in this reboot.

The show treats the Reboot Puffs as one contestant, because they just didn't want a cliched "family getting angry at each other over a game show/reality show" plot. The episode is better off without that, really. While the tree never comes across them either, we do get the rare sight of the Powerpuff Girls sending a monster into the air without any hit flashes.

Our host is a guy named Jeff Accusation, last name revealed by a cheap gag later in the episode. It's a missed opportunity for a running gag, really, I was almost expecting him to say something was his middle name. I would go with "obtuse".

He announces that these heroes were selected to compete in a competition to get a huge assortment of prizes, like three Aqua Bikes, a hat, and the title of greatest superhero on national television! They immediately forget about any of those other prizes; nobody gets to ask what anyone except the trio would do with three aquabikes.

The first challenge is an egg-spoon race, minus the race, and multiply the size of both the spoon and the egg. The Acro Twins decide to go first, lifting up the spoon, only to almost immediately get carried away by an mostly offscreen vulture monster. Jeff must be really worried, he probably needs to pay for their injuries.

Jeff: And that’s why they call it...

Jeff: Monster Island!

Or not. I guess he just assumed since these guys are superheroes, they could survive anything. I guess he didn't watch PPG 2016, either. Despite seeing two of the contestants get carried away, the other contestants have no problem making it through the challenge in their own way. In each of these attempts, the egg hatches open to reveal a random monster. Each hero has their own way of dealing with them.

Jarhead slam dunks his jar-like head on top of the monster. Superdad uses his utility belt to give the monster a baby bottle. Bubbles drops the monster to the ground and hits it with the giant spoon over and over again. She doesn't get eliminated for dropping the egg, because that would ruin the plot. Then again, there seems to be something off about this show: Princess's egg is much tinier, and only hatches into a tiny bottle of spring water to quench her thirst.

We immediately cut to the second challenge. It's just challenges here, we never get to see them having to live through the horrors of the island with little supplies like the show it is parodying. Maybe they realized they wouldn't be able to beat Cartoon Network's own The Staylongers. It might as well be a parody of Takeshi's Castle. They have to traverse a spider cave to find a novelty T-shirt. This is truly to show off their creativity with such great references like "Where's The 🥩?" Maybe they're trying to compensate for this episode's Survivor reference with 80's commercial references.

After Jarhead unceremoniously gets beaten up by the unseen spider monster in the cave, Superdad comes in with an SUV and gets the T-Shirt, though his SUV gets heavily damaged. Somehow, his wife finds out about this, and he gets eliminated because angering your wife is against the rules. I think. The episode isn't even halfway over, and all of the non-established heroes are eliminated. Shame, they could have become such lovable characters.

This time, it's Buttercup's turn to get a T-shirt, and we get to see the one bit of consistency with the girls' fears: they still hate spiders. She even tore one of the monster's legs off. Now that's something we'll never see on camera in this reboot. She even gets a T-Shirt that says “Got 🍕?” They zoom in on it and have Buttercup laugh at it. I have no idea, either. As for Princess...

...she has a shirt thrown to her.

Princess: Thanks Daddy!

(Princess notices the girls' dirty looks)

Princess:...Long Legs?

The Powerpuff Girls don't buy it. At the Accusation Campire, home of the aforementioned cheap name gag and the closest we get to Survivor's Tribal Council, they accuse Princess of cheating. Jeff is appaulled that someone would accuse Princess of doing anything wrong. Princess has her own: "read the shirt".

(Over a rap beat) Haters gonna hate, haters gonna hate, haters gonna hate...

This is a running gag that only shows up twice, but that's one too many. This is the closest we get to her being the Rap Princess; her rap cliche posse isn’t even in this episode. Jeff decides to fix this problem by cutting to a commercial.

Oh no, this isn't a two-parter, it's a fake commercial that stars Discount Jojo in a The Bachelor parody. The joke is that monkeys are stupid. It comes up in the very end, and it’s the exact same joke. They might as well have not bothered.

It is here that Mr. Accusation does say a line that could solve the whole “Powerpuff Girls being treated as one contestant” problem: he does say that there are “two teams left”. However, there was almost no indication there were teams before, outside of one mention of a “B Team” in one of the bios that never seems to come up.

He goes through the final challenge, a race to the top of a mountain, with two monsters guarding the final flag. First, they have to get through the sandworms, through the sleeping Venus Fly Lotus, and then go up the relentless ridge to get the flag, and be crowned the greatest superhero ever. Gotta say, this final challenge really petered out with that last one. Horrible monsters, then a sleeping horrible monster, and then...a hill.

Much like the rest of the challenges, we see the Powerpuff Girls struggling against the sandworms, while Princess gets to just ride to the exit on a hidden escalator. The host still doesn't notice a thing, with the implication that he made a "deal" with Princess to not say anything. Maybe it involved a room full of Turkish delights, but we will never know. Princess ends up sneaking past the sleeping Venus Fly Trap, and then pulls a Dick Dastardly by intentionally waking it up as soon as she could run away from it. Unfortunately for her, she forgets to do the "run away" part.

By the power of being off-screen, they beat up the sandworms, though they do save Princess from the Venus Fly Trap that she gets trapped in on-screen. Princess promises to repay them for saving her life, and they demand that Princess admit that she was cheating this whole time. They decide to do this in full view and reach of the monster, which shouldn't be a problem because they could easily break through its vines.

Or not. They can be awesome in one second, but the minute they get grabbed, they’re as weak as an ordinary 6 year old girl. The Venus Fly Trap monster chomps on the girls. They desperately try to get Princess to help them out of this situation, as if they needed the help of what this episode has shown to be an ordinary 6 year old girl. This seems to be the norm for the reboot, but there's something far more to this.

Princess gets the flag at the end of the mountain, and starts celebrating. Unfortunately, nobody is there to see it, because they're too busy crying over something I will not reveal. No, really, there's a somber scene at the end of the episode. I will say that it seems to use one of the terrible aspects of this reboot as a way to mask the twist. I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Some might say what Princess does in the next scene is a little out of character for her, but I do like the idea that Princess still has those "hidden depths" from Poorbucks. Also, it reminds me of one of the best Looney Tunes cartoons, and that's probably not a coincidence. Unlike that one, there is a happy ending, though anyone could see it coming.

Does the title fit?

It's the name of the TV show they're on.

How does it stack up?

I like the idea of superheroes having to compete in various challenges. Needless to say, this episode is no My Hero Academia, but I wouldn't say this episode is particularly bad, either. Season 2 being slightly better than Season 1 is both a blessing and a curse for this show: this could have been a very low Happy by Season 1 standards. What do you expect in a reality show episode, a Happy Buttercup?

Well, that's Season 2. Season 3 looks like more of the same so far, but we'll see how it goes.

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#fpb ppg 2016 #ppg 2016 #powerpuff girls #cartoon network #fpb reviews

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