![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akinoameThe episode starts off with Scott and Dillon, I mean, Ben and Kevin racing in the mountains with dinner at stake. The team’s taken an impromptu camping trip to give Ben a much-needed vacation, even though Kevin hates camping. Given what happened the last time they went camping, I can’t say that I blame him. In the middle of the race, what looks like Supergirl’s spaceship crash-lands in front of them, and they go to investigate. Gwen touches it, but she cuts her finger on electricity somehow, and the ship opens up to reveal a beautiful, naked, blond girl.
Huh. I think I saw a porno like this once.
They promptly put the girl in Ben’s jacket and take her to their campsite. Turns out she’s got amnesia (I think I saw a fanfic like this once. In every fandom ever) and all she can remember is the word “uni” as a guess about her name. The team assumes her name is Eunice, and they offer to help her recover her memories. Well, Ben offers to help her recover her memories. He’s instantly smitten by her. And he’s not the only one, given that fuzzy animals approach her like she’s some kind of Disney Princess. Gwen loans her some clothes, and wow. We’ve never seen Gwen in that kind of low-cut tank top and tight shorts before. Must have been a gift for Kevin to lure him on the camping trip. Anyway, the four of them go fishing but Eunice is horrified by the idea of eating meat, and Gwen says it’s an encouraging sign that she remembers she’s a vegetarian. Ben tries to impress Eunice and completely fails, prompting Eunice to laugh and Gwen to look embarrassed. That night at the campsite, Ben plans to take Eunice to see the ravine, but Gwen pulls him aside to talk, and Kevin joins her. They confront him, where they drop a major bomb: Ben got dumped. Well, technically, Julie told him that they “might as well have broken up,” but Ben and Kevin agree that it means he got dumped. Apparently, between seasons, Julie took a page from Dana’s book and decided since Ben keeps canceling on her, that’s the end of their relationship. If it’s any consolation, Ben, it all works out for Terry and Dana. Fifteen years later.
Ben’s response to Gwen’s concerns about his impending rebound relationship with Eunice is the rough equivalent to a “Fuck you” as he takes Eunice to the ravine anyway. He badly flirts with her, but she likes it. They do manage to get lost, however, and Ben climbs a rock to try to find the ravine. While he’s up there, a bear comes out to attack Eunice. Ben goes Armadrillo to try to defend her, but he finds the godless killing machine happily getting petted by her. And she’s not at all freaked about it. Or by the fact that Ben just transformed into a ten-foot-tall alien and back right in front of her. Funny that. Maybe instead of “Eunice,” they should have named her Giselle. As Ben leads the way to the ravine, Eunice gives the bear one last pat, a green glow emanating from her hand, and she uses super strength to push the rock out of her way. That’s weird.
Meanwhile, our old buddy Sunder from “Singlehanded” returns to find Eunice’s empty ship and tire tracks leading into the forest, and he knows where to find her. Uh-oh. I saw this episode. The girl was an extension of Clayface.
They make it to the ravine, and Eunice discovers blue, night-blooming flowers and some cute bunnies. Ben marvels over how natural Eunice makes this out to be, that she’s so in-tune with nature. They lean in to kiss, and Sunder decides this is the perfect opportunity to cockblock. Spidermonkey fights him, and there are some callbacks to “Singlehanded” as Sunder pwns Ultimate Spidermonkey. He reveals that he doesn’t give a damn about the Ultimatrix, but he’s really after Eunice. Terrified, Eunice absorbs the bunny’s power and hops away while Sunder takes chase. At the campsite, Kevin is failing to set up the tent (it helps if you use a hammer, dude) because he’s got this antiquated ideal of manhood that says men set up the tent. Gwen’s suddenly upset about Eunice joining them on the camping trip—apparently because she’s mad that Ben’s got a crush on her—but Kevin’s willing to give the girl a chance because he sympathizes about being the outsider on the team. I’ve got to say, that’s a really good character moment from him, particularly following the “guano loco Kevin” miniseason. And Gwen’s now mad at him for making sense. Ben arrives and tells them that Sunder’s after Eunice and he lost her somewhere in the woods, and Gwen tracks her clothing to a rocky outcropping. Now that he knows Sunder is after her, Kevin’s on the offensive about Eunice, reasoning that she must have something rare and valuable that Sunder wants. But when they reach her, she’s in tears, still unable to remember who she is or why Sunder’s after her. Of course, Sunder’s got impeccable timing and attacks, quickly pwning the team. He offers to tell Eunice who she is and where she’s from, above Ben’s protests. He then reveals a control panel on the back of her neck and presses it, transforming her into an object similar to an Omnitrix core. Ben tears himself free of the restraining gunk and chases after him as Ultimate Cannonbolt, mercilessly fighting him through a muddy lakebed. But Sunder uses a disorientation gun on him, something he got on Galvan Prime. Hmm… He says that this is the “last mistake [Ben] will ever make,” but Kevin cuts in with the best line of the episode: “He’ll make plenty more mistakes! …That didn’t come out right.” Kevin and Gwen attack alongside Ben, and Gwen retrieves the core and gives it to Kevin. Ben tells him the controls are probably like the Omnitrix, and Kevin slams down the dial to reconstitute Eunice. Still confused and pissed, Eunice absorbs a snake’s power to fight Sunder, denying his assertion that she’s just a machine.
At that moment, Azmuth arrives and criticizes all five of them for playing in the mud, telling Sunder that he’s no match for Ben and calling Ben a buffoon for once again failing to mind his own damn business. He reveals that he was the one who hired Sunder to retrieve the Unitrix, an old prototype of the Omnitrix, and this whole time Eunice has been the Unitrix. In the early days, he considered using two devices—one to store alien DNA and one to grant the powers of any sampled creature: the Unitrix (from the Latin for “one.” Apparently, Galvans speak Latin). Despite this, the Unitrix sampled and stored human DNA from Gwen’s cut finger, randomizing it to create Eunice. So this means that she’s technically a clone of Ben’s cousin. Awkward. Azmuth plans to put the Unitrix/Eunice back into storage, reasoning that it/she is too dangerous to be allowed to be unsupervised, but Ben argues with him that Eunice is human and alive. Azmuth argues that Eunice isn’t real, no more than Ben’s alien transformations, but Ben argues that they too are real. Huh, now that’s an interesting, foreshadowy discussion. Ben insists that he’ll fight Azmuth over this, but Azmuth smirks, saying that he believes he would. He relents and offers to take Eunice to Primus, where she can help him take care of things there. Eunice thanks the team for the camping trip of a lifetime and says goodbye to Ben, slipping him something. As they leave (and Sunder asks if he’s getting paid for this), Gwen and Kevin asks Ben what Eunice gave him. Turns out it’s something beautiful—a forget-me-not from the ravine.
First off, I’d like to apologize to all of my readers. For calling it. Back in my review of Duped, I made reference to a particularly infamous Dear John letter from Power Rangers Zeo. I set up the comparison between Ben and Julie and Tommy and Kim—both very sweet, lovable couples that may or may not have had the staying power to survive past high school and the end of the battle against evil, but one that you never expected to break up the way they did. In fact, let me quote Linkara on the subject:
”What. The. HELL? Now, I am not so dewy-eyed and such a hopeless romantic that I wouldn’t believe that a high school relationship might eventually lead to two people separating… But the thing is that these aren’t just teenagers we’re talking about. We’re talking about two people who served as basically soldiers in a war together for years and risked their lives for one another, who stood by each other even when things had gotten at their worst, and she’s breaking up with him OFF-SCREEN?!”
What the hell,Power Rangers Ben 10? Look, Ben and Julie might not have been dating for as long as Tommy and Kim had. To be honest, I have no idea how long Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers is supposed to take place, though judging by airdates alone, it probably starts from freshman year to junior year, with Zeo and Turbo being their senior year. Maybe Ben and Julie weren’t dating throughout all of high school. Maybe they weren’t Power Rangers. But it does still apply. Julie has always been there for Ben in his worst battles. She fought alongside him in the war to defeat the Highbreed. She was ready to be there to fight against Kevin. And she’s stood by him in his worst personal crises, from Big Chill’s pregnancy to the fear that everyone would hate him now that his secret identity is out. And sure, maybe Ben can’t always be there for Julie, but he’s always been there in her worst times. He started a relationship by saving her life. Or attempting to, anyway, given that Ship was never actually going to hurt her. Even though he dislikes Ship, he’s always there to help save him because he wants to be there for Julie. And Julie knows this. She knows that Ben can’t always be there for her. She knows that with his identity public (and against his will, mind you), he can’t take her out somewhere nice because somebody’s going to follow him. She knows this is killing him. And now all of a sudden, this is what she’s breaking up with him over. It’s everything I bitched about in “Duped.”
One of my biggest complaints about Ben and Julie’s romance is how much of it is off-screen. Ben is the title character, and we barely see anything about his relationship with Julie, where we get to see everything with Gwen and Kevin. It continues here. We don’t see Julie break up with Ben. Hell, we even have to be told by Gwen that it was a fight between them that led to Ben taking a comment seriously Julie said about them “might as well” having been broken up. It’s not even a matter of trying to make things ambiguous. It’s just bad. And there are a million better ways to break them up. Why not take all of these issues Julie has had and go with a better method? Like the fact that she’s competing in professional tennis tournaments and Ben’s off saving the galaxy. It leaves little time for them to see each other. And then, on-screen, we can see Julie say to Ben that things just aren’t working with their busy schedules. It hurts both of them, but they have to let go. It would have both of them coming out of it a lot better than here, where they both sound like whiny bitches.
This breakup serves one purpose and one purpose alone: to piss Ben off. Continuing from season one, Ben’s temper is flaring. He’s fuming over what happened between him and Julie, and he’s not happy with Gwen for butting in either. He’s merciless against Sunder, even when he’s getting his ass kicked, and he actually calls Azmuth out on being a dick (well, again) and threatens to fight him. He’s gotten close to making that threat before, in “War of the Worlds”—oddly enough, the Omnitrix was at the heart of the argument there where the Unitrix is here—but he was dead serious here. And Azmuth knew it. Plus, there’s that ominous comment Ben has about how he believes his transformations are alive. And given Big Chill, Ghostfreak, and even Eon, he’s probably right. This does not look good.
Finally, I come to Eunice. Let me say this to start: I hate rebound relationships. I believe it’s unfair to everyone involved. When somebody is still hurting over a loss of some kind, going into a new relationship to forget the old is just asking for trouble. Hell, watch Doctor Who series three to understand what I mean regarding Martha. Also, I easily roll my eyes at “perfect” love interests, especially in fanfiction, particularly those who seem to be transplanted Disney Princesses (fortunately, we’re spared various other Mary Sue archetypes). Yet oddly enough? I don’t hate Eunice. Like with Jennifer Nocturne before her, I feel the way she affects the plot is handled better than her personality and that it’s done this way for a reason.
Eunice is actually the Unitrix, a prototype of the Omnitrix—in a way, the older sister of the Omnitrix and the Ultimatrix. So on a really weird level, it makes perfect sense that she and Ben would be drawn to each other. It’s been implied throughout the franchise that the Omnitrix had some level of intelligence and awareness and that it chose whether or not Ben could use it. It frequently broke its own rules for his sake, recharging quickly when his life was in danger or switching him to an alien he didn’t want if he was being arrogant. The Ultimatrix usually gives Ben more problems, and with the artificial intelligence theory, that means that it’s loyal to Albedo and not to Ben. Eunice’s attraction to Ben is probably on the same level that the Omnitrix was to Ben—it recognized something within him that was worth bringing out to the surface—a good heart underneath it all. And Ben’s attraction to Eunice (trollish Ben/Gwen implications aside; my hat’s off to you, writer, for trolling us) makes sense given she’s the Unitrix. The Omnitrix was always there for him. He just broke up with Julie because he’s apparently never been there for her when she needed him. But no matter what kind of fight Ben had with his family, with his friends, or with his girlfriend, he always had the Omnitrix with him. Losing it was always like losing a part of himself. He “broke up” with it for five years, but the moment things got bad again, he went back to it. The Omnitrix was his crutch, just as Eunice was his crutch right after breaking up with Julie. He needed someone to love, someone to make him feel that sense of love again, and of course he’d find it in someone similar to the device that had been with him during all those years: fought together in several wars for years, risking their lives for one another (and in the Omnitrix’s case, losing its life), and standing by each other when things were at their worst. Sound familiar? Yes, I think I just made an argument for Ben/Omnitrix. I think the point of this episode was to ship Ben with EVERYTHING. And given the importance of the Power of Love last season, I’m keeping my eyes peeled for it to show up here too.
On a very strange note, Gwen is back to wearing her outfit from season three of Alien Force. Apparently, this is her “second story arc” outfit.
“The Transmogrification of Eunice” was written by Eugene Son. Wait until DVDs come out for voice actor credits.
Huh. I think I saw a porno like this once.
They promptly put the girl in Ben’s jacket and take her to their campsite. Turns out she’s got amnesia (I think I saw a fanfic like this once. In every fandom ever) and all she can remember is the word “uni” as a guess about her name. The team assumes her name is Eunice, and they offer to help her recover her memories. Well, Ben offers to help her recover her memories. He’s instantly smitten by her. And he’s not the only one, given that fuzzy animals approach her like she’s some kind of Disney Princess. Gwen loans her some clothes, and wow. We’ve never seen Gwen in that kind of low-cut tank top and tight shorts before. Must have been a gift for Kevin to lure him on the camping trip. Anyway, the four of them go fishing but Eunice is horrified by the idea of eating meat, and Gwen says it’s an encouraging sign that she remembers she’s a vegetarian. Ben tries to impress Eunice and completely fails, prompting Eunice to laugh and Gwen to look embarrassed. That night at the campsite, Ben plans to take Eunice to see the ravine, but Gwen pulls him aside to talk, and Kevin joins her. They confront him, where they drop a major bomb: Ben got dumped. Well, technically, Julie told him that they “might as well have broken up,” but Ben and Kevin agree that it means he got dumped. Apparently, between seasons, Julie took a page from Dana’s book and decided since Ben keeps canceling on her, that’s the end of their relationship. If it’s any consolation, Ben, it all works out for Terry and Dana. Fifteen years later.
Ben’s response to Gwen’s concerns about his impending rebound relationship with Eunice is the rough equivalent to a “Fuck you” as he takes Eunice to the ravine anyway. He badly flirts with her, but she likes it. They do manage to get lost, however, and Ben climbs a rock to try to find the ravine. While he’s up there, a bear comes out to attack Eunice. Ben goes Armadrillo to try to defend her, but he finds the godless killing machine happily getting petted by her. And she’s not at all freaked about it. Or by the fact that Ben just transformed into a ten-foot-tall alien and back right in front of her. Funny that. Maybe instead of “Eunice,” they should have named her Giselle. As Ben leads the way to the ravine, Eunice gives the bear one last pat, a green glow emanating from her hand, and she uses super strength to push the rock out of her way. That’s weird.
Meanwhile, our old buddy Sunder from “Singlehanded” returns to find Eunice’s empty ship and tire tracks leading into the forest, and he knows where to find her. Uh-oh. I saw this episode. The girl was an extension of Clayface.
They make it to the ravine, and Eunice discovers blue, night-blooming flowers and some cute bunnies. Ben marvels over how natural Eunice makes this out to be, that she’s so in-tune with nature. They lean in to kiss, and Sunder decides this is the perfect opportunity to cockblock. Spidermonkey fights him, and there are some callbacks to “Singlehanded” as Sunder pwns Ultimate Spidermonkey. He reveals that he doesn’t give a damn about the Ultimatrix, but he’s really after Eunice. Terrified, Eunice absorbs the bunny’s power and hops away while Sunder takes chase. At the campsite, Kevin is failing to set up the tent (it helps if you use a hammer, dude) because he’s got this antiquated ideal of manhood that says men set up the tent. Gwen’s suddenly upset about Eunice joining them on the camping trip—apparently because she’s mad that Ben’s got a crush on her—but Kevin’s willing to give the girl a chance because he sympathizes about being the outsider on the team. I’ve got to say, that’s a really good character moment from him, particularly following the “guano loco Kevin” miniseason. And Gwen’s now mad at him for making sense. Ben arrives and tells them that Sunder’s after Eunice and he lost her somewhere in the woods, and Gwen tracks her clothing to a rocky outcropping. Now that he knows Sunder is after her, Kevin’s on the offensive about Eunice, reasoning that she must have something rare and valuable that Sunder wants. But when they reach her, she’s in tears, still unable to remember who she is or why Sunder’s after her. Of course, Sunder’s got impeccable timing and attacks, quickly pwning the team. He offers to tell Eunice who she is and where she’s from, above Ben’s protests. He then reveals a control panel on the back of her neck and presses it, transforming her into an object similar to an Omnitrix core. Ben tears himself free of the restraining gunk and chases after him as Ultimate Cannonbolt, mercilessly fighting him through a muddy lakebed. But Sunder uses a disorientation gun on him, something he got on Galvan Prime. Hmm… He says that this is the “last mistake [Ben] will ever make,” but Kevin cuts in with the best line of the episode: “He’ll make plenty more mistakes! …That didn’t come out right.” Kevin and Gwen attack alongside Ben, and Gwen retrieves the core and gives it to Kevin. Ben tells him the controls are probably like the Omnitrix, and Kevin slams down the dial to reconstitute Eunice. Still confused and pissed, Eunice absorbs a snake’s power to fight Sunder, denying his assertion that she’s just a machine.
At that moment, Azmuth arrives and criticizes all five of them for playing in the mud, telling Sunder that he’s no match for Ben and calling Ben a buffoon for once again failing to mind his own damn business. He reveals that he was the one who hired Sunder to retrieve the Unitrix, an old prototype of the Omnitrix, and this whole time Eunice has been the Unitrix. In the early days, he considered using two devices—one to store alien DNA and one to grant the powers of any sampled creature: the Unitrix (from the Latin for “one.” Apparently, Galvans speak Latin). Despite this, the Unitrix sampled and stored human DNA from Gwen’s cut finger, randomizing it to create Eunice. So this means that she’s technically a clone of Ben’s cousin. Awkward. Azmuth plans to put the Unitrix/Eunice back into storage, reasoning that it/she is too dangerous to be allowed to be unsupervised, but Ben argues with him that Eunice is human and alive. Azmuth argues that Eunice isn’t real, no more than Ben’s alien transformations, but Ben argues that they too are real. Huh, now that’s an interesting, foreshadowy discussion. Ben insists that he’ll fight Azmuth over this, but Azmuth smirks, saying that he believes he would. He relents and offers to take Eunice to Primus, where she can help him take care of things there. Eunice thanks the team for the camping trip of a lifetime and says goodbye to Ben, slipping him something. As they leave (and Sunder asks if he’s getting paid for this), Gwen and Kevin asks Ben what Eunice gave him. Turns out it’s something beautiful—a forget-me-not from the ravine.
First off, I’d like to apologize to all of my readers. For calling it. Back in my review of Duped, I made reference to a particularly infamous Dear John letter from Power Rangers Zeo. I set up the comparison between Ben and Julie and Tommy and Kim—both very sweet, lovable couples that may or may not have had the staying power to survive past high school and the end of the battle against evil, but one that you never expected to break up the way they did. In fact, let me quote Linkara on the subject:
”What. The. HELL? Now, I am not so dewy-eyed and such a hopeless romantic that I wouldn’t believe that a high school relationship might eventually lead to two people separating… But the thing is that these aren’t just teenagers we’re talking about. We’re talking about two people who served as basically soldiers in a war together for years and risked their lives for one another, who stood by each other even when things had gotten at their worst, and she’s breaking up with him OFF-SCREEN?!”
What the hell,
One of my biggest complaints about Ben and Julie’s romance is how much of it is off-screen. Ben is the title character, and we barely see anything about his relationship with Julie, where we get to see everything with Gwen and Kevin. It continues here. We don’t see Julie break up with Ben. Hell, we even have to be told by Gwen that it was a fight between them that led to Ben taking a comment seriously Julie said about them “might as well” having been broken up. It’s not even a matter of trying to make things ambiguous. It’s just bad. And there are a million better ways to break them up. Why not take all of these issues Julie has had and go with a better method? Like the fact that she’s competing in professional tennis tournaments and Ben’s off saving the galaxy. It leaves little time for them to see each other. And then, on-screen, we can see Julie say to Ben that things just aren’t working with their busy schedules. It hurts both of them, but they have to let go. It would have both of them coming out of it a lot better than here, where they both sound like whiny bitches.
This breakup serves one purpose and one purpose alone: to piss Ben off. Continuing from season one, Ben’s temper is flaring. He’s fuming over what happened between him and Julie, and he’s not happy with Gwen for butting in either. He’s merciless against Sunder, even when he’s getting his ass kicked, and he actually calls Azmuth out on being a dick (well, again) and threatens to fight him. He’s gotten close to making that threat before, in “War of the Worlds”—oddly enough, the Omnitrix was at the heart of the argument there where the Unitrix is here—but he was dead serious here. And Azmuth knew it. Plus, there’s that ominous comment Ben has about how he believes his transformations are alive. And given Big Chill, Ghostfreak, and even Eon, he’s probably right. This does not look good.
Finally, I come to Eunice. Let me say this to start: I hate rebound relationships. I believe it’s unfair to everyone involved. When somebody is still hurting over a loss of some kind, going into a new relationship to forget the old is just asking for trouble. Hell, watch Doctor Who series three to understand what I mean regarding Martha. Also, I easily roll my eyes at “perfect” love interests, especially in fanfiction, particularly those who seem to be transplanted Disney Princesses (fortunately, we’re spared various other Mary Sue archetypes). Yet oddly enough? I don’t hate Eunice. Like with Jennifer Nocturne before her, I feel the way she affects the plot is handled better than her personality and that it’s done this way for a reason.
Eunice is actually the Unitrix, a prototype of the Omnitrix—in a way, the older sister of the Omnitrix and the Ultimatrix. So on a really weird level, it makes perfect sense that she and Ben would be drawn to each other. It’s been implied throughout the franchise that the Omnitrix had some level of intelligence and awareness and that it chose whether or not Ben could use it. It frequently broke its own rules for his sake, recharging quickly when his life was in danger or switching him to an alien he didn’t want if he was being arrogant. The Ultimatrix usually gives Ben more problems, and with the artificial intelligence theory, that means that it’s loyal to Albedo and not to Ben. Eunice’s attraction to Ben is probably on the same level that the Omnitrix was to Ben—it recognized something within him that was worth bringing out to the surface—a good heart underneath it all. And Ben’s attraction to Eunice (trollish Ben/Gwen implications aside; my hat’s off to you, writer, for trolling us) makes sense given she’s the Unitrix. The Omnitrix was always there for him. He just broke up with Julie because he’s apparently never been there for her when she needed him. But no matter what kind of fight Ben had with his family, with his friends, or with his girlfriend, he always had the Omnitrix with him. Losing it was always like losing a part of himself. He “broke up” with it for five years, but the moment things got bad again, he went back to it. The Omnitrix was his crutch, just as Eunice was his crutch right after breaking up with Julie. He needed someone to love, someone to make him feel that sense of love again, and of course he’d find it in someone similar to the device that had been with him during all those years: fought together in several wars for years, risking their lives for one another (and in the Omnitrix’s case, losing its life), and standing by each other when things were at their worst. Sound familiar? Yes, I think I just made an argument for Ben/Omnitrix. I think the point of this episode was to ship Ben with EVERYTHING. And given the importance of the Power of Love last season, I’m keeping my eyes peeled for it to show up here too.
On a very strange note, Gwen is back to wearing her outfit from season three of Alien Force. Apparently, this is her “second story arc” outfit.
“The Transmogrification of Eunice” was written by Eugene Son. Wait until DVDs come out for voice actor credits.
