Your family is weird: “Girl Trouble”
Mar. 13th, 2011 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akinoameThe team races to Gwen’s house, planning to use her super laptop (apparently carried over from the original series) to find the Robots From Dimension 12 (“Hero Time”). But when they get to Gwen’s room, there’s a girl sitting on her bed, who introduces herself as Gwen’s favorite cousin, Sunny. Turns out that Gwen’s parents agreed to take her in for the summer (apparently putting this in June or still late May), since her parents were worried about the crowd she was hanging out with. They all hope that Gwen will be a good influence on her. And Sunny really is a piece of work. She starts hitting on the boys, immediately losing interest in Ben when he introduces himself as her cousin—kind of funny that she doesn’t recognize internationally famous superhero Ben 10, isn’t it? Kevin, however, is fair game. Even though she’s already got a boyfriend, Antonio. Yeah, we hear this a lot. When they finally manage to track down the Robots From Dimension 12 (…can we give these guys a cooler and SHORTER name?), Gwen even has to drag Sunny along, and the car ride is extra annoying. Oddly enough, Sunny’s bored with the fact that they’re tracking down destructive evil robots and thinks of Bellwood as the boondocks. I’m going to avoid the Boondock Saints mental image I was about to have.
Anyway, they reach a power plant or an oil refinery or something, where the robots are attacking. Gwen gives the order to save one of the robot heads so she can hack into it and find out their plan, but they’re having a problem that the RFD12 keep trying to escape through their portal. An explosion from the battle catches Sunny’s interest, and she goes in despite everyone saying that these robots could easily kill her. But she thinks it’s fun, and she displays some higher level Anodyte abilities and starts blasting and smashing the robots, much to the team’s shock. Tearing through the RFD12 and even destroying the head the team was trying to save, she decides that maybe Earth is fun after all! When the team gets home and explains everything to Natalie, she’s not at all happy, and I get the feeling Frank Tennyson is going to be on the couch tonight. He never told his wife that his niece also was an Anodyte, since she wouldn’t have agreed to take in Sunny if she’d known. Ben and Kevin try to brainstorm about why the RFD12 would steal oil, coming to the conclusion that it’s probably for a bomb, though they’ll need Gwen to figure everything out better, and Sunny proceeds to complain about just how much of a goody-goody Gwen is…right in front of her. There’s a knock on the door, and when Natalie goes to open it, there’s a big, hulking alien in a loincloth on the other side—Sunny’s boyfriend, Antonio. Amazingly, Natalie doesn’t blink, slamming the door in his face after explaining that Sunny’s not allowed to see him. Undeterred, Sunny goes to the window in Gwen’s room. Gwen tries to stop her from escaping, and Ben and Kevin display their self-preservation skills and try to escape, but Gwen has them both whipped and they can’t run for their lives. Sunny proves how much more advanced she is with her powers than Gwen and flies out of the window, taunting Gwen to take chase. And because Gwen is really, really pissed at her, she does…until Ben and Kevin chase her down in the car and warn her that the RFD12 are back and attacking a particle accelerator. Because Bellwood has EVERYTHING. Knowing how much Gwen and her friends know how to have a good time, Sunny tells Antonio to follow them.
At the particle accelerator, the RFD12 are trying to overload a canister bomb’s fusion battery to make it more destructive. Ben goes Lodestar to toss them out of the way, and Gwen puts Kevin to work shutting down the accelerator. He decides he doesn’t know how to work it and smashes it, which as always is a good plan. As more RFD12 arrive, Sunny and Antonio start the beatdown. But Ben gets sick of these guys and reverses the polarity of the dimensional portal or whatever, closing it down. Antonio begins smashing the bomb once the RFD12 are finished, and Kevin and Ben stop him. Gwen tries to tell off Sunny, but Sunny decides she’s had enough of people telling her what to do and evolves past her human form, dropping her skin on the floor and becoming a full-blown Anodyte. Gwen threatens to tell Sunny’s parents what’s going on, but Sunny blasts her. Ben tries to check on his cousin, but she’s pissed, and Kevin warns him this is a good time for them to practice their self-preservation skills again. Gwen tries to hit Sunny with magic but fails, but it’s enough to get in Antonio’s protective instincts. He threatens Gwen, but Ben’s protective instincts kick in right now, and he goes Humongousaur. And generally gets his ass kicked, but it’s at least sweet to see that Ben cares. Sunny makes a grab for the bomb, reasoning that if Gwen wants it so bad, she might as well play keep-away. Yes, with a BOMB. I never said this girl was sane. Gwen gets it back and tells Kevin to disarm it, and Kevin proceeds to have a full-blown Caleb whine before he sees what a mess of wires the interior is. Ben manages to outsmart Antonio—which isn’t too hard, given that he’s mostly dumb muscle—and while Gwen can’t outmuscle Sunny, she does apparently have Grandma Verdona on mana speed-dial (ability last seen in “Voided”). And Verdona is PISSED. She puts Sunny in a bubble, musing on how she can’t understand how an energy being could turn out to be such a spoiled little brat. Yes, people. Verdona thinks Sunny is a brat—that’s how bad she is. Verdona and Ben cheerfully greet each other before Verdona takes Antonio from him, and Kevin has the second-best line of the episode when he greets her with “Hi, scary grandma.” Verdona compliments Gwen’s power development and once again tries to convince her to continue her training on Anodyne, but Gwen reminds her that they’ve had this discussion before (“What Are Little Girls Made Of?”). Verdona promises to have this discussion again before taking the two kids and leaving. Kevin then gives the best episode of the line, summing up the Tennysons by taking one look at Gwen and saying, “Your family is weird.” Gwen tries to defend her family, but Kevin’s got a point that most people’s cousins don’t shed their skin inside a particle accelerator. Ben manages to get them back on track by reminding them of the case of the RFD12, and Gwen admits that she’s got some theories on it.
After the emotional rollercoaster that was the Kevin mini-arc of last season, it’s great to see Gwen’s character being explored in a significantly less angsty way. A new rival is introduced for her, this time taking care of her alien side while Charmcaster had been her rival on the magical side of things. Sunny, design-wise, is Gwen if she went for the Blackfire look (Teen Titans): black hair, purplish-blue eyes, and purple clothes. She and Gwen had been close when they were three, but Gwen hardly remembers her and Ben never met her at all. Apparently, Frank and Carl had another sibling or something who lives offworld, given that Sunny repeatedly points out that she’s been sent to Earth as punishment, and we learn that she’s been on Anodyne learning to master her powers. Power-wise, she is much stronger than Gwen—her energy constructs are more impressive (where Gwen’s are still transparent and prone to shattering), and she’s capable of using more blasts at once than Gwen can. And she can fly.
Gwen starts off really annoyed at Sunny just on general principle: the girl’s a total brat, and her parents took her in without telling Gwen. Gwen doesn’t seem to be too bothered by Sunny’s powerset, though she does snap back at Kevin when he suggests that with Sunny’s power, she might be a good fourth member of the team. Interestingly, Antonio has a few parallels with Kevin, being strong but not too bright and very devoted to his girlfriend, though it’s not played up much.
But what really gets the rivalry going and what really defines Gwen’s character is how much Sunny loathes her. She is jealous of her cousin, pure and simple. Gwen is a model citizen, smart, shows great leadership skills (by taking the lead this episode and issuing orders to the boys, who MOSTLY follow without complaint), and she chooses to be human and learn how to master as much of her power as she can with that limitation. As it turns out, Verdona praises all of that right in front of Sunny, even going so far as to call Gwen her favorite grandchild right in front of Sunny and Ben, and Sunny doesn’t take it well at all. Sunny resents Gwen for getting all that praise, for being perfect, and tells herself that Gwen is arrogant and thinks herself too good to become an energy being. It’s Gwen’s maturity and competence that takes center stage—and conflicts with her temper—and it’s these qualities and how Sunny lacks them that makes her hate her.
I have to draw a parallel to “Hit ‘Em Where They Live,” between Natalie and Sandra. Both women married into the family and into the weirdness. And they really take it all in stride. Sandra was of course awesome in “Hit ‘Em Where They Live,” deciding quickly not to get in the way of her super-powered niece and generally taking the whole “my son is a super-powered alien who is now world-famous and risks our lives just by existing” really damn well ever since “Grounded.” Natalie has issues with the Anodytes stemming from even before “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” presumably because of Verdona’s blasé attitude, but it’s clear that she accepts and loves her daughter despite that. And even though she didn’t want to get involved in any more alien business, when she learns that Sunny is also an Anodyte, she takes everything in stride. Big hulking alien shows up at the front door and claims to be Sunny’s boyfriend? She sternly reminds Sunny that her parents specifically said she wasn’t allowed to hang out with him, and she slams the door in his FACE. That’s pretty damn awesome. She’s more annoyed than anything that Sunny is an Anodyte and nobody told her (kind of funny given how she and Frank didn’t tell Gwen anything either, but I suspect mild hypocrisy also runs in the family), and she still holds to her promise to keep her out of trouble for the summer. Just goes to show you: Nothing can faze the Tennysons. And when Kevin of all people thinks your family is weird, you know that it’s true.
Something interesting to note here was Ben’s protective streak when it came to Gwen and to her relationship with Kevin. I’ve already pointed out how Ben immediately went to beat up Antonio when he threatened Gwen, but his words were “Nobody picks on my cousin but me!” which oddly enough, I think was something Gwen had said about Ben in the original series. But earlier, when Sunny was hitting on Kevin, Ben proved himself to be a Gwen/Kevin shipper by glaring at her and very pointedly mentioning that Kevin was dating Gwen. Normally, we see Gwen being a Ben/Julie shipper or otherwise getting in the middle of their relationship with good intentions but bad consequences, so it was interesting to see that Ben also does what he can to protect her relationship.
Also, the battles this episode highlighted how Gwen and Ben can fight with their brains just as well as with their powers. They were severely outclassed by Sunny and Antonio, and even Ultimate Humongousaur was only JUST a match for Antonio. Gwen outsmarted Sunny by calling Verdona in, and Ben took Antonio out to a wet soccer field and tricked him into tearing out a working lamppost, electrocuting him into unconsciousness (and then calling him a doofus). I really like seeing when they fight smart instead of just hard, and this was a good time to play with it.
“Girl Trouble” was written by Eugene Son. Ashley Johnson played Sunny. Juliet Landau returned as Natalie and Verdona (Anodyte form). To continue the W.I.T.C.H. drinking game, TV.com reports that Jason Marsden played Antonio.
Anyway, they reach a power plant or an oil refinery or something, where the robots are attacking. Gwen gives the order to save one of the robot heads so she can hack into it and find out their plan, but they’re having a problem that the RFD12 keep trying to escape through their portal. An explosion from the battle catches Sunny’s interest, and she goes in despite everyone saying that these robots could easily kill her. But she thinks it’s fun, and she displays some higher level Anodyte abilities and starts blasting and smashing the robots, much to the team’s shock. Tearing through the RFD12 and even destroying the head the team was trying to save, she decides that maybe Earth is fun after all! When the team gets home and explains everything to Natalie, she’s not at all happy, and I get the feeling Frank Tennyson is going to be on the couch tonight. He never told his wife that his niece also was an Anodyte, since she wouldn’t have agreed to take in Sunny if she’d known. Ben and Kevin try to brainstorm about why the RFD12 would steal oil, coming to the conclusion that it’s probably for a bomb, though they’ll need Gwen to figure everything out better, and Sunny proceeds to complain about just how much of a goody-goody Gwen is…right in front of her. There’s a knock on the door, and when Natalie goes to open it, there’s a big, hulking alien in a loincloth on the other side—Sunny’s boyfriend, Antonio. Amazingly, Natalie doesn’t blink, slamming the door in his face after explaining that Sunny’s not allowed to see him. Undeterred, Sunny goes to the window in Gwen’s room. Gwen tries to stop her from escaping, and Ben and Kevin display their self-preservation skills and try to escape, but Gwen has them both whipped and they can’t run for their lives. Sunny proves how much more advanced she is with her powers than Gwen and flies out of the window, taunting Gwen to take chase. And because Gwen is really, really pissed at her, she does…until Ben and Kevin chase her down in the car and warn her that the RFD12 are back and attacking a particle accelerator. Because Bellwood has EVERYTHING. Knowing how much Gwen and her friends know how to have a good time, Sunny tells Antonio to follow them.
At the particle accelerator, the RFD12 are trying to overload a canister bomb’s fusion battery to make it more destructive. Ben goes Lodestar to toss them out of the way, and Gwen puts Kevin to work shutting down the accelerator. He decides he doesn’t know how to work it and smashes it, which as always is a good plan. As more RFD12 arrive, Sunny and Antonio start the beatdown. But Ben gets sick of these guys and reverses the polarity of the dimensional portal or whatever, closing it down. Antonio begins smashing the bomb once the RFD12 are finished, and Kevin and Ben stop him. Gwen tries to tell off Sunny, but Sunny decides she’s had enough of people telling her what to do and evolves past her human form, dropping her skin on the floor and becoming a full-blown Anodyte. Gwen threatens to tell Sunny’s parents what’s going on, but Sunny blasts her. Ben tries to check on his cousin, but she’s pissed, and Kevin warns him this is a good time for them to practice their self-preservation skills again. Gwen tries to hit Sunny with magic but fails, but it’s enough to get in Antonio’s protective instincts. He threatens Gwen, but Ben’s protective instincts kick in right now, and he goes Humongousaur. And generally gets his ass kicked, but it’s at least sweet to see that Ben cares. Sunny makes a grab for the bomb, reasoning that if Gwen wants it so bad, she might as well play keep-away. Yes, with a BOMB. I never said this girl was sane. Gwen gets it back and tells Kevin to disarm it, and Kevin proceeds to have a full-blown Caleb whine before he sees what a mess of wires the interior is. Ben manages to outsmart Antonio—which isn’t too hard, given that he’s mostly dumb muscle—and while Gwen can’t outmuscle Sunny, she does apparently have Grandma Verdona on mana speed-dial (ability last seen in “Voided”). And Verdona is PISSED. She puts Sunny in a bubble, musing on how she can’t understand how an energy being could turn out to be such a spoiled little brat. Yes, people. Verdona thinks Sunny is a brat—that’s how bad she is. Verdona and Ben cheerfully greet each other before Verdona takes Antonio from him, and Kevin has the second-best line of the episode when he greets her with “Hi, scary grandma.” Verdona compliments Gwen’s power development and once again tries to convince her to continue her training on Anodyne, but Gwen reminds her that they’ve had this discussion before (“What Are Little Girls Made Of?”). Verdona promises to have this discussion again before taking the two kids and leaving. Kevin then gives the best episode of the line, summing up the Tennysons by taking one look at Gwen and saying, “Your family is weird.” Gwen tries to defend her family, but Kevin’s got a point that most people’s cousins don’t shed their skin inside a particle accelerator. Ben manages to get them back on track by reminding them of the case of the RFD12, and Gwen admits that she’s got some theories on it.
After the emotional rollercoaster that was the Kevin mini-arc of last season, it’s great to see Gwen’s character being explored in a significantly less angsty way. A new rival is introduced for her, this time taking care of her alien side while Charmcaster had been her rival on the magical side of things. Sunny, design-wise, is Gwen if she went for the Blackfire look (Teen Titans): black hair, purplish-blue eyes, and purple clothes. She and Gwen had been close when they were three, but Gwen hardly remembers her and Ben never met her at all. Apparently, Frank and Carl had another sibling or something who lives offworld, given that Sunny repeatedly points out that she’s been sent to Earth as punishment, and we learn that she’s been on Anodyne learning to master her powers. Power-wise, she is much stronger than Gwen—her energy constructs are more impressive (where Gwen’s are still transparent and prone to shattering), and she’s capable of using more blasts at once than Gwen can. And she can fly.
Gwen starts off really annoyed at Sunny just on general principle: the girl’s a total brat, and her parents took her in without telling Gwen. Gwen doesn’t seem to be too bothered by Sunny’s powerset, though she does snap back at Kevin when he suggests that with Sunny’s power, she might be a good fourth member of the team. Interestingly, Antonio has a few parallels with Kevin, being strong but not too bright and very devoted to his girlfriend, though it’s not played up much.
But what really gets the rivalry going and what really defines Gwen’s character is how much Sunny loathes her. She is jealous of her cousin, pure and simple. Gwen is a model citizen, smart, shows great leadership skills (by taking the lead this episode and issuing orders to the boys, who MOSTLY follow without complaint), and she chooses to be human and learn how to master as much of her power as she can with that limitation. As it turns out, Verdona praises all of that right in front of Sunny, even going so far as to call Gwen her favorite grandchild right in front of Sunny and Ben, and Sunny doesn’t take it well at all. Sunny resents Gwen for getting all that praise, for being perfect, and tells herself that Gwen is arrogant and thinks herself too good to become an energy being. It’s Gwen’s maturity and competence that takes center stage—and conflicts with her temper—and it’s these qualities and how Sunny lacks them that makes her hate her.
I have to draw a parallel to “Hit ‘Em Where They Live,” between Natalie and Sandra. Both women married into the family and into the weirdness. And they really take it all in stride. Sandra was of course awesome in “Hit ‘Em Where They Live,” deciding quickly not to get in the way of her super-powered niece and generally taking the whole “my son is a super-powered alien who is now world-famous and risks our lives just by existing” really damn well ever since “Grounded.” Natalie has issues with the Anodytes stemming from even before “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” presumably because of Verdona’s blasé attitude, but it’s clear that she accepts and loves her daughter despite that. And even though she didn’t want to get involved in any more alien business, when she learns that Sunny is also an Anodyte, she takes everything in stride. Big hulking alien shows up at the front door and claims to be Sunny’s boyfriend? She sternly reminds Sunny that her parents specifically said she wasn’t allowed to hang out with him, and she slams the door in his FACE. That’s pretty damn awesome. She’s more annoyed than anything that Sunny is an Anodyte and nobody told her (kind of funny given how she and Frank didn’t tell Gwen anything either, but I suspect mild hypocrisy also runs in the family), and she still holds to her promise to keep her out of trouble for the summer. Just goes to show you: Nothing can faze the Tennysons. And when Kevin of all people thinks your family is weird, you know that it’s true.
Something interesting to note here was Ben’s protective streak when it came to Gwen and to her relationship with Kevin. I’ve already pointed out how Ben immediately went to beat up Antonio when he threatened Gwen, but his words were “Nobody picks on my cousin but me!” which oddly enough, I think was something Gwen had said about Ben in the original series. But earlier, when Sunny was hitting on Kevin, Ben proved himself to be a Gwen/Kevin shipper by glaring at her and very pointedly mentioning that Kevin was dating Gwen. Normally, we see Gwen being a Ben/Julie shipper or otherwise getting in the middle of their relationship with good intentions but bad consequences, so it was interesting to see that Ben also does what he can to protect her relationship.
Also, the battles this episode highlighted how Gwen and Ben can fight with their brains just as well as with their powers. They were severely outclassed by Sunny and Antonio, and even Ultimate Humongousaur was only JUST a match for Antonio. Gwen outsmarted Sunny by calling Verdona in, and Ben took Antonio out to a wet soccer field and tricked him into tearing out a working lamppost, electrocuting him into unconsciousness (and then calling him a doofus). I really like seeing when they fight smart instead of just hard, and this was a good time to play with it.
“Girl Trouble” was written by Eugene Son. Ashley Johnson played Sunny. Juliet Landau returned as Natalie and Verdona (Anodyte form). To continue the W.I.T.C.H. drinking game, TV.com reports that Jason Marsden played Antonio.
