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akinoameThe team meets up for dinner at Burger Shack, where Gwen picks at the chili fries she apparently ordered but doesn’t like. Hmm, I wonder why they could possibly be showing a certain villain’s favorite food when it looks like the hero who just ordered it doesn’t like them. No reason, I suppose. Ben arrives after an impromptu autograph signing, but their dinner plans are ruined by a commercial for Ben 10 Live, a play about Ben’s battle with Vilgax, totally unauthorized, and apparently performed by the Ember Island Players. The team “parks” the Rustbucket III and get inside the Nemesis Towers theater in order to view the play. Vilgax has a “moon base on the moon” (does he rent from Rita Repulsa?), Swampfire and Big Chill are overweight, Ben overacts, and when in danger, Ben summons the “Gwenettes”—ten girls dressed as Gwen (if she were showing her midriff, wearing a shorter skirt, and lost the underwear-hiding pantyhose, that is) dancing the can-can across the stage while pink fireworks go off. You know when I say something has crossed the line so badly that it’s done the can-can across it (used here)? This is the exact visual depiction of what I’m talking about. I didn’t know that until now. Seriously, this play is so “The Ember Island Players” that I’m surprised that Ben wasn’t played by a woman, Gwen wasn’t so full of hope that she was “tearbending,” and that there wasn’t man!Toph.
Since Kevin is the only one not portrayed in the play, he’s able to point out to them that there’s no reason to totally overreact about this and Ben and Gwen shouldn’t go and beat up the producer. They’re a little shocked that he’s the voice of reason all of a sudden, but hey, that’s been his role all season. Vilgax-actor (an ordinary human guy) points them out to the producer, the teenager who plays Ben, before high-tailing it out of there. Smart man. Ben-actor takes off his wig and removes his contacts to reveal that he’s actually Albedo!
Yeah, who didn’t see this coming?
They naturally get into a fight, where Albedo appears to be transforming without an Ultimatrix, but they soon learn that he’s just faking it with props, smoke, and mirrors, and three actors playing the aliens: the aforementioned out-of-shape Swampfire and Big Chill, and a Humongou-nerd who wears glasses and gets bruised easily, named Hugh. It turns out that given Albedo’s been trapped on the planet in Ben’s body, he realized he was going to have to do things like, oh, pay rent, pay for his chili fry addiction, and the like. And the easiest way to do that was to do an unauthorized biography of Ben’s life in cheap play form. He’s been doing it for a while until coming up with the brilliant idea of advertising it in Ben’s hometown, and Ben is entirely pissed off. Gwen manages to keep him from starting another fight by pointing out that her dad’s a lawyer (explains why they seem so loaded) and that Ben can always sue. Albedo tells them to save the lawsuit since this is their last performance—something that shocks the hell out of Hugh. Seriously, communicate with your friends more. It’ll save you a lot of pain.
The team is about to leave when Hugh stops them, saying that Albedo’s been using the money from his play for more than just rent and chili fries—he’s also been buying parts for something. Something sinister. Hugh keeps changing the story every five minutes, and Ben doesn’t catch on because he just wants an excuse to beat Albedo’s face in. They head to the local Abandoned Warehouse District, and even Kevin notices how many times they’ve been there lately, where Albedo’s creating some kind of device that Hugh now claims is a DNA bomb that will make everyone look like Ben while a device with the Omnitrix/Ultimatrix symbol is keeping him safe from the radiation. Gwen tries to point out the lack of logic in that statement but as said before, Ben wants an excuse to punch Albedo out. They fight and, thanks to the device deactivating his transformations once he enters the energy field, Ben does just that, getting punched a lot himself for his troubles. An explosion later, and they learn just what Albedo was up to: creating a device to revert him to his original form: a red-eyed Galvan. Unfortunately, thanks to Ben ONORE DECADE-ing it up back there, the genetic matrix has been compromised and Albedo is forced to revert to human form as a default. But he also has all of Ben’s transformations as well, and they fight. Utterly pissed off (still), Ben beats him up as Ultimate Echo Echo, though Gwen convinces him not to kick Albedo while he’s down. Hugh and the other aliens volunteer to take care of Albedo from there, since he’s their friend.
Returning home, the team is greeted by a guy from Nemesis Towers with one hell of a bill for the damages their fight with Albedo after the play caused, and Ben asks Gwen if her dad’s home because he might need a lawyer right now.
To be perfectly honest, there’s not a lot to analyze in this episode. It’s meant to be a fun episode with little in the way of development other than continuing the Ben vs. Albedo feud and showing it getting even more vindictive, but given the way last season had the Power of Love as its theme, the thread of the Power of Friendship on the villains’ side was very obvious toward the end, and it’s the subject of tonight’s Wørd—I mean…whatever.
Now, other shows I love approach the Power of Friendship different ways (hell, in Digimon, it’s a literal power), and sometimes they show what’s utterly fucked up about it. But Hugh and Albedo take fucked up to the extreme. For example, some rules of the Kamen Rider School of Friendship:
1. Your friends will help you out of anything, so share your victories. (Fourze)
2. Even if you fight sometimes, it’s okay because at the end of the day, your friendship’s strong enough to take it. (Ryuki)
3. Most importantly: Your friends will always have your back. (W)
But in the different series I’ve been watching, I’ve never seen it being okay to totally fuck up your buddy’s wish just for your own self-interests—though to be fair, it did happen in OOO, though Eiji got chewed out by Ankh for it. Albedo would have been free to restore his body without interference and had every intent to get off Earth “while the getting is good” (thanks to the Forever Knights, most likely), and he would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those pesky kids and Albedo’s apparent obsessively clingy boyfriend, Hugh. Hugh knew that this was going on and that Albedo planned on leaving. Leaving Earth, leaving Ben, and leaving the Ben 10 Live Players. And because he didn’t want to return to being a “nothing,” he decided to sabotage Albedo’s plans by making Ben and the team think that he had a doomsday weapon primed and ready, utterly ruining him.
And Albedo forgave him. That’s either the biggest hate-on I’ve seen anybody have for Ben (and trust me, when you have to compete with Vilgax, that’s one serious hate-on), or there’s a lot more going on between Albedo and Hugh than meets the eye. Even Ben warns them that Albedo’s not going to be happy when he wakes up after losing to Ben and being forced to only have his true form as a temporary transformation. And yet this is treated like the Power of Friendship at work, but thankfully, only by the bad guys. I’m sure the good guys are busy looking at this and going “That’s messed up,” with Kevin thanking Ben and Gwen for never sabotaging his attempts to return to his original form back in AF season three (though teaming up with Darkstar and Gwen destroying the world weren’t exactly great decisions either). Though it is nice to see some real camaraderie among the villains for a change.
“Double or Nothing” was written by Len Uhley.
Since Kevin is the only one not portrayed in the play, he’s able to point out to them that there’s no reason to totally overreact about this and Ben and Gwen shouldn’t go and beat up the producer. They’re a little shocked that he’s the voice of reason all of a sudden, but hey, that’s been his role all season. Vilgax-actor (an ordinary human guy) points them out to the producer, the teenager who plays Ben, before high-tailing it out of there. Smart man. Ben-actor takes off his wig and removes his contacts to reveal that he’s actually Albedo!
Yeah, who didn’t see this coming?
They naturally get into a fight, where Albedo appears to be transforming without an Ultimatrix, but they soon learn that he’s just faking it with props, smoke, and mirrors, and three actors playing the aliens: the aforementioned out-of-shape Swampfire and Big Chill, and a Humongou-nerd who wears glasses and gets bruised easily, named Hugh. It turns out that given Albedo’s been trapped on the planet in Ben’s body, he realized he was going to have to do things like, oh, pay rent, pay for his chili fry addiction, and the like. And the easiest way to do that was to do an unauthorized biography of Ben’s life in cheap play form. He’s been doing it for a while until coming up with the brilliant idea of advertising it in Ben’s hometown, and Ben is entirely pissed off. Gwen manages to keep him from starting another fight by pointing out that her dad’s a lawyer (explains why they seem so loaded) and that Ben can always sue. Albedo tells them to save the lawsuit since this is their last performance—something that shocks the hell out of Hugh. Seriously, communicate with your friends more. It’ll save you a lot of pain.
The team is about to leave when Hugh stops them, saying that Albedo’s been using the money from his play for more than just rent and chili fries—he’s also been buying parts for something. Something sinister. Hugh keeps changing the story every five minutes, and Ben doesn’t catch on because he just wants an excuse to beat Albedo’s face in. They head to the local Abandoned Warehouse District, and even Kevin notices how many times they’ve been there lately, where Albedo’s creating some kind of device that Hugh now claims is a DNA bomb that will make everyone look like Ben while a device with the Omnitrix/Ultimatrix symbol is keeping him safe from the radiation. Gwen tries to point out the lack of logic in that statement but as said before, Ben wants an excuse to punch Albedo out. They fight and, thanks to the device deactivating his transformations once he enters the energy field, Ben does just that, getting punched a lot himself for his troubles. An explosion later, and they learn just what Albedo was up to: creating a device to revert him to his original form: a red-eyed Galvan. Unfortunately, thanks to Ben ONORE DECADE-ing it up back there, the genetic matrix has been compromised and Albedo is forced to revert to human form as a default. But he also has all of Ben’s transformations as well, and they fight. Utterly pissed off (still), Ben beats him up as Ultimate Echo Echo, though Gwen convinces him not to kick Albedo while he’s down. Hugh and the other aliens volunteer to take care of Albedo from there, since he’s their friend.
Returning home, the team is greeted by a guy from Nemesis Towers with one hell of a bill for the damages their fight with Albedo after the play caused, and Ben asks Gwen if her dad’s home because he might need a lawyer right now.
To be perfectly honest, there’s not a lot to analyze in this episode. It’s meant to be a fun episode with little in the way of development other than continuing the Ben vs. Albedo feud and showing it getting even more vindictive, but given the way last season had the Power of Love as its theme, the thread of the Power of Friendship on the villains’ side was very obvious toward the end, and it’s the subject of tonight’s Wørd—I mean…whatever.
Now, other shows I love approach the Power of Friendship different ways (hell, in Digimon, it’s a literal power), and sometimes they show what’s utterly fucked up about it. But Hugh and Albedo take fucked up to the extreme. For example, some rules of the Kamen Rider School of Friendship:
1. Your friends will help you out of anything, so share your victories. (Fourze)
2. Even if you fight sometimes, it’s okay because at the end of the day, your friendship’s strong enough to take it. (Ryuki)
3. Most importantly: Your friends will always have your back. (W)
But in the different series I’ve been watching, I’ve never seen it being okay to totally fuck up your buddy’s wish just for your own self-interests—though to be fair, it did happen in OOO, though Eiji got chewed out by Ankh for it. Albedo would have been free to restore his body without interference and had every intent to get off Earth “while the getting is good” (thanks to the Forever Knights, most likely), and he would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those pesky kids and Albedo’s apparent obsessively clingy boyfriend, Hugh. Hugh knew that this was going on and that Albedo planned on leaving. Leaving Earth, leaving Ben, and leaving the Ben 10 Live Players. And because he didn’t want to return to being a “nothing,” he decided to sabotage Albedo’s plans by making Ben and the team think that he had a doomsday weapon primed and ready, utterly ruining him.
And Albedo forgave him. That’s either the biggest hate-on I’ve seen anybody have for Ben (and trust me, when you have to compete with Vilgax, that’s one serious hate-on), or there’s a lot more going on between Albedo and Hugh than meets the eye. Even Ben warns them that Albedo’s not going to be happy when he wakes up after losing to Ben and being forced to only have his true form as a temporary transformation. And yet this is treated like the Power of Friendship at work, but thankfully, only by the bad guys. I’m sure the good guys are busy looking at this and going “That’s messed up,” with Kevin thanking Ben and Gwen for never sabotaging his attempts to return to his original form back in AF season three (though teaming up with Darkstar and Gwen destroying the world weren’t exactly great decisions either). Though it is nice to see some real camaraderie among the villains for a change.
“Double or Nothing” was written by Len Uhley.
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Date: 2011-11-30 08:46 am (UTC)And yes, I totally love your Ember Island Players reference. That episode in Avatar was funny, but I personally still feel that it wasn't really necessary.