Winx Club S2 E22

## Plot

Flora tells Stella, Musa, and Bloom to transform and save themselves since they can fly, but Bloom says they're all in this together. They trick the animals into the traps. Layla is separated from the group, and falls into a canyon. She can't climb out of it. The group finds out that she's missing. Bloom and the pixies look for her while the others get ready for their next encounter with the animals. Layla's monophobia acts up again, and she wanders into a cave. She's ironically way *less* of an action girl for most of the episode, since she's just wandering around and randomly fainting. I thought this was just dumb at first, then I thought it was this fog that came out of nowhere. I hated seeing my favorite character cry helplessly. But then I looked up monophobia, also called autophobia, and found some interesting results. It is closely related to agoraphobia, which is the fear of being in public places or big crowds. It could also stem from depression. It could be the result of childhood trauma from a child being abandoned by their parents, like Rey from the *Star Wars* sequel trilogy. It develops into this fear that everyone they love will abandon them. Now it's sounding like Yang's abandonment issues from RWBY. My point is, when these people are alone, they might experience panic attacks. This could cause them to faint, and panic attacks seem to mimic heart attacks to the unprepared. The Trix launch their attack. Layla finds a way out, but she can't fly out of it because she has no magic powers. She overcomes her fear because she knows Musa must be under attack. She earns her Charmix, makes it out of the cave, and meets up with Bloom. The rest of the group is saved by Helia's timely arrival in an airship. It's revealed that Timmy called him. The Trix get away, and Timmy is buried under rubble, but he's okay. Tecna and Timmy finally make up, and Tecna earns her Charmix. Their vacation comes to an end when they have to get the pixies to their village to heal them with the Tree of Life after they become sick, which happened when they breathed in strange spores while looking for Layla. This leads into the next episode.

## Review

This was a good episode. I did think Layla suddenly overcoming her fears was a little rushed though. As for the tangent I went on about monophobia, I apologize, but I should do research more often. It reminds me of certain lines from the show that I now see in a new light because of this research. And no, I'm not done yet. As someone with either general or social anxiety disorder, or possibly even both, as well as trichotillomania, covering mental disorders is especially important to me. The physical symptoms of monophobia are: Lightheadness, dizziness, sweating, shaking, nausea, cold and hot flashes, numbness or tingling feelings, dry mouth, and an increased heart rate. While Layla needs to be physically alone for this to happen to her, a person could suffer from this phobia and feel alone emotionally or even financially. Financially? How would that even work? In case you couldn't tell, my "research" is Wikipedia. Having drastic, life altering events could make this phobia worse. It could be developed later in life, maybe through the death of a loved one. Great, as if I wasn't dreading season 4 enough. Talk about harsher in hindsight. Also, life altering events. Like a best friend moving away and never coming back or attempting to contact you, or all of your friends being kidnapped, some of whom were killed, being kidnapped yourself, failing to rescue said friends who survived, almost dying… Wow. Layla has way more baggage and trauma than I ever thought. She's only 17, by the way. And it's depressing how much I relate to the friend moving away part. An event like that normally wouldn't *traumatize* a person, but on top of everything else Layla experienced… Damn. I'm honestly impressed that she's still alive. Way to survive, girl!