Winx Club S2 E1

## Plot

In a giant underground cavern, a teenage girl is climbing the cliffside. She and her friends were captured by an evil and dark "phoenix" (I'm not sorry!) and separated before the episode started, but she escaped through the window of her cell and is looking for them. The place she's in looks like an upside down castle. She's exhausted. She hears voices. Her friends look like small fairies, and they're trapped in an energy field cage. There's Zing, Glim, Chatta, Digit, Amore, Lockette, Tune, and Piff the baby. The girl finds them. Her name is Layla and she's their friend. Her name is different according to the dubs. In others her name is Aisha. It's just something you get used to. The small fairies are really pixies. Piff is Layla's bonded pixie. She's so adorable! Layla uses her magic to break the lock to the cage. The pixies can't fly with tar on their wings. Layla can't fly either, and she can't climb carrying the pixies. She has to try and find the stairs. Piff crawls into her hoodie. The "phoenix" is watching them. He orders his shadow monsters to stop them from escaping. He needs the pixies alive. Layla evades the monsters without her powers. She's very athletic. They make it to a bridge, but they run into the phoenix. Layla is determined to protect the pixies. She uses her magic to create a shield to save herself from his attack. However, he's able to take the pixies back and throw her off the cliff, saying that no one can survive a fall from that height. *And that's just the beginning of the episode*. This has been the best eight minutes of my life. At Alfea, the Winx are arriving for a new school year. They're planning the back to school party that night. Bloom sees a magic pixie pet and chases after him. She finds a place in Alfea that she's never been to before. She finds the secret entrance to the magic archives, and meets the librarian, a pixie named Concorda, who explains pixies and bonding to her. She has Bloom promise not to tell anyone about the archives, not even her friends. The Specialists get to the party on their wind riders, which are basically hover bikes. Faragonda makes a speech, and commends Bloom on fighting the army of darkness the previous year. Bloom says she couldn't have done it without her friends the Winx and invites them up on stage as well. In the castle, the phoenix questions the pixies. He wants to know the location of the pixie village. He can absorb their magic. He wants something called the Codex. In his own words: "Now speak! Or suffer…" He's so creepy. The Specialists have to get back to Red Fountain. Everyone can see that Tecna and Timmy like each other. After they leave, Flora tells Bloom that there's something wrong with the trees. Flora is the fairy of nature, but it's zig-zagged just how deep her connection to nature is. It turns out that Layla was so badass that she survived the fall (probably through sheer force of will), and made it all the way to Alfea, before she passes out from exhaustion. The Winx wonder who this mysterious new girl is, why she has a pixie (Piff), and what happened to her.

## Review

I loved this episode so much! In fact, it's my absolute favorite episode of Winx! Layla (Aisha) is my favorite character! She's just so awesome! She fights monsters, she's fearless and determined, she's a bit tomboyish in season 2 and 3, and yet somehow feminine at the same time, and she doesn't have a love interest, at least for this season. Speaking of which, this is also the season where Flora gets a love interest. Darkar, the phoenix, is, oddly enough, my favorite villain. He's evil, creepy, and he can spy on you anywhere. It helps that he has a menacing voice, provided by Eric Stuart in the Cinelumé English dub. The first arc is my favorite of the whole season, and all of Winx Club. It's about rescuing the pixies from Darkar. I can't wait! It never feels too long or too short. Basically, if I were Goldilocks, this arc would be my Baby Bear chair, porridge, and bed, all in one.