Elena of Avalor S3 E19

## Plot

**Content Warning:** Some implied and mild swearing about Naomi's behavior at the end. After a brief recap of episode 16, we finally see Naomi again as she sets her anchor down in a small port town. I know three episodes isn't a very long time at all for her departure to sink in for the audience or the characters, but out of universe, we hadn't seen Naomi for over two months. Then again, there are hiatuses that last longer than that. Naomi heads to a shop and reads the latest letter from Elena. We see Elena write the letter. She starts writing about how much she misses Naomi, but then stops and claims that everything is fine. Also, as we zoom in on a familiar picture she has of the two of them, the writing disappears. I think it's pretty hard to animate writing, even if it's a made up foreign looking alphabet like this. There's a reason people use lorem ipsum as placeholder text. Naomi starts writing her reply to her as the two sing a distant duet. It's clear that they both miss each other a lot, but neither one of them mentions it in their letter. Also, there's a lot of blatant Elena and Naomi subtext in this episode, just like in the last episode we saw Naomi in. I've never shipped the two, and even I could see it. When Naomi tries to buy supplies, she can't even afford crackers, having run out of money at this point in her trip. The clerk says she could try catching Tziloco, an enchanted crystal winged bat that's been terrorizing sailors for years. There's a large bounty for his capture. Catching him won't be easy though, because he's been spotted hanging around Ash, Chatana, and Esteban. Naomi realizes that Ash and Esteban are gathering forces to attack Avalor. The shopkeeper offers her a magic bag called a malagro that can hold anything or anyone, no matter what size, and it can't be broken. Naomi can't afford it, so the shopkeeper says she'll trade it to her… for her anchor necklace. She reluctantly takes the deal. She heads back to Avalor to warn Elena about Esteban. Meanwhile, Esteban teleports Ash, Chatana, Pili, and Tziloco to the gateway to Vallestrella. Tziloco shapeshifts his wing into a jaquin paw, which opens the gateway, allowing them to enter Vallestrella. I feel like that's a major design flaw in the gateway that Mateo could try to fix. Two baby jaquins spot the obvious villains and head to the palace to warn King Verago. Esteban wants to go after them and stop them from alerting anyone, but Ash tells him to let them go. It won't matter when they release Chatana's most fearsome creature, the mighty giant Kizin, who was mentioned in the special for season 1 as the reason why jaquins built the gateway in the first place, and why humans weren't allowed in Vallestrella. This never comes up again. We only ever see Luna in this episode. Where was King Verago, Zephyr, Tornado, Cruz, Vestia, Nico, Ciela, Avión, Dulce, Estrella, Mingo, Zoom, the other Avalor jaquins, etc.? I know, budget, they probably couldn't afford to pay that many voice actors for just a handful of lines in one episode, plus animating all those models, but still! Mateo catches Elena using Farsight to try and check in on Naomi and joins in. I still ship it! They see that she's actually there, and she and Elena hug. They're a little awkward with each other though. Naomi shows her and Mateo the wanted poster. Elena recognizes Chatana from the etching of her that she saw during season 2. Luna shows up and tells them that all of the bad guys have been spotted in Vallestrella. Elena and Mateo decide to leave as soon as they can with Gabe, and Naomi says she wants to go with them. Elena is initially excited that the old team is back together again, before awkwardly saying that it's just for now. They get to Vallestrella, and Elena uses Farsight to try and find the bad guys. I know at least one person complained about this, since Ash or Zopilote already cast a cloaking spell by the time episode 14 rolled around. However, it's possible that it wears off and Ash has to keep recasting it, or she just had to do it this time since they're in another realm. Another one of Tziloco's powers is that his wings glow whenever someone uses magic to try and locate him. Ash casts a cloaking spell. It's only a matter of time before they're found though, so Chatana creates a diversion to distract them. She uses her powers to create aranaguilitias, baby spider eagles. They attack Elena, Gabe, Luna, and Skylar. They web up Skylar and Luna's wings so they can't fly, and they start falling towards the ground. Elena loses her scepter. Naomi lassos it and throws it back to her, and she uses it to scare away the baby spider eagles. Mateo casts a spell that frees Skylar and Luna's wings just before they hit the ground. Elena thanks Naomi for catching her scepter. Ash frees Kizin, and while he is large, he's basically a talking baby who considers Chatana his mother. However, he refuses to join them, because he's angry that Chatana abandoned him and never came to free him. He leaves to free his friends instead. He knows that they were captured by Quita Moz. The heroes hear him shout and head towards him as Esteban teleports everyone but Tziloco away. He ends up trapped under a pile of rocks. The heroes get there and see Kizin. The jaquins fly back to the palace to get more guards. Mateo says that Kizin's thick skin deflects all forms of magic, but he has a weak spot on the bottom of his left foot. Elena, Mateo, and Gabe will get him to follow them while Naomi ties her lasso between two rocks. After they run past, she'll pull on the rope and trip Kizin, exposing his feet, and they'll hit the weak spot with everything they've got. However, Naomi sees Tziloco get free, and thinks she can capture him in the magic bag and get back in time to set up the trap. However, she's too late, and Kizin ends up breaking Elena's right arm. He kidnaps Mateo because he needs magic, and he takes Gabe too when he tries to attack him. Naomi makes a sling for Elena, and when she demands to know where she was, tells her about the crystal bat. She wasn't trying to find him, but he was right there, and she thought she could be right back. She didn't mean to mess up the plan. She admits that she needs the money. Elena says she could've asked her for that, but Naomi tells her that she was too embarrassed. Elena already gave her the boat, and if she's going to be the captain of her own ship, then she needs to be independent and pay her own way. Elena tells her that there's more at stake here than what she needs. This is about protecting everyone, and when they needed Naomi, she wasn't there. Basically the same speech from episode 16, but it's about needs instead of wants. Based on Elena's angry and hurt tone, I feel like there's also an unspoken "Where were you when I needed you?" subtext sort of thing hanging in the air, but they never address it, which is too bad. I think it would make sense to tie it into Elena's struggle with controlling her emotion magic by keeping her true feelings about Naomi's departure to herself, and they only come out now. Maybe it even affects her ability to use her scepter, and *that's* the real reason why she's having trouble with Farsight in this episode, because as much as she wants to see her best friend again, doing so in a way where she can't talk to her just brings all those negative (and familiar) feelings of hurt, betrayal, anger, and sadness back up to the surface. And then she gets mad at herself for thinking like that, because it's Naomi's life and she can do whatever she wants. Heck, maybe Naomi leaving could've also been her own unhealthy way of "dealing with" Esteban's betrayal, by pushing her feelings down, trying to keep busy, and focusing on something else to avoid thinking about it and confronting her emotions head on. Anyway, Naomi apologizes, and Migs and Skylar show up and tell them that Luna is gathering the kingsguard. Elena tells them what happened, and they head the same way Kizin went. Migs asks Naomi if she's coming, and she nods. Mateo tries to open Quita Moz's nest, but the spell bounces off because he put a powerful sealing spell on it, and Gabe can't open it because he doesn't know magic. Was that foreshadowing? Kizin breaks the door down, and all the jars start to tremble. Quita Moz isn't there. Elena, Naomi, Migs, and Skylar enter. Elena pulls out her scepter, but drops it because of her injured arm. Naomi makes Kizin fall and Gabe throws the scepter to Elena. She manages to catch it in her left hand. However, she's not left handed or ambidextrous, so she misses when she tries to blast Kizin's left foot. He gets back up and starts heading towards them. Naomi lets Tziloco go so she can use the bag to capture Kizin instead. She tells Elena that catching him (and rescuing her friends) was way more important than the reward for Tziloco. They can put him in a spare jar. Tziloco meets up with the others and opens the gateway again so they can get back to Avalor. Recruiting Kizin may have been a bust, but Ash says they'll find more powerful allies on the other side of the kingdom. Back at the palace, Elena's arm is in a cast, and she talks to Naomi. They both reveal that they wrote letters about how much they missed each other, but never sent them. Elena didn't want to spoil Naomi's adventure, but she admits that it wasn't much of an adventure without her. She did love being the captain of her own ship and seeing the world, but she didn't realize how much she missed being part of a team, of a cause that's so much bigger than herself, and this is where she belongs. She basically says that she's staying in Avalor and asks for her position on the grand council back. However, your actions can have unintended consequences, both good and bad, and Elena tells her that, because she was an impulsive and opportunistic you-know-what who left at the drop of a hat, literally, who didn't plan ahead and never said when she'd be coming back, Julio has already replaced her flaky and unreliable ass on the grand council. Naomi isn't upset about it though, and decides to find another way to serve Avalor. With everything that's going on, they need her now more than ever. Oh, I think you've needed her and she's needed you this whole time all season long, especially after the Esteban drama, but for some reason it seems like the writers didn't know what to do with her, just like Gabe. Do you guys have any clue how many rewrite ideas with these specific characters in this particular season are swimming around in my head right now? It's a lot. Enough to almost give me another migraine over the wasted potential. If you disagree though and like how Naomi and Gabe were handled this season, that's perfectly fine, and feel free to tell me why in the comments down below. I'd love to have a better understanding of it, or at least try to. Still, the fact that Naomi never apologized for basically abandoning her best friend in her time of emotional need and didn't stay with her pisses me off, and reminds me of Weiss, Blake, and Yang's behavior towards Ruby (or rather, their lack thereof) regarding her own emotional needs and mental health during volume 9. Also, forgiveness is subjective. I would've liked it if the others were mad at Naomi for a few episodes after this, just like how I hope Ruby's arc about her mental health isn't just forgotten about when or if we get a volume 10 of RWBY. Seriously, the Netflix children's show Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous is actually really good at this. During season 1, episode 6, Brooklynn and Yaz are angry at Sammy for lying to them. Brooklynn receives some advice about it from Kenji and is able to forgive Sammy by the end of the episode, since she's also done selfish things for personal reasons before. However, it takes Yaz until the end of episode 8 to forgive Sammy. Kenji is angry at his best friend Darius during the first episode of season 4 for risking Brooklynn's life in the season 3 finale, even though Brooklynn herself insisted on it because stopping the bad guys was more important, and it took Kenji basically the whole episode to forgive Darius. Similarly, when Kenji is manipulated into betraying the group in season 5, everyone is angry at him at first, and when he meets up with them after that, he actually acknowledges that he can't say some magical words to make them forgive or trust him again. All he can do is apologize, explain why he did it, promise to do better, and then follow through on that promise. There's also Bolin apologizing to his friends and girlfriend for initially siding with the villain of the final season in *The Legend of Korra*. This is his apology to Opal, his girlfriend: "I just want to tell you that I understand how you feel. I know there's nothing I could do or no big gesture that can make up for all my mistakes…" There's also the fact that when Hiro from *Big Hero 6* visits the antagonist of that movie in prison for information about someone he used to work with in the series of the same name, said antagonist thanks him for saving his family. He also apologizes for inadvertently getting his older brother killed. "I never set out to hurt anyone. What happened to Tadashi, because of me– I know it's not enough, but I'm sorry." Hiro: "Tadashi would've, um, wanted me to forgive you… Someday I hope I can." I feel like I have a hard time actually doing what I preach. I have a very hard time forgiving certain fictional characters (Cass, Naomi, etc.), and yet, when it comes to real people… let's just say that it's a mixed bag. Some of them (mostly celebrities that I don't actually know) have done terrible things that I will never forgive them for, even if they've apologized for it (I always doubt the sincerity behind public apologies). When it comes to people I actually know and interact with daily in my life though, I think I'm pretty forgiving, even when there are times where I want to act like a portrayal of an angsty, stereotypical teenager and just stay irrationally mad at them. Actions speak louder than words. It's not enough to say sorry to earn someone's trust or respect back. Prove that you've genuinely changed for the better through your actions, every day. Look, no one is perfect. You'll make mistakes, and so will the people around you, all the time. But that's how you learn and grow.