Tangled: The Series S2 E16

## Plot

First of all, Hook Foot left the group in the previous episode to follow his dream and go on tour with his brother Hook Hand, from the movie. Ever since Cass was injured during the events of the special, she's been pushing herself extra hard to relearn everything with her injured right hand. Lance is still terrified of spiders, although after almost dying from one in the season premiere, that's understandable. Rapunzel understands why Cass is still mad at her. She told her not to use the decay spell, but she did, and then she hurt her hand. Rapunzel tells Pascal that if she had just listened to her and stayed out of it, this could have been avoided. She wants to work things out, but Cass refuses to talk about it. She realizes that she drew a picture of a super angry demon version of her. Foreshadowing? But the really stupid kind? She tears the page out and puts it in a pocket. Also, her dress has pockets. Eugene and Max come back and tell them they've found the caravan, but it's taken a lot of damage. They need to find parts to fix it. Rapunzel says she and Cass can look for supplies. She asks Pascal to stay with the guys, since she wants to talk to Cass alone. They find a river full of piranhas. Rapunzel uses her hair to get across, while Cass has to climb between two trees. She struggles with it due to her injured hand, but she tells Rapunzel that she's fine and refuses to accept help from her. According to the map, there's a town over the hill. Cass has Owl scout ahead to be sure, and Rapunzel is a little upset that it's not just the two of them. The black rocks pushed everyone out of the village. Cass and Rapunzel find an apothecary cart. Cass doesn't think any of it works, but Rapunzel uses a snow potion to make it snow. Cass finds a book about something called the wand of oblivion. It erases what someone wishes to forget. Rapunzel tells Cass that she knows that she's mad at her, and wants her to open up and talk about it. She insists that she did the right thing and didn't have a choice. Cass tells her that if she feels that way, then they're good. She asks her how she knows how she's feeling, and Rapunzel says that friends just have a way of knowing. Cass still says that she's fine, but Rapunzel says that it's okay if she's mad at her. She's mad at her too, for not listening to her when she said she had it under control. Cass still insists that she's not upset, and bumps her head on the apothecary cart, knocking the wand into her hand, and the book she found onto the ground. Rapunzel says they can't just push what happened aside and forget it ever happened, but Cass wishes she would just forget about the whole thing. The wand erases Rapunzel's memories of everything that's happened since she left the tower. Cass claims that she doesn't remember leaving the tower because ruffians used magic on her to steal her hair, and she saved her. She says she'll take her back to the tower if Rapunzel unties her. She lets her go, but warns her not to try anything. Owl disapproves of Cass's lying. She finds the book with a list of fifty two potion ingredients to reverse the effects of the wand. She collects them all while pretending to lead Rapunzel to the tower. Also, she pulled out her sword using her left hand. Just a small detail I noticed to prove that her injury is severe, and it's not going to go away overnight. She tells Rapunzel that the ingredients are for a soup she's making. Rapunzel runs off by herself and climbs a mountain to try and get spice for the soup. She falls, and Cass saves her. She apologizes for causing trouble and says she wanted her to have it to thank her for doing so much to help her. Cass tells her that it's not a big deal, but she says that saving her life is a big deal. She thanks her for everything, and tells her that she's lucky to have someone like her that she can trust. She doesn't know what she'd do here without her. Cass makes the potion, and says it has to simmer overnight. Rapunzel says that a small part of her doesn't want to go back to the tower. She calls Cass her friend, and tells her that friends tell each other what's in their hearts. Cass has been feeling incredibly guilty, but still doesn't tell Rapunzel the truth. While stargazing, Rapunzel takes out a piece of paper to chart them, but realizes that they're going the wrong way. And the piece of paper she took out has the demonic picture of Cass that she drew at the beginning of the episode. She confronts Cass about it, takes the book, and ties her up in a tree. Luckily, Cass has a lot of knives, and she admits that Owl was right, she shouldn't have lied to her. Rapunzel runs into Eugene, Lance, and Shorty, and mistakes them for ruffians. She hides, and, seeing Pascal with them, thinks they kidnapped him. Cass tells them the short version of what happened, and they all split up to look for her. She quickly captures and ties up Shorty, and holds Eugene and Lance above the piranha infested river. She tells them to let Pascal go, or she'll drop them. Eugene tells her that he's not with them and is looking for her, but she doesn't believe him. Okay. But why isn't Pascal doing anything? Cass shows up, and admits that she lied to Rapunzel. She did use magic on her, and the potion will restore her memories. She accidentally erased some of her memories. She was mad about what happened at the tree, but she didn't want to talk about her feelings, so she kept it all in until she lost her temper. Rapunzel asks her how she knows she isn't lying again, and Cass tells her that friends just have a way of knowing. The next day, the caravan is finally fixed again, Rapunzel has her memories back, and she and Cass talk things out. Cass says she could've beaten the tree without the decay spell if Rapunzel had just trusted her. She's still angry, but she never should've touched the wand. You didn't know how to use it. This whole thing was an accident. Rapunzel says it's okay. Cass says she won't always be mad at her. She'll get over it, because that's what friends do. They hold hands and hug.

## Review

Yeah, Cass doesn't get over it for a very long time. Have you guys noticed that ever since the events at the end of the special, she's been telling everyone that she's fine, either physically, emotionally, or mentally, but she's clearly not? It reminds me of a spoken word poem I wrote in my senior year of high school, called "Fine". It's about someone insisting that they're fine, but admitting that they're anything but, and learning to accept that it's okay to say so. It was inspired by my own problems of bottling things up, reluctance to open up to others, and my mom's hatred of the word, especially whenever I use it, since she knows it's usually code for "I'm not okay, but I don't want to talk about it, at least, not with you." So, yeah, this episode and Cass's behavior is super relatable to me. Even when I'm physically injured, I try to hide it from other people and work through it myself, which stems from some unpleasant childhood memories involving my dad, some misogynistic older guys, and sports. Don't get me wrong, I love my dad, but sometimes when my parents say things to try and make me feel better, it actually makes me feel worse. It's like there's this unspoken rule in our society, especially for women in the workplace, that you have to be tough all the time, and can never break down or be emotional in public except under certain circumstances, like when a loved one passes away. Don't get me wrong, I think the same thing is expected of men, but if they break, they're just going through a rough time. If a woman does it, she's being overemotional or hysterical. Obviously, this is more of a case by case thing than something that happens all the time or is influenced solely by gender, but still. Why don't people ever talk about stuff like this? Yes, it's uncomfortable, but that's exactly why we should talk about it more, so we get more experience talking about it and it's no longer seen as taboo. Out of universe, a lot of people seem to blame Rapunzel for Cass getting injured, even though neither character had any idea that Rapunzel could even do something like that before the special (which only lasted 24 hours at most, along with this episode). Look, I personally think that Rapunzel should've listened to Cass, because she clearly didn't have things under control, but if you disagree with me, that's okay too. After all, it's easy to forget that Rapunzel is only 19 years old, and yet she's the one that has to make the difficult decisions because she's a princess/the Sun Drop/the leader/the title character, even though the human brain doesn't finish developing until you're 25. If it were up to them, I think I personally would've had Rapunzel remember Adira's story about the Great Tree and have her use the spear herself to kill it once and for all, putting it out of its misery, or setting it free somehow, because the tree was once a force for good and sentient, and probably hated being used for evil. Plus, let's be honest here, both Rapunzel and Cass seriously need therapy after everything they've gone through, but it doesn't exist, because vaguely medieval fantasy setting. Cass has a bad habit of keeping things in and letting them fester until they boil over, and that's not a healthy way to deal with negative emotions. My outlet is writing. Hers would probably be something violent, like fighting or weapons related. Percussive therapy is the name of a trope where people break things to release pent up negative emotions, usually anger. This is also known as catharsis. However, it has fallen out of favor in recent decades when it comes to actual therapy because it's recognized as just rewarding violent outbursts. Rapunzel's outlet is clearly art. That being said, I think that Cass should've trusted her best friend to deal with it. You have to trust someone besides yourself sometimes. Is the moonstone incantation dangerous? Yes, but the only way Rapunzel could get better at using and controlling it is to practice with it. Should she have done that during an emergency? No, but she thought she didn't have a choice. If I were her, I would've at least tried to use the spear to free Cass, Adira, and the others, and I would've made them all leave when or if the tree started collapsing, or had them huddle up to me, since Rapunzel has magic indestructible hair that protects her from normally deadly harm, which Cass knows about, along with the fact that her friend is perfectly capable and competent at fighting and can protect herself. This show and the relationship between Rapunzel and Cass honestly reminds me of Elena of Avalor and the relationship between Elena, a princess, and one of her best friends, Naomi Turner. The difference is, even though I also get mad at Naomi for making what I consider to be a rash decision in that show's third season as well, it wasn't anything like Cass's. Rapunzel also reminds me of Ruby Rose post volume 3 of RWBY (and vice versa). Despite being the youngest member of her incredibly large team, everyone looks to her to come up with successful, ingenious plans and lead them to a seemingly impossible victory over their extremely vicious, powerful enemies, even after they leave the safety and simplicity of school life behind, because… I honestly don't know. Is it because she has silver eyes, which gives her a unique ability, much like Rapunzel? Or is it because she has a "smaller, more honest soul"? Basically, she can inspire others because she's normally so hopeful and optimistic. Okay, but everyone has a breaking point.