Elena of Avalor S3 E16

## Plot

In her house at the harbor, Naomi wakes up in a hammock to the sound of a bell ringing on a ship and with a painting of a boat on the wall. She quickly waters a plant, eats breakfast, and meets Armando outside to head to the palace. She and Elena have to catch up on paperwork since it was normally Esteban's job. While they're working on it though, Armando tells them that they have a visitor. A girl comes in and she and Naomi hug. Her name is Veronica, but everyone calls her Vee. She and Naomi were best friends as kids. Also, she's voiced by Auli'i Cravalho, who voiced Moana in the Disney movie of the same name. Yay, a real teenager finally voices a teenager! In fact, this episode originally aired on her 19th birthday, 2 years and 364 days after *Moana* came out in the U.S. Anyways, Naomi and Vee haven't seen each other in six years. Vee reminds her that they promised to meet back up again on her (Vee's) 18th birthday, which is tomorrow. Elena throws her a small pre-birthday dinner at the palace, and they exchange stories about how they met Naomi. Vee learns that she's on Elena's grand council. She reminds her that they're supposed to sail to a remote island tomorrow to dig up the time capsule they buried there when they were kids. However, Elena basically acts like a jealous girlfriend and says no, they can't live without Naomi for even one day, because they're on a tight deadline with their paperwork, and Naomi agrees with her. On the way back down on the gondola though, Naomi wonders if they can do it after she finishes the paperwork, but Vee is only in Avalor for the day. She says it's fine and they can just do it next year, but it's clear that she feels hurt. Naomi decides to skip the meetings and go with her. The next morning, she sneaks out of her house with Vee when Armando comes to get her. He sees her sailing off with Vee in her boat, and she tells him that she'll be back by sunset. She's missed being on the ocean and admits that she feels more at home here than she does on land. Meanwhile, Esteban and Ash are planning to free an ancient sorceress… Chatana. She and some of her creatures were imprisoned by the Maruvians for all of eternity. Esteban wonders what will keep her from destroying them once they free her. Ash has her golden diadem, the source of all her power. To get it back, she'll have to do whatever they say. Ash reveals her prison, which is so old that tree roots are covering a majority of it, which she gets rid of. She tries to open it, but she and Esteban are teleported miles away, a giant red rune appears in the sky, and the tree roots cover the prison again. The Maruvians rigged her prison with a trap. Esteban can't teleport them all the way back there in one jump. Mateo shows Elena the rune. It's written in old Maruvian, and Mateo can only read classical. Professor Mendoza is in Cordoba doing research, but Naomi has been studying old Maruvian with her. Armando arrives and tells them that she went sailing with Vee. Speaking of which, Veronica asks Naomi if she really loves running a kingdom as much as she loved sailing. Elena, Mateo, and Skylar head to Chatana's prison. They look up and translate some of the runes using a dictionary. However, saying the words out loud turns out to be the magic spell needed to release Chatana and her creatures. The force of the doors opening blasts away the book and Elena's scepter. A small, fast creature comes out and takes Elena's scepter. It's called a laughing gnome. She, Mateo, and Skylar chase after him, and fail to notice Chatana and her pet Pili leaving afterwards to search for her golden diadem. Mateo tries to freeze the gnome, but it's too fast and curses him to laugh uncontrollably. Elena tackles him, and the gnome traps them in the vault. Elena tells Skylar to find Naomi so she can get them out, because they don't remember the magic words needed to open the door again, and the dictionary is outside. Or, alternatively, since Skylar has no idea where Naomi even is right now, and this is clearly an emergency, he could just read the dictionary and say the magic words himself, or get literally anyone else to do it, since the kingdom's crown princess and royal wizard are in danger. Naomi and Vee dig up the time capsule. Naomi puts on her old necklace, which has an anchor on it. There are also letters inside that they wrote to the future versions of themselves about what they wanted to do when they grew up. Vee was able to sail the seventeen seas of the Ever Realm and climb the tallest mountain in Norberg, but she doesn't own a practical sweater. All Naomi wanted was to be the captain of her own ship, which she obviously isn't. She doesn't even feel like the captain of her own life on most days. Vee tells her that it's never too late to make your dreams come true. Skylar shows up and tells them what happened to Elena and Mateo. Naomi leaves with him and promises to come back in time to say goodbye to Vee when she leaves at sunset. I'm a little upset that Vee didn't come with them to help, or reveal that she was antagonistic and secretly manipulating Naomi because she was jealous of her relationship with Elena or something. That's the thing about celebrity guest stars. They're super hyped up… and then when they finally do appear, they usually don't get a lot of screen time or contribute much to the actual main plot of the episode. Naomi gets to the vault and frees Elena and Mateo. Elena gets her scepter back and tells Naomi that Mateo is laughing because he got hit by a spell when they accidentally released a laughing gnome from the vault. Naomi tells her that it's called a Chiki-Chiki, and the rune in the sky was a warning to not read the markings out loud. Elena asks her how they were supposed to know that, because she's the Maruvian expert and she wasn't here. Mateo wants to settle this later, and Elena wants to catch the gnome, but Naomi wants to leave so she can spend more time with Vee. She thinks they can take it from here. Elena tells her that none of this would've happened if she had just been there when they needed her. Naomi didn't know that all of this was going to happen. As Gabe would say if he were here, that's the whole point. You don't know, so you plan for every possibility. Elena reminds her that when she joined the grand council, she made a promise to be ready for whatever came along. This is her responsibility. Was that a *Spider-Man* reference? She just wanted one day to herself. Elena leaves in a huff with Mateo on Skylar… accidentally stranding Naomi in the middle of the jungle. She reads some other runes and realizes that they need a disempowering spell to stop the Chiki-Chiki. He steals Elena's scepter in the marketplace. She gets it back when Naomi lassos him before he can put the laughing spell on her. Naomi says the disempowering spell, which gets rid of the Chiki-Chiki's powers and the laughing spell on everyone else. Chatana and Pili see them take him away. Ash and Esteban show up, and she agrees to join them to get her golden diadem back and rule Vallestrella forever. Pili says that Ash is clearly evil… but Esteban is even worse, and he agrees. Naomi throws the Chiki-Chiki back into the vault and seals it. She tries to catch Vee before she leaves, but by the time she gets back to the harbor, she's already left. She sees her hat and a note for her at her house though, which says that Vee is leaving it behind for when she's ready to be the captain. I originally thought that the episode was going to end here and lead into another one (seriously, that shot of Naomi, alone, with the hat and the three birds flying into the sunset is gorgeous and full of underlying implications and symbolism), but there are still a few more… let's just say, big scenes… and they're quite a doozy to get through. I like to imagine that the three birds represent Elena, Mateo, and Gabe fulfilling their true potential and either already have or are actively trying to achieve their dreams, whereas Naomi is not, like she's stuck in place, on the ground. Anyway, Naomi shows up at the palace to talk to Elena. She tells her that she was right to be upset with her. Being on the grand council is a big responsibility, and by joining it, she was making a promise to show up whenever duty called. But today she learned that… she doesn't want that responsibility anymore. I'm sorry, what? She resigns from the grand council, and when asked why, shows Elena the letter she wrote to herself when she was a kid. She still wants to sail the seas, explore the world, and blaze her own trail, so she's leaving Avalor. She promises to come back someday, and write until then. Elena tells her that this isn't goodbye, it's just so long for now. Tears well up in Naomi's eyes, but she says that they'll always be best friends forever, and no amount of time or distance could change that. Elena gives her a ship. The shot even parallels a moment earlier in the episode when Vee gestured towards her own ship when she told Naomi that it was never too late to make her dream come true. It might even be the royal sailboat, which Naomi has already been the unofficial captain of. When the girls hug though, Elena looks sad, but it soon fades to Naomi looking ecstatic as she sets out by herself on new horizons. I don't know how to feel after a shot like that. I'm sad for Elena, not happy for Naomi. She had only appeared in episodes 1, 5, 6, 8, and 15 before this, and she didn't speak in episode 8 and was under mind control for most of episode 15. The most focus she had was a subplot in episode 5 that she shared with Gabe, despite the two being physically apart for most of that episode. Why should I feel sad about a character leaving when they inevitably come back a little while later, because status quo? Plus, I don't feel as big of an attachment to Naomi or Gabe as I do to Elena, Isabel, or Mateo, due to their character development basically stopping during this season, probably for multiple reasons. Why should I care about a character that hasn't had an essential role in the main overarching plot since the season 2 finale from June 2019? This episode originally aired on November 22nd, 2019, and it was only because they had already bombed the first half of season 3 in just three weeks. Every time I remember what it felt like to watch this episode live, I get a headache, as well as a craving for anti-pain medication.

## Review

I personally didn't like this episode, but if you did, that's fine. A few things in particular just *really* upset me. I don't like that our heroes didn't learn about Chatana or that they were responsible for freeing her. That's probably just my love of angst talking though. They didn't even interact with Esteban and Ash. The villains barely appeared in this episode at all. I also didn't like how little Vee appeared in the episode, especially since she's the catalyst for Naomi's big and controversial decision. I want to like it and be happy for her, but like Luna, she's also being written off the show rather unceremoniously in my eyes, except she's a main character, and her leaving has (or at least it should have had) much larger ramifications for the overall story moving forward, or at least on the rest of the characters. For one thing, I think it's really selfish of her to leave right now, because she *knows* that Esteban and Ash are still out there. She's the only reason they stopped Ash the first time! Without her, Elena would've died! And then who knows what would have happened to Avalor, Cariza, or the other imprisoned characters? I also think that her farewell could've been saved for a later episode to give it more weight and pomp. Her parents and Gabe don't appear in the episode. They're not even mentioned. Speaking of which, I guess now we'll never get to see her new potential romantic relationship with Gabe develop, at least onscreen. Plus, I just don't buy that this is truly what she wants now. She already mentioned in season 1 that she's traveled all around the world. Why can't she just be the captain of her own ship around or near Avalor or a nearby kingdom, like Cordoba or Paraíso? Great, now I'm imagining how Naomi would interact with a pre-character development Alonso. Now *that* would be absolutely hilarious. Just three years ago, she and Elena tried everything to get her family to stay in Avalor. She outright said that she never felt like she had a home until she came there, but now she feels more at home on the ocean. Uh, what? That's a complete contradiction of her character. I know she's technically still a teenager or young adult, and no matter what age someone is, what they want can change on a dime, and they can even do a complete 180º, and they might not even know what they want and just do what they think is expected of them, but still! When has Naomi ever done something like that, aside from a joke during season 2? So, who's going to replace her on the grand council? Julio is the Magister of Trade, Carmen is running Café Angelica, Mateo is the royal wizard, advisor to the royal guard, *and* Olivia's teacher; Gabe is the captain of the guard, and Isabel is probably either too young, too busy with school and her inventions, or simply not interested. The only characters I can think of are either Rafa, or possibly Victor or Carla if the writers actually went forward with a redemption episode for them. After all, they arguably know Ash and evil Esteban best. It ended up being Julio, but this was never relevant to the plot. He only showed up twice. I wonder if it was the best idea to also make this episode plot related? Now you have *three* big name guest stars, but they barely get any screen time. At least Chatana and Pili show up later as villains, but Vee is gone for good, which is too bad, since I actually do really like her character. I was wondering if the episode would be a role reversal of what Elena and Naomi went through in "A Spy in the Palace", but that obviously didn't happen. Nor did any of my other predictions, like Vee being jealous of Elena and Naomi's friendship and deliberately trying to break them up to get her former best friend back in her life, or working for the villains. That last one was pretty farfetched though. Also, this is totally a personal me problem, but the end of the episode dragged up some really bad memories for me about former friends. I didn't cry or have a panic attack, but it came a little too close for comfort, and it gave me a migraine. Still, I guess that's one way to have a memorable episode. Make it super traumatic for your audience so they'll play it on a loop in their head for *four to five hours straight*, hence the headache! So yeah, this episode wasn't for me, but maybe I'll change my mind if they give it more development. Naomi has to return for her best friend's coronation, right? I did once again love how the typical moral of an episode like this was subverted though. That's honestly how I thought it was going, and then, wham! This time the surprise felt more like getting punched in the face though. And then kicked in the ribs while I was down. And then being stabbed through the right shoulder. And the heart. And like my trachea was being slowly crushed. And like my head was going to explode from the pressure. And then it was slammed into a mirror. Like General Ironwood in RWBY, I'm not very good at speech outros, so… yeah. Hasta luego, mis amigos.