Echoes of the Past

"**Echoes of the Past**" is the third episode of the second season of *The Owl House*, and the twenty-second episode overall.

It premiered on June 26, 2021.

## Synopsis

*King's delusions of grandeur lead Luz, Lilith, and Hooty to a dangerous new island.*

## Plot

The episode starts with a flashback of a younger Eda in an unknown location, taking shelter in a temple from the boiling rain. Once inside, she hears something in the shadows, and demands that it reveal itself, only for the screen to cut to black as it does.

In the present, Luz and Lilith are in the living room of the Owl House, researching glyph combinations in hopes of uncovering new spells. King tries to get Luz's attention, saying that Francois is trying to start a rebellion. However, Luz says she's too busy, and announces that she has figured out how to cast an invisibility spell, albeit one that only works so long as she is holding her breath. King gets annoyed that no one is listening to him, to which Lilith stating that, as the lead historical scholar of the Emperor's Coven, she knows that demons were never united under a single rule until Belos became the Emperor of the Boiling Isles. King insists that he was the king of demons and recalls vague memories of his army, feasts worthy of a ruler, and falling from a massive height as an evil hex shrank him to the small critter he is now. Hooty points out that this contradicts the story about his crown of power, which King claims was merely a test to prove Eda and Luz's loyalty.

Lilith mocks the holes in King's story, causing him to leave the room in frustration. Luz tells Lilith and Hooty to leave King alone, as the story means a lot to King. However, determined to prove Lilith and Hooty wrong, King brings Eda and Lilith's staffs into the room and announces that they are going to his castle. Luz agrees to play along, as does Lilith, to prove King wrong. Lilith invites Hooty, who promptly removes himself from the door and places himself in a portable backpack, much to the horror and disgust of everyone else. King leaves a note for Eda before the group departs, and she promptly freaks out and follows them in her flying bathtub.

After flying for hours, Lilith suggests that they return home, as they have indulged King enough, only for them to discover an uncharted island hidden in a fog, much to their shock. According to King, it was where his castle is, and where Eda found him. Upon arrival, they discover a ruined tower hidden in the jungle. Inside the tower, they discover strange rock piles scattered everywhere, and the walls decorated with carvings of a mighty demon that somewhat resembles King, implying that King's stories could be true. Luz discovers a blocked up hole in the roof, which King can't remember where it leads to, although he did remember hearing a roar. Luz starts to get concerned and asks to go home, claiming that she's worried about Eda, but Lilith and Hooty start asking King questions, as they have started to believe him.

With everyone else distracted, Luz ventures deeper into the temple, and discovers a lot of strange creepy figures settled in the walls, spotting something heading back towards where the others are. Concerned, Luz suggests they leave immediately. King assures Luz that the figures can't hurt them, just as one crawls out of the darkness and attacks them with its shapeshifting flesh weapons. They try to escape, but the creature corners them at every turn. Luckily, Eda comes to the rescue and fights off the creature with her potions, allowing Luz, Lilith, King, and Hooty to escape. Eda gets injured, but makes it out of the tower. The creature tries to follow them, but is unable to, as it cannot survive outside the tower. They assume the creature is some kind of guard that is protecting the tower, which confuses King; If the tower belongs to him, why would the creature attack him as well? At this point, Eda decides to tell him the truth about how they met.

Eight years ago, Eda was on the run from the Emperor's Coven, and found her way to the island. She went into the tower to shelter from the boiling rain, and that was where she found King. Eda watched him stack rocks in the temple, and pet him as a reward. But then the creature attacked them and Eda took King home, during which King's horn was broken when the creature fired a makeshift arrow at Eda. Eda, under the assumption King was a kind of dog, gave him his collar and kept him as a pet. One day, Eda saw King stacking random items like the rocks in the tower, which looked like people. Eda commented that he looked like "a king amongst his subjects", making King wonder what a king was. Eda then told him what being a king meant, resulting in King getting the idea that he was a demon overlord, and Eda just played along with it. King at first does not believe it, but after Eda shows him his broken horn piece, the memories come back to him. His army and feasts were all just figments of his imagination when he was small. Devastated and unable to accept the truth, King runs away in tears.

Everyone feels bad for how they treated King, and split up to find him. Luz finds him sitting on a log on the beach. He is very hurt by the fact that everyone lied to him and was so caught up in his fantasy he did not realize it. He no longer knows what is real or fake. Luz, however, believes there is more. King also had a memory of falling and hearing a roar somewhere at the top of the tower, which wasn't one of the things Eda told him. Luz believes that is a real memory and encourages King to find out. Though reluctant, he agrees. They rejoin the others, and Eda apologizes to King. The two of them quickly make up, and head back to the tower for further investigation.

Lilith and Hooty distract the creature while Luz, Eda and King sneak in using Luz's new invisibility glyph. They unblock the hole in the ceiling using a fire glyph and Eda's potions, and the party flies to the top together. To their dismay, the top of the tower appears to only be empty space; the creature chases after them and has them cornered against the wall. King's paw print somehow activates a secret door, and they end up in a chamber filled with eggshell remains. All this appears familiar to King, and he asks Eda to give him his horn back. Placing it back on, King's memories flood back to him: he was inside the chamber's egg, and during his incubation, heard a deep roar and something happened, but he was too small to do anything, so he went back to sleep. When he woke up later, he hatched and was carried away by the tower's creature. King then states the roar he heard meant "son", indicating King had a father and the tower's murals were of him. As for the creature, it was actually King's guardian, and believed that everyone else was a threat. King manages to get it back under his command; with this revelation, King desperately wants to find his father, and Luz promises they will try. King then asks if they can bring the creature, who he names Jean-Luc, which they do, but it becomes motionless as soon as it leaves the temple.

After returning to the Owl House, Luz glues King's broken horn back on while King carves the tower's symbol onto his collar, believing it could be his name. With his status as "king of demons" nullified, King ponders if he should still be called King, but Luz assures him he will always be the king of her heart. Upon tucking him to bed, Luz then joins the Clawthorne sisters in the living room, assessing the discovery of the island. None of them are sure what this means, but they all agree to find out.

## Cast

* Sarah-Nicole Robles as Luz Noceda
* Wendie Malick as Eda Clawthorne
* Alex Hirsch as King and Hooty
	+ Dana Terrace as Young King
* Cissy Jones as Lilith Clawthorne

## Trivia

* **Viewership:** This episode was watched by 0.33 viewers on its premiere.
* This episode has the shortest cast list in the entire series, with the main cast being the only ones present.
* Lilith addresses Luz by her name for the first time.
* This is the only episode where Lilith addresses to Hooty by his actual name instead of just referring to him as "Hootsifer".
* This is the first episode in the series where no usage of spell circles can be seen.
* Hooty deepens his voice when speaking for the first time.
* The secret message for this episode is found on the box in Eda's flashback, and it translates to "and".
* Aside from a photo cameo in "Through the Looking Glass Ruins" and a flashback in "Yesterday's Lie", this is the last episode where Eda wears her original outfit.

### Revelations and significant events

* Luz creates her fifth glyph, an invisibility spell.
* Lilith reveals that before Belos, there was no one who could rightfully claim to rule over all of demon-kind (i.e. a Demon King never existed in the first place).
* Hooty is able to leave his hole in the door, but not without leaving some veins and guts behind (since the house is a part of his body).
* A lot about the background of King is revealed, including:
	+ He is a descendant from an ancient line of demons unknown to witches.
	+ He is approximately and implicitly around eight years old.
	+ Eda found him eight years ago on a mysterious, uncharted island while escaping from the Emperor's Coven, and took him with her to the Owl House.
	+ He got his name and the idea of being or having been a demon overlord from Eda.
	+ King was born with his skull mask.
	+ He hatched from an egg.
	+ In King's flashback, King mentions he remembers a loud roar, which according to him, meant "son".
	+ King's horn shattered when the creature attacked him and Eda when they escaped. Eda kept King's broken horn without his knowledge.
		- At the end of the episode, Luz glues King's broken horn back onto the stump on his skull mask.
* The creature from the mysterious island is a guardian for King's egg. It is named Jean-Luc by King and comes to live in the Owl House with him.
	+ It appears that Jean-Luc is magically tied to the castle he was placed to guard and will cease to function once out of its magical barrier, since it can’t follow beyond. After being taken away to the Owl House, it remained lifeless.

### Continuity

* King's representation as "King of Demons" shown in "A Lying Witch and a Warden" is seen again. Furthermore, the Crown of Power from the aforementioned episode is confirmed not to be magical at all.
* Luz's magic resistant cape from "Young Blood, Old Souls" returns.
* The propeller-bathtub Eda used in "Separate Tides" reappears.
	+ Furthermore, the idea of everyone "drawing faces" on Hooty mentioned in that episode is referenced by Hooty himself, who shows off the graffiti on his body.

## Allusions

* ***Isle of the Dead*** - The design of the uncharted island resembles Arnold Böcklin's famous painting, "Isle of the Dead".
* ***Berserk*** - The design of the large spear-wielding figure depicted in the murals is a nod to Nosferatu Zodd.

## Errors

* After King, Luz, Eda and Lilith push the door to King's hatchery closed and sit panting for a moment, the bottom left side of King's skull is mistakenly colored the same dark gray as his body for the remainder of the shot.

## Videos

Echoes of the Past - The Owl House - Disney Channel AnimationOwl House S2 OST — Ep.3 "Echoes From The Past" Music Suite-2
## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Disney Television Animation [@DisneyTVA] (May 17, 2021). "#TheOwlHouse is back and the new episodes are flying in soon to #DisneyChannel Catch all-new episodes on Saturdays in June and July! #WatchOnDisneyChannel" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
2. ↑ "Echoes of the Past Concept 16".
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Metcalf, Mitch (June 29, 2021). "Top 150 Saturday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 6.26.2021". *Showbuzz Daily*.
4. ↑ Bosma, Sam [@sbosma] (July 1, 2021). "Oh and obviously the lefthand mural guy is a reference to the one and only Nosferatu Zodd from Berserk (rip Miura the GOAT)" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

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