World of Winx S1 E2

## Plot

*Winx Club, we are the magic sparkles of li–i–ight We are the Winx Club We've got the power We're gonna shi–i–ine Winx Club, we are the magic sparkles of li–i–ight We are magical friends We can sing, we can dance There's a party inside our hearts when we're together Winx Club We've got the power We're gonna shi–i–ine Rising up to the sky We can fight, we can fly There's a fire inside our hearts when we're together* I… actually really like that theme song. Besides, it's Netflix, so if you don't like it, you can always skip it. The end credits song is good too. Bloom has a dream about Annabelle and a bunch of other teenagers. They're wandering around a forest, being chased by shadows. They're stuck on some sort of dreary island. Annabelle mentions her earring and runs away. Bloom tries to follow her and wakes up. She tells the other girls about it. She, Flora, and Tecna pretend to be sick so they can look for Annabelle while Stella, Musa, and Aisha pretend to be talent scouts on camera who actually know what they're doing. They say that Annabelle is fine, but she won't be back on the show. Musa pretends to be a talented actress named Myria. No one likes her. Wouldn't it make more sense for her to be a singer or musician? Then again, Stella is the one who came up with this plan, so I guess I should expect it to be stupid and not make any sense. Evans and Gomez are two undercover detectives that are investigating Annabelle's disappearance. They suspect that the Winx have something to do with it and follow them. Luckily, Gomez is incompetent and easily distracted, and Evans focuses too much on disguises and never actually blends in. Bloom, Flora, and Tecna go back to the cafe. Bloom draws a picture of the earring, and thinks that it's a clue, since Annabelle was only wearing one. Remember how I complained about how the girls disregarded Louise and her feelings in the previous episode? Well, now Flora finally notices her and sees her crying in the kitchen. She wasn't BFFs with Annabelle or anything, but she never wanted or expected her to vanish. She's not taking her disappearance very well. She's sad, scared, and worried; and blames herself for what happened. Flora comforts her and promises that they'll find Annabelle and bring her back. She gets her to help them, and they ask her about Annabelle's earrings. Louise tells them that she gave Annabelle the earrings, and that they were her good luck charms. She had them on the night of her performance. The Winx plan to meet up at the Frutti Music Bar, and Evans and Gomez follow them. The girls investigate Annabelle's dressing room. They get a message from Roxy about Evans and Gomez. They find the missing earring, along with the dust found at the previous crime scenes from the talent thief. A portal suddenly opens and transports the girls to the island from Bloom's dream. They earn a new transformation: Dreamix, which looks amazing and has a beautiful theme. Unlike the main series, they don't need to say an incantation to transform or perform spells. They find Annabelle and return her earring. They admit that they're fairies and they're here to rescue her. She takes it surprisingly well. Seriously, why is it so important that the world doesn't know that they're fairies in this universe? Anyways, they're attacked by their own shadows, but the girls use their new powers to fight back. Even the magic effects are better animated here. Literally almost everything about this show is better than the main one, story included, even though it technically cheats and skimps on that, but I'll get into that later. They reach the portal, but discover that Annabelle can't go through. The last thing she remembers was the sand making her tired, and then she woke up on the island. They try using the sand on her, but that still doesn't work. She disappears, and the magical blast sends the Winx through the portal, which closes. *This is the magical, wonderful world of Winx It's time for magic to shine and glow Open up your heart, take my hand and we Will be friends till the end We're in the magical, wonderful world of Winx This life is beautiful, can't you see? We're together Friends forever This is the magic of Winx!*

## Review

Okay, so I feel like I have to talk about something kind of awkward. Something that I really don't want to talk about, and not just because I don't think I'm the best person to talk to about something like this. But I'm going to try and talk about it anyways. It was something that I didn't notice until closer inspection of the character models in season 8 of the main show. Flora and Aisha's skin tones have been lightened, and even Aisha's hair has been lightened to a chestnut brown color, instead of her regular dark brown color, which was also carried over to the main continuity. So… yeah. Whitewashing… Flora honestly looks white to me now. That's unfortunate at best, downright racist at worst. I don't think it was intentional this time, but still… They could've at least tweaked the art style for season 2 of this show, or season 8 of the main show. They certainly would've had the time. If the animators at Disney can darken Tiana's skin for the actual film after receiving criticism in the trailers, then they can do the same thing for the main show in four years. I get that Italy's population is probably very different compared to the U.S., but Flora's inspiration was Jennifer Lopez, and Aisha's was Beyoncé. Musa's was Lucy Liu, who I love. Tecna was based on the singer Pink. Stella's inspiration was Cameron Diaz. According to Wikipedia, she was an actress and a model who retired in 2014. Let me repeat that. She was able to retire… before she was 45 years old. My paternal grandmother worked into her 70s. It was mostly because she wanted to, but still. The only reason my maternal grandfather retired early is because he had cancer. Seriously Hollywood elite, what the fuck? I have a few choice words for you about income inequality, among *many* other things. Anyway, Bloom's appearance was apparently inspired by Britney Spears, her personality by Joanne Lee; the executive producer of *Winx Club* and Iginio Straffi's wife, and her story was supposedly inspired by an adopted girl Straffi knew named Antonella whose greatest wish was to know who her biological parents were. And yes, the term is biological, not real. Just because you're genetically related to someone doesn't make them family. I hate that no matter how much I watch it, this show seems determined to spread such a backwards message to children. And the live action show is even worse, even though the first season hasn't even come out yet. They got rid of Tecna, whitewashed Flora and gave her a new name, whitewashed Musa and gave her different powers, the girls' clothes in the teaser trailer are ugly and color coded to their powers now instead of the colors of their first transformations: Light blue for Bloom, orange for Stella, light purple for Tecna, light and dark pink for Flora, red or magenta for Musa, and light green for Aisha/Layla. They're more like witches now with elemental powers than fairies. I don't like the new look of Alfea. I don't like that this "new world" is called the Otherworld. It just sounds so boring and unoriginal. It really does sound like they got partway through the *Tara Duncan* series and decided to rip things wholesale from it. The planets are gone. Now there are just seven realms on one planet. I know the number 7 is important in terms of magic, among many other things, but still. Alfea is apparently located in Solaria, which is connected to Erakylon. I don't mind that the actress for Flora, or rather "Terra", is plus size. I definitely don't mind that male fairies and female specialists will be things. Seriously, none of this is the fault of the actors. They were hired to do a job, and for many of them, this seems to be their first major role. If you want someone to blame, then blame the people who produced this, who wrote it, who cast these girls, and the costuming department for dressing them like that. The trailer is super dark and gritty, sometimes literally. It's basically the darker and edgier live action version of something lighter and nostalgic that was aimed at children in your youth, like *Riverdale* on the CW and *Sabrina*, also on Netflix, which the actress for Bloom had a role in. I don't like that the fairies will no longer have wings. I don't like that the names of almost all the Specialists have been changed. I can't even tell most of them apart. I just see a bunch of white guys with dark hair, one with blond hair meant to be Sky, and one token black character, like Aisha is now for the Winx. At least she wasn't whitewashed as well. There isn't even any colorism with her, since Precious Mustapha clearly has dark skin. I love her hair. I hate everything else about how the characters and the world look though. The whole thing just feels more supernatural than magical girl. Not to mention that Flora, the nature fairy, has now been whitewashed *three* separate times! Once in *World of Winx*, once in season 8 onward, and again in the live action show that I might end up "reviewing", if only to dissect how bad it is in more detail and see if there are any saving graces, like the acting or special effects. If you want a show that does justice to all sorts of Latin-American coded characters, then I recommend Elena of Avalor, a show where most of the characters, even the minor ones, are Hispanic coded, and the ones that aren't are usually from a different racial minority.