Tangled: The Series S3 E16

## Plot

Zhan Tiri is in the mountain where the remains of the Demanitus weather machine are, and gloats to him that soon, the sundrop and the moonstone will both be hers. She's set a plan into motion to make sure their human hosts' formerly inseparable bond remains broken, so it doesn't interfere when the time comes for her to take their powers. Two boys explore Gothel's old cottage, but run away when they think they see her ghost. The next morning, one of the boys, Seth, tells Rapunzel about it, and she and Pascal go investigate. It turns out that Gothel's "ghost" is just a wax figure of her. Clearly someone wanted people to think that Gothel's "ghost" was hiding here. The only question is, why? Cass reveals herself to Rapunzel, wearing the same cloak that Gothel had on in her "flashback". Which is also the same cloak that the wax figure had on. Really? No one could make a new design for either one of them? Cass heard from her "friend" that there were suspicious things going on here. Rapunzel tries to tell her that the little girl is Zhan Tiri, but Cass draws her sword and tells her that she doesn't belong here. They fight, and Rapunzel asks Cass if she's fighting her, or herself. She takes her sword and asks if they can talk about this. Cass hears the music box playing, and yells that she's through waiting. However, the large black rocks that she creates turn the house sideways, and sends them both into a secret underground area. They ride a mine cart into a section of caves. Cass tries to attack Rapunzel with a black rock, but that just collapses the exit, so now they're stuck under a mountain. Rapunzel tries to tell her that they'll get out sooner if they work together, so she offers her a temporary truce, but Cass refuses. If she tries to use the black rocks to force her way through, then she could bring the whole mountain down on both of them. Plus, the rocks made rifts in the floor, which are leaking poison gas. Nothing good comes out of a rift. Cass finds a hole and starts climbing up it, and she tells Rapunzel that there's no bond between them anymore, so she's going to have to go a different direction. There's no other way out though, so Rapunzel follows her. Cass sees a giant mole, but it doesn't attack her. She almost falls into a giant hole in the floor, but Rapunzel catches her. The mole comes back, so Cass accepts her hand back up. The music box falls out and makes noise though, and when the giant mole yells, it wakes up giant bats, who attack them, along with the mole. Pascal is able to shove the music box in Rapunzel's bag and save her from the bats. Cass is able to send the giant mole down the hole, which it survives because it's huge. Besides, it has giant tunnels down there too. Rapunzel makes her hair glow to get rid of the bats, but their eyes adjust quickly, so she and Cass hide behind a door. Cass finally accepts a temporary truce, but only until they can get out of here. Rapunzel agrees, but only if she promises to not be mean. She makes a torch and they look around the room. It's full of drawings and notes on the sundrop and the moonstone, and the healing incantation. It's also full of mirrors. They notice that one is missing. When they touch the others, they play back recordings of Gothel. Pascal is so scared that he backs into a table and accidentally spills a bottle of something green. The mirrors are magic, and can store images and then play them back. They're all of Gothel talking about how beautiful and young she looks, and all of the compliments she receives from others about herself. Rapunzel throws the torch into a fireplace. Cass finds a mirror where Gothel asks her to sweep quieter. Rapunzel tells her that's typical Gothel. She wasn't exactly the nurturing type… when she was around. Cass says she was never around for her, and sarcastically wonders why. Rapunzel once again tells her that she didn't **ask** to be taken from her parents by a madwoman, and all Gothel ever wanted from her was her hair. She didn't love either of them. Zhan Tiri is there, and puts the missing mirror, which is broken, inside Rapunzel's bag without her knowing. She tells Cass that the one good thing Gothel ever did was bring them together. Cass tells her that wasn't a good thing, but she says it was. Cass replies that maybe it was for her. Rapunzel asks her if she actually thinks that Gothel cared about anyone but herself. She looks at another mirror, which shows Gothel snapping at her to make them dinner. Rapunzel says they have something in common that no one else could ever understand. Cass finally notices the flammable liquid heading towards the fire and saves Rapunzel from an explosion. Unfortunately, it opened up more rifts, and the poison gas is also flammable, so they hide behind a mirror. Cass says they've dealt with worse, and they briefly reminisce about past adventures. Cass even smiles! They see that the bats have already found a way out. They still have to deal with the giant mole though. Rapunzel sees another mine cart. They can ride it out of there. Cass can shoot a black rock at it. She brings up what Rapunzel said about the mountain coming down on them, and Rapunzel points out that she only said that *could* happen, not that it would. Plus, Cass already used more black rocks to save her. Also, Cass called Rapunzel Raps again, but told her not to read into it. She stops the giant mole from following them with black rocks. They reach a dead end, and Rapunzel is able to get them out of the mine cart with help from Cass. She drops her bag though, and the mirror slides out of it. They can get out of the mountain with some black rock help, but then Cass notices the mirror and thinks Rapunzel took it. She plays it, and it's the moment Gothel gave her the music box. Gothel shows her how to wind it, and tells her to think of her whenever she hears this tune, and the love she has for her. Rapunzel tells her that she has no idea how the mirror got in her bag, and she's never seen it before. Cass doesn't believe her, and is furious and deeply upset that she apparently stole the one mirror showing that Gothel had a shred of affection for her. She leaves, and collapses the mountain back on Rapunzel, trapping her there with the poison gas and leaving her to die. I've already talked quite a bit about my confusion towards Cass's motivations. Is it just to kill Rapunzel so she can't upstage her anymore? Because there were plenty of times she could've done that in late season 2, *and* made it look like an accident, allowing her to claim the moonstone by herself with no opposition, except for King Edmund. Also, did she come up with the idea to steal the moonstone herself, or is that yet another thing that Zhan Tiri told her to do, and she just did it without questioning anything like an idiot? Seriously, *why* does she blame Rapunzel for something that happened to her while she was a baby, meaning she obviously had no say in it? Plus, Cass acts in this episode like she was forced to be friends with Rapunzel, and while she was forced to essentially babysit her, after they became friends, she wasn't constantly super annoyed at Rapunzel's cheerfulness or positivity or anything else she did. Also, Cass is still an idiot. You and Rapunzel entered the mirror room at the same time! How could Rapunzel have had the time to find the mirror, play it without you seeing or hearing it, and then hide it? And why don't you question why it's broken? Anyway, Pascal turns the music box to summon the giant mole to them. He breaks out of the mountain, but then leaves because the sunlight hurts his eyes. Rapunzel wakes up and thanks Pascal, a.k.a her real best friend, for saving her. She's realized that Cass is more lost than she thought, but promises, yet again, to never give up on her. She's sounding like a broken record at this point, like Lloyd constantly trying to make Harumi turn good, her trying to constantly turn him evil, and him refusing to trust his father and give him even one chance, which makes him a hypocrite. All of this occurs in the second half of the final season of Ninjago. At the very least, this makes Rapunzel a better person than me, or at least a more patient and forgiving one, because at this point, fuck your so called best friend/sister. She doesn't deserve you or your unconditional love and forgiveness. She dug her own damn grave, and it's about time you let her lay in it already. Cass returns to the tower, and tells Zhan Tiri that she was right, Rapunzel did know that Gothel loved her. However, the mirror is missing a shard, which Zhan Tiri throws into the forest down below. It contains the end of the memory, which reveals that Gothel thought Cass was an annoying, lousy little pest, and only gave her the music box to get her out of her hair for awhile. I honestly can't really blame her.