You Will Need Your Tissues for ‘The Owl House’ Return
Disney Channel’s original series The Owl House has returned briefly to make you cry and set things up for the final confrontation between Team Bad Girl Coven & Emperor Belos.
The Owl House is the Peabody Award-winning series about an Afro-Dominican teenager named Luz who ends up in the Demon Realm and encounters creatures, but most importantly, witches. She befriends an outlaw witch, Eda, and ends up becoming part of a centuries-long conflict in the making between witches and witch hunters. It is also very gay, with Luz being canonically bisexual and dating a lesbian character in Amity. It is the first Disney property to feature a same-sex couple in leading roles, a same-sex kiss involving main characters, and non-binary characters—that’s right, more than one.
Despite intense fandom, critical acclaim, and awards, Disney canceled it. Now, it will conclude with three 45-minute episodes. The first aired on October 15, and the rest will come out in 2023.
Spoilers for The Owl House season three episode one, “Thanks to Them.”
Last we saw our heroes, the Day of Unity had just narrowly been prevented by King making a deal with the Collector. Due to being chaotic neutral thus far, the actions of the Collector were only going to make them control of the Boiling Isles. To protect his friends, King sends Luz, Amity, Willow, Gus, and Hunter to the Human Realm. They are taken in by Luz’s mother, Camilla, who tries to keep the found family together. We get a montage of Luz coming out to her mom, the demon Vee creating a new human identity, and everyone else trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Luz and Hunter are both tormented about their past. Luz realizes that in her protagonist eagerness, she accidentally set Belos’ plans in motion. Hunter struggles with being a clone of a Grimwalker and what that means about his connection to the Emperor. Mixed in with recentering our young characters, we also get a lot more insight into Camilla as a mother. When the series started, we saw Camilla sending Luz to a camp that would give her structure. However, we are given a dream flashback that shows Camilla has always supported Luz’s oddness, but society pushed her into feeling shame about that, especially as a single mother. Much like Goofy in A Goofy Movie, she is just a parent trying to take care of her kid.
Amity, Willow, Gus, and Hunter decide to help Luz by finding more leads in the human world to find their way back to their realm. They find a hidden map and eventually head to the Gravesfield Historical Society, Masha, the new curator, tells them the map is a riddle. After decoding, they discover that it is a map of the remaining Titan’s Blood, which will allow them to travel between realms.
Amity decides to surprise Luz with this information after they attend the Halloween Festival. While there, Masha delivers some important info drops: the story of the Wittebane brothers.
Philip (who will become Belos) and Caleb were orphans who came to Gravesfield and became witch hunters. Caleb met and fell in love with a witch named Evelyn, and followed her to the Demon Realm. Phillip went to get his brother back, but never returned.
Hunter has another vision of Belos and tells Luz about the Titan’s Blood and, with their combined guilt, they go to the swamp together following the map. Luz realizes that her glyph magic is working again as they get closer to Titan’s Blood, but Belos takes over Hunter’s body and tries to kill Luz and tries to destroy Hunter’s palisman, Flapjack.
Team Hero arrives and fights Belos.
Hunter regains control over his body long enough to throw the vial with the Titan’s Blood into the water, but Belos makes him go in after it. Belos then reforms outside of Hunter’s body and leaves him for dead. Camila arrives in time to rescue Hunter from drowning, but he is still mortally wounded, and therefore, sweet, beautiful Flapjack sacrifices himself to revive Hunter.
Reader, I sobbed. The voice acting in this episode was already so good, and this, in particular, was exemplary.
Luz finally reveals to her friends that she met Philip in the past and accidently helped in his plans. Before she can beat herself up too much, Camila says she will join them in the Demon Realm to stop Belos. Everyone begins to return, with Vee staying behind to keep up appearances. Camila takes Luz’s hand, and they go through the portal together ready to kick ass. Belos will learn when the sandals come off.
Dana Terrace, the creator of The Owl House, has spoken openly about how the show has been cut down despite its massive successes as a franchise. “They just wanted to be done with TOH and this was the perfect chance to do that. Even getting the consolation season 3 episodes was difficult, apparently. Hard to say, I wasn’t allowed to be a part of any conversations until I was just… Told. Wasn’t even allowed to present my case,” she said in a Reddit Ask Me Anything, according to Digital Spy.
Giving them three episodes to wrap up a planned 20 episodes of stuff is why so many things are crammed into this episode. Yet, it still works, and now it is even gayer with pronouns, asexual flags on characters, and Luz sporting a bi flag on her hat. If the show is going to end early, then it’s gonna be gay as hell.
Also, the fictional Stark Trek fan books that Camila keeps in the basement are such a fun great touch, and shoutout to the audience of older gay folks watching the show.
(featured image: Disney)
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