Sonic Prime, Episode 3.01: Grim Tidings

Sonic Prime, Episode 3.01: Grim Tidings

Original Release Date: January 5th, 2024

2024 is still young and we are already awash in new "Sonic" content. There was a time when a monthly comic book, the occasional new game, and a rerun of an old cartoon show was all we hedgehog fans had to tide ourselves over with. This year alone, the series is getting a new game, a new movie, and a live action TV, a first for the franchise. This is in addition to comics still being regularly published and an even flow of cool new merch. Like friggin' Legos! In 2024, you can go to Target and buy "Sonic" Lego sets! Truly, what a time to be alive.

The first wave in this deluge of new "Sonic" stuff is the final batch of "Sonic Prime" episodes. Netflix is treating this as the "third season," even though I'm pretty sure all of "Prime" was produced at once and was broken up into releasable chunks. At least the streaming giant is actually bothering to promote the show, sticking the first episode of the final round up on YouTube for free. Considering Netflix dumps most of their shows and movies on the platform and barely tells anyone, it's nice to know they hold some value in the "Sonic" property. Or maybe "Sonic" is one of those names that generate their own hype, thanks to an obsessive fandom that never stops talking about it on social media. Neither way, I have a new chunk of "Prime" to bitch about now. Let's get to it. 

"Grim Tidings" begins with a lengthy recaps of "Prime's" events up to now. Which is useful, as I had forgotten a lot about it. After saying "screw you guys, I'm going home" and exiting Ghost Hill with the Paradox Prism, Nine arrives in the barren wasteland that is the Grim. He immediately uses the crystals to begin his plan of turning this world into his version of the ideal world. This has the unforeseen side effect of causing Ghost Hill to collapse in on itself. Sonic and Shadow narrowly escape to the spaces between, before heading to the Grim to confront Nine. The fox doesn't take this intrusion very kindly, sending his horde of newly created robotic henchmen on the hedgehogs. Nine soon realizes that the final piece of the Paradox Prism – needed to keep all the worlds, the Grim included, from tearing themselves apart – resides in Sonic himself. This makes our speedy hero, the guilt on his shoulders already being a heavy burden, the target of Nine's scheme. 

Over the course of "Prime's" first two seasons, Nine has emerged as one of the deeper characters. Much to my consternation, most of the cast members have been loosely defined variations on Sonic's established friends, with an easily grasped gimmick like "pirate" or "jungle primitive" latched onto them. Nine, at the very least, has an interesting angle to explore. He's an edgy, emo version of Tails that doesn't want to have friends but feels drawn to Sonic anyway. Yet that need to be a self-reliant loner, born out of years of being isolated and afraid, has put him at odds with his new buddy. Sonic never gives up hope. Nine already gave up hope years ago. Now his teenage angst has potentially doomed the whole universe, his insular focus on creating a more perfect world hastening the ShatterVerse's collapse. 

If "Prime" was a show that actually took the time to develop its characters and really delve into what drives them, all of this could be really interesting. Instead, this is a show with a pattern of people abruptly switching sides. Thorn went from nice to angry with little explanation. Dread and his crew became assholes the second Sonic didn't bring them the crystal they wanted. Nine's shift towards apparent villainy similarly feels like it lacks nuance. Within the show itself, these guys were working together, like, an hour ago. Now Nine has gone maniacal with power and is siccing his minions on Sonic. There's enough wiggle room here for Nine's motivations to be as complicated as they could be. Yet, given what this show has done already, I'm doubtful this will be the case. Nine will be acting like a one-note bad guy now, not because it makes sense for his character but because it's what is needed to push the overall narrative along. 

The truth is... How can I expect “prime” to have any depth to its characters or storytelling when it can even keep the rules of its own universe straight? When Nine starts terraforming the Grim, a new robot version of Sonic appears. After Sonic and Shadow thrash the so-called “Grim Sonic,” Nine then summons Grim versions of Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, and Birdie. One assumes that these are the corresponding versions of these characters for this world... But if that's the case, why is there a Grim version of Sonic? None of the other dimensions in the ShatterVerse have a version of Sonic. And why can Shadow entered the Grim and Ghost Hill but not the other realms? Was that explain at some point and I just forgot something? Or is this entire affair running on some loosely defined magic here? Normally, this kind of shit wouldn't matter because you'd be invested in the heroes and their conflicts. Yet I'm sure noticing it in this case. 

If “Grim Tidings” has any sort of emotional core at all, it's not between Sonic and Nine. Instead, Sonic and Shadow proved to be the power couple here. “Prime” has been inconsistent about Sonic and Shadow's relationship. It has really seemed like, in most of their interactions up to this point, Shadow has just wanted to beat Sonic's ass. Yet the so-called Ultimate Lifeform does care about his blue counterpart. In the final minutes of this episode, he tosses Sonic out of the Grim once it becomes apparent that Nine and his forces are after Sonic's Prism powers. I suppose you could debate why Shadow does this. Maybe he just wants to undo the mess Sonic created and realizes he needs Sonic to do that. Or maybe the two hedgehogs are secretly in love and their fighting and bickering is just how they express their sexual longing for one another. With shows like this, you have to speculate. 

Making these kind of complaint almost seems besides the point by now. “Sonic Prime” is about the actions. The fight scenes are the moments in this episode that the animators clearly lavished the most time on. There's lots of elaborate shots, with what would be fancy camera movements in a live action film. The sequence of Sonic and Shadow outrunning the tide of Ghost Hill turning all purple and shattered would make for a bitchin' video game level, especially when they are leaping across the debris as it floats up through the air. The fights with the Grim robots are similarly elaborate. Honestly, they are starting to be too elaborate. The way Grim Amy swings her hammer around reminds me of the lightsaber duels in the “Star Wars” prequels, where everyone is clearly just showing off with balletic movements. Instead of just performing focused strikes like they actually would in, ya know, a combat scenario. It looks cool but at what cost, know what I mean? 

Heading into the last swarth of “Prime” episodes, it seems my opinion on this show is mostly unchanged. There's so much potential to this multiverse premise but the show seems uninterested in exploring that outside some specific confines. Moreover, there's this stubborn refusal to allow the characters to grow any, making “Prime” constantly feel like it's being dumbed-down for the simplest of audience. And kids deserve better than that. “Sonic” fans too. As for “Grim Tidings,” it has some cool action and one or two interesting moment that I increasingly feel like will not be followed up on in any especially compelling way. [6/10]