Sonic Prime, Episode 3.06: The Devil is in the Tails

Sonic Prime, Episode 3.06: The Devil is in the Tails

Original Release Date: January 11th, 2024

As "Sonic Prime" heads into its final act, the story remains more-or-less in the same place. Sonic's friends and enemies-turned-temporary-allies continue to fight off Nine's army of Grim robots. The ShatterVerse continues to teeter on the edge of total annihilation. Nine remains single-minded in his goal of capturing Sonic and draining the last bit of Paradox Prism energy from him, even as his own resilience and supply of magical power begins to run out. Sonic continues to hold out hope he can reason with Nine. The episode ends in basically the same spot it begins, with Sonic and Nine dueling for the fate of the multi-verse. 

Nine's character arc had a lot of potential. The idea of an alternate universe version of Tails that isn't Sonic's friend but his enemy is loaded with possibilities. Nine progressing from teaming up with the hedgehog to standing against him, due to irreconcilable goals, could've been – and rarely was – compelling. Sadly, "Prime" has reduced Nine more and more to a shallow bad guy. All he cares about is protecting the Grim and making it his perfect world. His character development has essentially stagnated all throughout season three of "Prime." And as the show speed towards its end point, it's becoming increasingly clear that the writers really don't have anything else planned for Nine. A potentially promising character has been reduced to an ultimately quite boring adversary. 

This speaks to a flaw that's become abundantly apparent as the last third of "Prime" has gone on. There's really not much story left at this point, is there? The War of the Grim and the final battle for the ShatterVerse has gone on for the last three episodes. In that time, we've seen the good guys fall and get back up again, as they fight off and wreck endless waves of Grin robots. And this episode just keeps doing that! You know a show has gone astray when the villain's forces regroup and march forward again and your response isn't "Oh no!" But "Oh for fuck's sake, not this again!" "The Devil is in the Tails" tries to add some novelty to its increasingly repetitive action scenes. Sonic discovers he has a unique ability in the Grim, his shoes able to generate little platforms that can act as shields as well. Commander Knocks and Shadow both get big damn hero moments, leaping from the sky to provide powerful blows against the enemy. Yet it's all really just the same thing happening again and again, with minor variations. 

In fact, this entire episode is very repetitive. Nine says the word "energy" so often that I could mistake him for a new age pseudo-scientist on "Ancient Aliens." The fox absorbs more power from the Prism and blasts it into his robot minions, until the forces are exhausted and he has to do it again. Sonic tries to reach out to his former friend to no avail, before finally realizing he's beyond hope. The dome around Nine's Citadel shrinks but never seems to close in. Once again, I'll draw a comparison to a video game. This feels like playing the last level of a game, getting close to completing it, only to get killed and start back over at the checkpoint. And anybody who has done that knows this is usually the point where a video game goes from being fun to being monotonous and frustrating. You keep playing more because you just want to get this over with, not because you're enjoying the experience anymore. Not a great feeling for a TV show to invoke! 

In-between these repetitive sequences, the show attempts to wrap up character arcs. In the middle of the fight, Jack SepticEye's O.C. points out to Dread that they can swoop in and grab the Paradox Prism while everyone is fighting. Since his obsession with that rock is Dread's only real personality trait, he goes along with it. That's until he sees Black Rose struggling on the battle field and decides to help her instead. It seems Dread has learned the value of friendship, instead of being driven by his greed and lust for power alone. He even gives Rose his hat. In a show that actually spent some time showing Dread growing closer to his crew while fighting beside them, this would've been a powerful and earned moment. In "Prime," it just feels like the show deciding Dread should learn this lesson and going ahead with it, without really setting up any growth or change for him. You know, it's like the writers realized they couldn't devoted these last two episodes just with fight scenes, so they decided to throw this in to fill time. The conclusion to a character's arc feeling more like something the show throws in to pad out the run time, and less like an organic pay-off to everything we've seen with this guy up to now, is not a good thing. 

This episode does something similar with Rusty Rose, to slightly better results. She has a stand-off with the Grim robot version of Amy Rose, revealing before the struggle that she has a pink Flicky inside her like all of Eggman's other badniks. Rusty fighting off her fully robotic copy represents her self-actualizing as a fully independent being, not a machine that only takes orders. (Like the entity she fights off.) Unlike Dread, Rusty actually has shown gradual growth over the series. She's clearly a character that "Prime's" team was more invested in and that showed. Having her fight off a Grim Amy feels sort of random. The Grim Amy Roses are just drones, with no purpose or personality of their own. If Rusty had some sort of on-going rivalry with Grim Amy Alpha, this fight would've had more meaning. It does feel like the show randomly deciding to give this fight more importance than all the other times Rusty trashed a robotic copy of herself. But, because we care more about her, this moment is still the highlight of the episode.

It's clear that "Prime" is trying to generate moments that will make fans cheer here. Knocks punching Nine or Shadow decimating Grim Sonic Alpha are treated like pay-offs we've been waiting ages for, even though these characters barely have any sort of pre-existing animosity. Another such moment doesn't lack oomph but instead backfires fully. When the enormous Big the Cat tank-hover thing gets back up, it's eventually reveal that the machine is being piloted by... Drum roll, please! ...Mangey and Sails. Yes, the two other versions of Tails survived and have been bidding their time the last two episodes. I'm not shocked that this kids' show undid the apparent death of two characters. I've been waiting for that reveal, honestly. It still feels like "Prime" lacking any scruples, the same way pretty much any death cheat does. Considering I wasn't all that attached to those two, their death meant little to me and their survival means much the same. I'm sure there are Tails superfans out there who love these two, just because they are Tails. That were upset by their apparent demise and cheered at their survival. I guess that's "Prime's" target audience. 

With one more episode to go, this show continues to underwhelm me. This last set of "Prime" episodes have especially been a bummer, because it's clear now that things aren't going to get any better. There's simply no time for any potential the earlier episodes set up to be paid off now. Even worse, the last few installments have felt like a brief amount of narrative being stretched out to fill more episodes. Only that scene with Rusty keeps me from rating "The Devil is in the Tails" even lower and even that sequence could've been a lot better. [5/10]

Sonic Prime, Episode 3.05: Home Sick Home

Sonic Prime, Episode 3.05: Home Sick Home

Original Release Date: January 11th, 2024

As "Home Sick Home" begins, Sonic's ears are ringing from taken a direct hit from Nine's latest doom machine. The heroes and the Chaos Council do everything they can to turn the tide of the battle. Yet the enormous Grim version of Big, and his endless supply of Froggy-shaped bombs, makes it a desperate battle. Only Shadow emerging from his hole in the ground begins to change things in the good guy's favor. Nine still refuses to give up, forcing Sonic to take the fight directly to the megalomaniac fox. 

"Sonic Prime's" team of animators have, during this episode and the last few, really made an effort to emphasize that Nine is growing deranged the more desperate he becomes. Zapping more beams of light into his robot henchman and the dome around his Citadel is physically exhausting the little guy. Instead of making him reconsider what he's doing, this change in his physical state seems to be making him more unhinged. We see this in the way the animators depict him with sloping posture, twisted limbs, and bugged out eyes. All the key indicators, in the visual shorthand of cartooning, that your character is a sick and twisted little dude. It's a nice touch but it continues to make me ask questions. Namely, how did we get here? Nine's leap from antisocial, angsty kid with ultimately good intentions to straight-up supervillain still seems abrupt to me. But "Prime" is seemingly committed to this idea now and it's increasingly feeling too late to turn back. 

Once again, I feel the need to point out that "Prime's" focus on elaborate action scenes leaves little room for character development. This is very evident in "Home Sick Home," which is largely devoted to the fight scenes. It's an episode full of dramatic violence and big explosions. The enormous Big mech pelts the battle field with bombs, before getting blown up later in the episode. Both the Kraken and the Chaos Council's mothership crash to the earth in melodramatic, flaming fashion. The second half of the episode is peppered with slow-motion punches to the face, an attempt to make the audience understand how hard these blows are hitting. 

It all blurs together for me quickly and it's not difficult to figure out why. One of the many moments in this episode occurs when the Scavengers are carrying out there plan to get into Nine's Citadel. This is dashed when the fox spots them and has pillars of crystals rapidly emerge out of the ground, launching Prim, Gnarly, and Hangry Cat up into the air. The intended reaction to such an action beat should be "Oh no! The heroes' plan has been foiled! What shall they do now?" "Prime" has already shown itself seemingly willing to kill off characters, since Sails and Mangey still seem to be most sincerely dead at this moment. 

When the Chaos Council's ship gets shut down seems to suggest similarly fatal circumstances. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if more of these guys go out on the battlefield. I wouldn't be surprised and I wouldn't be upset either. Because who are Gnarly Knuckles and Hangry Cat, other than goofy variation on regular "Sonic" cast members? We are knee-deep into "Prime" at this point and I still don't really give a shit about most of these guys. This drains most everything that is happening at this point of any dramatic weight. As much importance is paid to the Scavengers being in peril as is to Squad Commander Red or Jack SepticEye's O.C., characters that barely have names and even less personality than the rest of the heroes. 

Of all the "Prime" cast members I don't care about, there's definitely some I don't care about more than others. Can I reiterate, once again, how much the Chaos Council fucking sucks? At this point, these guys' sole function in the story is to provide more chances to slice up evil robots and drop increasingly dire jokes in the middle of a dire battle. Dr. Deep makes a crack about how cats are evil. Mr. Dr. Eggman's toupee flips through the air. Multiple egg puns are delivered. When the mother ship goes kablooey, each member of the Council falls to their knees and bemoans the destruction of some trivial possession of theirs. It's so goddamn annoying, that the serious mood you'd expect from an event like the final battle for the fate of the multiverse is constantly undermined by dumb jokes. But mostly, these jokes are really bad, being delivered by characters that were one-note jokes to begin with and have only gotten more broad and obnoxious as this series goes on. 

The most depressing thing about this episode is it signals how unlikely "Prime" turning things around at this point is. We are on episode five of seven. (Or 21 of 23, depending on how you look at it.) This episode and the previous one have been entirely devoted to the war of The Grim. This one ends on Sonic and Nine dramatically rushing towards each other, suggesting that the next episode will also be focused on this on-going fight. In other words: This is it, guys. This is the climax of the entire series. And it's underwhelming, to say the least. 

Not the least of which because this is one extended action scene being stretched out for multiple episodes. To draw a comparison to Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" movies again... I'm reminded of the last movie in the bloated "Hobbit" trilogy. It was entitled "The Battle of the Five Armies" and almost all of its laborious runtime is devoted to that titular conflict. The long war scenes in the original "Lord of the Rings" trilogy make more of an impact because they are spaced out with other important plot points and character moments. "The Battle of the Five Armies" is an endless slog because it's made up almost entirely of moments that might've been cool on paper but feel tiresome when stacked one atop the other like that. Holding a straight-to-Netflix children's cartoon up to one of the grandest achievements in blockbuster cinema isn't going to do "Prime" any favors. (I don't even like the "Lord of the Rings" movies that much, not being one for wizards 'n' shit, though I do admire the craft that went into them.) But it says a lot about how twisted the priorities of both "Prime" and "The Hobbit" films are, that both seem to spend more time on on-going action scenes without making any of them all that distinctive or memorable. 

With all of this in-mind, it should not be surprising that the moments in "Home Sick Home" that stick out the most to me aren't yet more fight scenes or explosions. Instead, when the episode stops briefly to catch it breath and focus on the gang talking, I'm more intrigued. After the Kraken goes down, Black Rose and Rusty Rose hold each other's hands as they fall through the sky. The two don't die, as Rose Thorn swoops in on Birdie and saves them. Yet that moment where they are facing death and express simple gratitude for the chance to get to know one another means something. So does a scene afterwards, where Thorn and Black Rose tell Rusty that they consider her a sister, much to the cyborg's surprise. You know, a formally ruthless, almost emotionless machine girl learning to appreciate the meaning of life and sisterhood by fighting for the greater good alongside heroic versions of herself, which she eventually forms a familial bond with, something that previously would've seemed impossible... Gee whiz, that's compelling! I wish this cartoon had been about that instead! I guess the writers and show runners decided to focus on the egg puns, instead of the redemptive power of love. 

People yell at me for taking "Sonic" media, all of which is more-or-less designed for babies, too seriously. For expecting too much of a franchise about a fast blue rat that bops cutesy robots on the head. And I definitely do. But even a small, light-hearted bit like Shadow admitting that smashing robotic facsimiles of Sonic was kind of fun adds more life and meaning to this episode than any of the dumb jokes or explosive action beats do. It doesn't take a lot to invest something like this with a little more life, a little more meaning. But maybe that is too much to expect from the churning content mill that Netflix and all its shows are a part of... [5/10]