REALLY SMALL PROBLEMS

Really Small Problems is a fun one. i mean, of course it's fun - we get to go to a carnival, it's a great opportunity for some fun demon realm wordplay, there's some really solid gags throughout. the real i single it out as so fun, though, is because if my memory serves me correctly, this is pretty much the last overview that i think actually has a decent chance of staying short. from here on out, season 1 pretty much doesn't slow down for anything and starts layering in more and more enticing character depth, and season 2 comes out swinging in its own right. does that mean this overview is definitely going to be short? no, you should never doubt my ability to talk just a little too long about things. does it say something about what i thought of this episode that my introduction is mostly "guys, we're almost at the really good parts"? eh, probably, i guess.

it is, at the very least, another proper King episode where he gets to have feelings and stuff. he and Luz have, off-screen, taken to doing a 'comedy hour' together (Eda is not a fan), but when it comes time for Luz to head to Hexside, we get a pretty clear sense that not having his best friend around is getting under King's skin more than he'd like to admit. luckily for him, Hexside is closed for the day on account of a pixie infestation, and amongst an assortment of junk mail and death hexes, Eda's received an invitation to the carnival. it's a great opportunity to take a day off, and, more importantly to Eda, to scam a bunch of suckers. the gang sets off, sans a well-prepared Hooty. can Hooty go places? an interesting question! anyways.

upon arriving, it quickly turns out that the invitation came from small-time recurring antagonist Tibbles, who, after having his previous business wrecked, has become a ringmaster for a circus full of miniature monsters. he's doing a terrible job at hiding that he has some kind of sinister plan in mind, and Eda basically skips right over his nonsense to go hijack someone else's stand, selling off assorted belongings from Luz as 'human horrors'. Luz and King, similarly, don't really care too much about what Tibbles is up to and head off into the carnival, where King quickly gets fixated on the idea of winning a split friendship bracelet to share with Luz.

just so it doesn't go unappreciated, i will say that i do like this carnival setting a lot. as i said up top, it's a great opportunity for a lot of quick gags, the type of stuff i'd normally skim over a little bit. given how much that vibe helps carry this episode, though, i think the whole thing would feel a little hollow if i didn't stop to appreciate things like the dunk tank that gives a skeleton horrible, horrible flesh, or the molar coaster. it's fun. we're at a carnival and the writers are having fun so that we can also have fun.

unfortunately for King's burgeoning sense of jealousy, Willow and Gus have also opted to visit the carnival with their newly-found free time, with Luz none the wiser to how having her Hexside friends around makes King feel left out. one thing i've written in my notes here is that it's interesting how much this has been a recurring theme throughout the first season - pretty much all of King's character depth so far has been from situations like this where he's feeling a little envious or left behind, whether it's Luz being more interested in magic than demons or a sense that she's gotten further in her goals than he has with his own. maybe it feels a little flat the third time around, but at the same time, i end up really liking this episode's angle on it. previously, a lot of these feelings have been rooted in his own grand vision of himself as the ruler of demons and how he worries he's not being taken seriously - this time, it genuinely just comes down to wanting to spend more time with a person he cares about. he's becoming a little well-rounded guy! with feelings that don't have anything to do with his reign of terror!

we get a montage reinforcing these feelings as the Hexside trio make their way through a variety of carnival attractions that are conveniently scaled for three people. that's another reason this one might be a little light - whole lot of montage being deployed here. ultimately, King winds up separated from the group and talking to the mysterious fortune teller Obvioso, who definitely isn't Tibbles, and definitely isn't playing on his insecurities to give him that mysterious pink potion that Eda immediately clocked as some kind of poison. the spray mysteriously makes things disappear and reappear on command, and while King is willing to take the bait, he's a little reluctant to actually put it to use.

when it does actually get used, it's entirely by accident as the potion falls out of King's fanny pack. honestly, not a huge fan of how this defangs the conflict here - it might seem weird to root for a character i like a lot to do something so wrong, but in my opinion, i think it's fun to watch a character mess up very badly and experience a sense of emotional catharsis and growth by setting it right! that's stories right there, baby! especially given how we see a recurring element here of Willow and Gus sort of talking down to King as just a cute little critter, i think it would feel consistent and provide a little more bite if he was willing to make this call and end up regretting it on his own terms. ah, well, it's written how it's written, and King does at least make the active choice to let Luz's friends stay disappeared a little longer if he gets time to hang out with her.

as you can probably guess by the title of this episode, the potion turns out to be a shrinking elixir, rendering Gus and Willow tiny enough to have seemingly vanished. thanks to the magic of the commercial break, we get two different takes on the 'Gus realizes he's shrunken' joke, and after a close encounter with another shrunken creature (and a diversion into a B-plot, i'll get to it, give me a second), the pair boards a fly and we get a sort of parallel montage to earlier, with Luz and King having a great time while Gus and Willow try to catch up.

meanwhile, Eda deploys one of the best jokes in the series when she holds up a fidget spinner and asks 'who wants to touch an outdated human reference', but ultimately gets arrested by a clown! like, a literal clown. who's also a cop. all cops are clowns, by nature, but this one is also a clown by trade, as he's part of the carnival's very literal fun police. at their police station - where we see a variety of fun wanted posters indicating that some of the Boiling Isles' other most wanted criminals are the hunter from Bloodborne and the Rock-afire Explosion Band - the chief gives Eda a surprisingly reasonable deal. he could send her straight to the Conformatorium, sure, but she could also pay off her debt by running scams for him instead. clown blackmail!

trying to catch up via bug isn't going so well for Gus and Willow, but they eventually have the clever idea of using the carnival's house of mirrors to get Luz's attention, leading to a fun sequence where we see Luz rendered in a few different styles (dog, jack-o-lantern, bones, anime, ominous void) as she enters. by the time King has caught up, Luz is now privy to the situation and he only makes it worse by noting that he meant to make her friends disappear rather than shrink. in the struggle over the potion, it once again gets dropped and activated, leaving everyone in the room shrunk and ready for Tibbles to make his move, bringing them to his tiny circus to feed his monsters.

the four manage to hold their own surprisingly well against the monsters, by use of plant magic or illusionary vacuum cleaners to scare them off, but they eventually get cornered and King decides to risk himself and sacrifice his friendship bracelets, apologizing to Gus and Willow along the way. throwing the bracelets to get Tibbles to swat at his cheeks (thereby triggering the potion's reversal), the group is returned to full size. Eda - who is in a fantastic carnival outfit hawking concessions as part of that clown blackmail - gets clued in when the audience complains about no children getting hurt, noting that those are 'her dumb kids' and managing to turn the captive animals against Tibbles. with the gang two-for-two on ruining Tibbles' businesses and the friendship bracelet conveniently split into four shareable pieces, King makes up with Luz and all ends well. especially when Hooty eats that bug he's been talking to all day!

Really Small Problems is a pretty solid episode of The Owl House all around. it's not breaking that much new ground or giving us a lot to chew on, but not every episode has to be that, necessarily. it's a fine episode where they fight a B-list antagonist and we get some solid gags out of the carnival setting. what we do get to unpack might be argued as a bit of a retread for how King's plots have generally gone throughout the season, but i already went over why i think this one lands a little differently and there's a lot of other small details we're starting to see crop up too, whether it's King once again drawing attention to the fact that Luz presumably will leave someday soon or the fact that Eda seems to be increasingly taking on something of a familial role for Luz and King rather than just a mentorship. we're approaching the home stretch of this first season, and the show is ramping us up bit-by-bit accordingly.

next time on The Owl House - Luz takes a photography class!