LET'S WATCH: Monster High Episodes 1-3

 I love the new MH show, so I'm going to try to do little summaries and commentary for each episode. The episodes are posted on Nickelodeon's website, if anyone hasn't seen them. 

Episode 1: The Monstering (Parts 1 & 2)

Clawdeen is the #1 monster fangirl. She spends her free time researching monsters and is thought of as weird because of that. 

Crescent is a gray dog here.

She wants to go monster-hunting in the cemetery, but Crescent does not. Her dad comes home and it's Clawdeen's 15th birthday. He gives her the moonclaw necklace, which belonged to her mother. Her dad still believes her mom is coming home one day. I love Clawdeen's dad in the show as much as I loved him in the movie. 

In the cemetery, Clawdeen stumbles across three "edgy" kids doing a seance. They're annoyed. She continues on and a voice tells her to go into the woods. Her necklace lights up. She's slightly reluctant but then hears the seance assholes laughing at her, so into the woods it is. 

Insert motivational, emotional heartfelt song as she runs through the woods, doing some rather superhuman things...and then crashes into an invisible barrier. Holding up the necklace, she can see the huge gates in front of her and goes right in. And then she's at MH and can see everything. 

The first monster we actually meet is Spectra. Spectra's thing so far isn't gossip. It's constantly practicing her haunting techniques for Hauntonomics class. 

The talking doorknocker tries to get Clawdeen to leave, but this is all Clawdeen's ever dreamed of, so you know that's not gonna happen. She follows her nose, which scents rainbow sprinkles, and crawls up the ivy on the side of the school, eventually ending up in the auditorium. Draculaura, the student bloody president, is on stage. The students all have eye scream and we see a few faves like Heath, Cleo and Deuce. Cleo invokes the five second rule, which I'm pretty sure G1 Cleo would never have done. I adore G3 Cleo. She keeps a bunch of helpful scarabs in her wrappings and it is awesome. Deuce's snakes are named after the seven deadly sins and have matching personalities. Gluttony eats Deuce's eye scream and then spits it back out for him to eat after being reprimanded. 

Draculaura introduces Frankie as the newest student. They say they're 15 days old and give their pronouns, then are about to start a speech when Clawdeen falls and lands on them. The students run scared except for Frankie and Laura. One of Frankie's hands lands on Toralei and she says, "Ew, you got Frankie all over me, you gross human!" In case anyone didn't know, Toralei has an English accent. 

In the office, Clawdeen tells Bloodgood she wants to enroll, but BG says no humans. She tries to get Clawdeen to leave and Clawdeen protests. BG says anytime a human crosses the boundary exiting MH, they forget MH exists. They start to walk back toward the entrance and all the main cast, sans Toralei, sneaks around behind them, trying to hear what's going on. Cleo does this fantastic thing where she drops from the ceiling using her wraps. She's SO AWESOME. She also has her scarabs fly one of Frankie's ears onto BG's shoulder and then all the others eavesdrop using it. Clawdeen is still trying to talk her way in, telling about a story her mom used to tell her, which was basically Beauty and the Beast except the Beast stays a monster because he should be loved as a beast. Lagoona pops up from a manhole in the floor and says "Ohhh! That love story is KILLER" while baring her fangs and licking her lips. She's also awesome and the only one other than Toralei to have any accent. Clawdeen is escorted out, despite her best pleading, but she's still determined. 

In part 2, Clawdeen makes a series of attempts to sneak in. She uses toilet paper to dress like a mummy. Cleo is not amused and Deuce...makes use of it. Her witch costume doesn't work because witches aren't monsters and they're forbidden from doing witchcraft. 

Frankie's yellow shoes and shaved section of hair make me sad because they didn't have the guts to put them on the doll. Same with Cleo's outfit. Seriously, they're afraid of pants now? And Laura's hat! Where is the hat?

Frankie and Laura come to talk to Clawdeen and give her some support. Deuce joins them and they decide to do some tests to see if she's a monster, since that's what she feels like she is. Frankie asks if she has any special skills or inhuman qualities. Clawdeen says she's strong and she has an excellent sense of smell. She also says that sometimes she hears a voice, which at the moment says "Trouble!" 

Outside, the bear that was obviously watching Clawdeen earlier is now on school grounds because she left the front gate open. BG fires garlic at it. Why? Oh, so he can use it against Laura in a vampire joke. Deuce turns him into stone, but in this version, Deuce's stoning is more like an outer shell that can be broken out of. The bear does that easily and sloth suggests a nap, which sounds good to Deuce. Man, he already has a million times more personality than he did in G1, aside from his earliest days. He runs for it, the bear grabs him, his glasses come off, and he starts firing eye beams everywhere. 

Clawdeen's necklace tells her to "take the fearst step" and she visualizes, then does this. Her song picks up again as she...turns into a werewolf. It's pretty badass. She saves Deuce then celebrates while the bear throws rocks at her. She gets back into the fight.

Lagoona, Toralei and Cleo watch from inside. Toralei likes werewolves about as much as she likes humans. Heath wants to watch, too, and Toralei leaves. 

Clawdeen realizes he's throwing rocks like a bear monster she just read about, an onikuma. Side note: This is an actual historical Japanese monster that does indeed throw rocks. Sweet. Clawdeen subdues him by using the method she read about: tickling. (That part is not historical.) Clawdeen tells him his monster instincts led him there just like hers and that they'll fit in together. He accepts this and it's really cute. Where's my onikuma doll? 

In her office, BG tells Clawdeen her DNA test says she's 50% werewolf. Clawdeen realizes her dad is probably freaking out because she's been gone so long, so BG sends a delivery dragon with a note that is spelled so he understands she's in a boarding school but nothing more until she's ready to tell him. Clawdeen says her dad isn't a monster and it's been 10 years since she saw her mom, but she was probably in her human form around her family. 

Back at Clawdeen's house, Dad remains awesome. He knows the delivery dragon and is very proud that Clawdeen found MH on her first night with the moonclaw necklace. I love him. 

Clawdeen has an amusing moment with the onikuma and then with Spectra, who's improved her scaring skills. She meets up with her new roommates, Laura and Frankie, and here we go. 

I really enjoyed this opening episode. There's a lot of fun stuff here and they already explained things better than the much longer movie did. I hope we eventually meet Clawdeen's mom and she brings siblings with her. Cleo and Lagoona were my favorites, but there isn't any character I don't like. 

Episode 2a: Food Fight

This is the pair of episodes that aired after the movie and have been on Youtube for a bit. Shouldn't take too long to summarize and comment. 

This first one is from Laura's point of view. She's giving a class presentation on how witchcraft is beneath monsters. The teacher applauds her and then passes out eyeballs that record, the point being that each student will record their thoughts like a diary to practice their communication skills. The teacher says "pour your hearts out" and Cleo pulls out a jar and does that literally. "Assignment done." Hee. Love her. 

Laura leaves Clawdeen and Frankie in the cafeteria and takes some tater tots to her room to study before Daddy/Daughter movie night. Alone in the room, she reveals a hidden cabinet of witchcraft stuff. Yeah, the witchcraft element carries over from the movie to here. I honestly don't get this part or think it adds anything to the plot, but eh, whatever. 

Outside, Toralei bitches to Lagoona about them letting a half-human in. "Wot's next? Witches?" 

LAGOONA: Yeah! There'll be a star-crossed romance between a monster and a witch! The monster will EAT the witch and use their bones as decorations!

I LOVE new Lagoona. I do not care what anyone says. She's brilliant. I love how she's this weird mix of a romantic and the most fierce and borderline deadly of them all. 

TORALEI: Witches don't belong here, Lagoona! Not even if we upcycle them!

This whole sequence is hilarious. And of course, Laura hears and is dismayed. Confidence lowered, she fails at her spell and creates a living tater tot. Running into Frankie and Clawdeen, the three of them team up to chase the tot down but can't get it. 

Back in their room, Dracula is calling. Clawdeen says "speak of the devil" and Frankie goes on a whole thing about "No, the devil is Heath's dad!" So not Hades then? Because they're not the same. Hmm. Dracula says he'll be there soon, so the monsters need to get that tot. Frankie shows the others their secret lab full of interchangeable bionic parts. This is the explanation I wanted for the prosthetic leg. It makes way more sense now that Frankie is constantly falling apart and changing bits of themself. Frankie puts on a grabby claw arm and off we go to the cafeteria. They catch the tot but Laura's weak spell skills manage to transform a whole bunch more food instead. 

There's a fun action sequence with Laura throwing her hat at food, Clawdeen clawing a living burger and it falling to pieces (though the cuts aren't even remotely from the right angle), and Frankie using their leg as a bat. Clawdeen stacks up tables for them to momentarily hide on and Laura admits she enjoys doing witchcraft. She says everyone expects her to be a stickler for the rules like her dad, but she just wants to be a witch. Clawdeen says she sees a vampire and a witch, so that's what she must be. Re-energized, Laura does a spell to put the food to sleep and then BG comes in and catches them. Clawdeen takes the blame and Frankie interjects, saying witchcraft is not forbidden to humans so it was Clawdeen's human side that did it. Dracula's arrival interrupts things and BG takes Laura to him, calling Frankie and Clawdeen troublemakers. Laura attempts to tell him during their movie night but chickens out. 

Later, she knocks on her own door and asks to come in. Clawdeen says it's her dorm, too, but Laura says she's not going to put them at risk so she's moving out. Frankie asks "But if you do that, how will you use this witch's lair?" Yep, they've created a secret witch lair for Laura. 

Laura finishes telling the eyeball about her day and someone is listening outside the door. Toralei is apparently going full villain in this version of MH. 

This one was fun and got the witch thing introduced while also deepening the bond between the trio. 

Episode 2b: Unfinished Brain-Ness

Frankie PoV.

The monsters are doing art projects and they discuss Frankie's different brain bits. One of them was a mad scientist from the 70s who tried to create a "frankenbeast" to protect MH and got cursed in the process. After a memory is triggered, Frankie realizes they're cursed to make mistakes. And apparently mistakes means they're just really clumsy. 

There's a funny bit where Heath is knocked out a window into a dumpster, so of course there's a dumpster fire joke. And Lagoona puts it out by shooting water from her ear. 

Frankie needs to find the beast the scientist created and tap it three times with the bottle of essence of life they used to bring it to life. So it's into the catacombs. They get stuck down there and Frankie somehow summons the essence of life bottle. Clawdeen reads the full instructions and the curse expired back in the 80s. Frankie asks why they made a bunch of mistakes and Laura says that everyone does. 

For a bunch of monsters, they're scared of everything. 

With that problem solved, they need a way out and they stumble across Watzie. Frankie shocks them out of the stasis the scientist left them in decades ago and names them Watzie.  

It's a nice little backstory for Watzie and Frankie is going to be fun because they're made up of so many different things, but it was still the weakest episode of the ones we've seen so far, including the two I haven't gotten to yet. It's not bad. I just had more fun with the others. And the sequence in the catacombs seems very out of place. How is Laura so good at scaring if she's scared of everything? They're monsters. What even are they afraid of down there? It didn't make any sense. 

Episode 3a: Case of the Moondays

Clawdeen PoV.

She's been at MH for two weeks now. There's a casketball-playing sequence. Clawdeen catches the ball by sticking her arms through the Shadow of Secrecy, the barrier that hides the school. Draculaura warns her about it because humans might see them. In the middle of a casketball move, Clawdeen's sense tells her Cleo needs her and she runs to catch Cleo, who fell off a ladder. Cleo says she was hanging a sign for the human-themed dance (she's head of the dance committee and apparently, the #1 human fan) and she got too far from her inner ear. Cleo explains that most mummies preserve some of their organs in jars, but "I am not most mummies, so I jarred all of mine." That explains the heart bit from the last ep. 

One thing Cleo says is that werewolves take their human forms only on the full moon, so MH 'verse werewolves are the opposite of typical werewolves. Cleo ponders that because Clawdeen is only half wolf, they don't know what will happen on the full moon. She might turn human and then never turn back. Clawdeen has a ridiculous imagining that all her MH friends mock her once she turns human again. Has she learned nothing of friendship over the past two weeks? Clawdeen asks Cleo how she can control her transformations so she can always be a werewolf. Cleo delegates that answer to the werewolf pack. Clawdeen has somehow not met them yet and Cleo even makes this sound like a normal thing, even though you wouldn't think it would be. How has Clawdeen not noticed any other wolves? Cleo says they sometimes are at the Coffin Bean. 

Clawdeen naturally heads for the Coffin Bean and Cleo follows her there, wanting to know more about a human thing Clawdeen mentioned. Clawdeen explains that it's a carnival ride she and her dad went on. Two werewolf boys skateboard in. The gray one is Romulus, sadly not as well-designed as G1 Romulus, and the blond is Barkimedes, which is a BRILLIANT name. I love it. Clawdeen asks her question and Romulus says they don't want outsiders hearing pack knowledge, so he tells her to meet them later at the pet cemetery. 

The pet cemetery is past the Shadow of Secrecy, but Clawdeen goes anyway, despite the moonclaw telling her not to. 

Have I mentioned how much I love that the weres are actually furry? I always thought it was horribly ridiculous that G1 Clawdeen shaved so much because it seemed like a wannabe human thing. 

Clawdeen runs into Cleo, who's come there to save her. She shows Clawdeen a video from Barkimedes on Eek-Tok, visible because he never learned how to go private, where he tells where the actual location is. Cleo says the pack isn't brave enough to go beyond the Shadow. Clawdeen is sad. 

CLEO: No matter what form you're in, human or werewolf, you're always you. It's you who's a Monster High superstar. 

It's only been 3 episodes, but I'm gonna say it. G3 Cleo just beat out G1 Cleo. I love that she's got her regal aspects but is actually extremely supportive of Clawdeen. She's as good a friend here as Laura and Frankie easily. And she does it without a second thought. That's something I feel G1 Cleo would have had to work toward. 

Clawdeen senses danger. The seance trio is on their way. (According to the credits, their names are Blair, Raine and Buddy.) Cleo asks how she looks. I wonder if she'll ever explain why she's so interested in humans. The seance kids are on a monster hunt and filming it. Clawdeen is annoyed because now they like monsters when they had made fun of her for it. Clawdeen says humans are the worst, but Cleo says humans are awesome and brings up Clawdeen's dad. 

Seriously, this is Cleo de Nile doing this stuff. She's AMAZING. 

Cleo drops her organ bag, which should definitely have a zipper on it, and a jar rolls out. Naturally, it's the one containing her inner ear, so she gets dizzy and starts tumbling down the hill toward the kids. Clawdeen frets over what to do and the moonclaw says to go human. She sees an image of her dad and is able to transform. She greets the seance kids. They play keepaway with the jar at first, but then Cleo makes weird noises and Clawdeen scares the kids away. Clawdeen switches back to werewolf and Cleo tells her that in grade school, they learned that only the most powerful werewolves can change at will. 

Back at school, Cleo is filming Clawdeen changing back and forth, while the two pack boys watch. Barkimedes asks if Romulus can do that and he says he can but struggles and then lets out a good fart while Barkimedes is filming him. And we all remember how Barkimedes can't post anything privately. 

This is hands down the best episode yet. I can't imagine another will top it for a while. Cleo is simply fantastic. I love this new version of her that can still have some of her popular, royal girl aspects but also this side that very easily knows how to be a genuine and supportive friend. 

Episode 3b: Portrait of a Monster

Frankie PoV. 

It's Picture Day. Laura explains that they use a special camera that shows the essence or true monster self of the subject. Poor Cleo got caught mid-sneeze. Cleo is currently nearby, trying to order a drink and Lenore the raven barista refuses to recognize her until she forces herself to sneeze. Cleo manages to still do all this while remaining as regal as one can during such a thing. 

Frankie completely overthinks all of this and when they're nervous, they start zapping things. Laura tries to help them pick a look and one of the suggestions is similar to G1 Frankie's original dress. Cute. It doesn't help and Frankie decides maybe they should be someone else instead. 

They hang out with Finnegan a bit. He's a rocker in this version. He's absolutely darling. MAKE A DOLL. ALSO MANNY. And of course Spectra. 

After failing to pose with Finn's guitar, Frankie tries Cleo, who gives them some speedy modelling advice. Frankie fails at this, stumbles into Cleo, and somehow the camera thinks a picture of Frankie mostly covering up Cleo as they run into her is sufficient. Cleo runs off in tears and the teacher (I forget her name) says Frankie may as well go. Stressed, Frankie zaps the camera, bringing it to life and it terrorizes the school, transporting the monsters it takes pictures of into some dimension inside itself. The teacher is first and then Cleo, who comes to make them take a new picture of her. She's referred to herself as pharaoh twice, which makes me so happy. I get sick of people always saying king or queen for ancient Egyptian royalty. They did that once and I'm hoping they switch to pharaoh. 

Frankie gets some advice and a pair of sunglasses from Deuce, increasing their confidence. Have I mentioned how much better Deuce is in this version? He's an actual character. 

Everyone failed at stopping the camera, so Frankie is on their own. They use the eyeball to project holograms of themself and then trick the camera into taking a picture of itself in a mirror, which sucks the camera in and spits everyone else out. 

Mrs. O'Shriek! That's the teacher. Thanks, Frankie. Anyway, the teacher used another camera and the pictures were taken. Frankie's is a neat, stitched together shot in multiple different outfits. Cleo remains in the camera dimension and gets her photo taken while sneezing again. 

This one wasn't my fave, but it wasn't horrible either. Cleo's a scene-stealer but my favorite here was Deuce. 

I am so happy MH is back. I really love this new show! It's nice to have our monsters in such long episodes, too. I hope we get some focus on Lagoona soon and I'd like to see more of Toralei and get some development for her. Spectra, too.