Just a heads up for everyone who is reading the countdown from this site that the countdown will be on break for a few days due to yours truly working on the review to the upcoming Bob’s Burgers episode in “Gene’s Christmas Break”. The countdown will resume on December 23 with the remaining nine spots to close out the year as it follows. I don’t want to work on both the review and the countdown at the same time because I don’t want to murder my laptop, which is the source of everything with the page, both the site and social pages. But I also don’t want to give myself some serious burnout and leave everything and everyone hanging. I hope everyone can understand that. That being said, we’re entering the final ten spots of the countdown, and coming in number 10 is none other than The Owl House with “Eda’s Requiem”. Sorry...I mean reigning Battle of the Week Champions Owl House. Congrats on you fuckers for winning it all by taking down two side characters and a powerhouse that somehow ran out of gas the moment the match started.
I know that everyone is giving me the side-eye right now by questioning how the fuck this episode made it this low in the whole list. But hear me out and y’all might call me out in the comments once you’re done reading this, but when coming up with the list and picking each episode from any series from the year, it’s a struggle when choosing one episode to add to give it a proper countdown, especially to close out the year. And with The Owl House for this season alone, the first half to be exact, not gonna lie, each episode from this season has been banger after banger that it would be...not problematic per se, but it’s pretty much the equivalent of picking one item from the menu even though you thought to yourself that all of them looks good and it puts you in a situation where you can feel the pressure in picking at least one item. I know that this doesn’t sound like a proper analogy, but please bear with me on this, I know what I’m doing.
But besides all that, I did say that this season has been banger after banger and this is one of those episodes because this is one of those episodes that I’d enjoyed and it was. We dived deep into some stuff regarding Eda and her past...well, other than knowing a few episodes ago when her mom visited the Owl House and thinks that she knows the “cure” for her curse, but with this episode, we were introduced to someone from Eda’s past making their debut and making their mark onto the show.
And that is that this was the episode that introduced us to Raine Whispers, which I applaud both Dana and Disney for breaking barriers by introducing the audience to the network’s first nonbinary character and finally got some fans’ questions about who was that mysterious person in Eda’s photo back in her Hexside days from “Wing It Like Witches”. You know that image with Eda and Lilith as teenagers and you noticed a mysterious person that seems to be covered...yep, that’s Raine. Remember that hooded figure in the cold open to “Hunting Palismen”? Yep...Raine. That’s Raine that was under the hood and now in this episode, she was being inducted as the leader of the bard coven in her ceremony that was being broadcast. Of course, Raine seems to have some stage fright when accepting her position, and yeah...I can relate to them when being on stage and facing the crowd. Not a big fan of that. But it looks like Raine themself, apparently, they have two jobs in their debut episode. By day, Raine is the head honcho of the bard coven and a part of Belos’ lackeys along with the other heads of various covens as part of the key ingredients for the Day of Unity to arrive. But by night...
She’s the leader of an underground rebellious group dressed up in bat masks and leads a band of bard coven members to fight oppression with the power of music. Pretty much their way of wanting to tell Belos to go fuck himself. And the reason why Raine even formed a group in fighting against the system despite that Raine was just inducted to lead the bard coven within the Emperor’s circle is mostly them hating on the idea of forcing young witches to join the coven against their own free will. Think of how living in an authoritative country where you want to be...let’s say a doctor for example. You want to help everyone out with their basic needs. You know the stuff by the books. But the government...yeah, they ain’t going to let you do that and instead make you do sanitary work and you can’t do a damn about it. That almost sums up how fucked up Belos’ system works when it comes to the Hexside students being forced to join a coven and Raine doesn’t want any of that shit. Enough to voluntarily invite Eda to join the group to fight the power.
Speaking of Eda and Raine, we explored their past in a flashback with them hanging out with Eda playing what appears to be a lute, I don’t know my instruments, so please don’t blast me on how wrong I am when naming instruments in the string category other than a guitar or a violin. So she plays the lute for Raine, who is struggling to try to get their mind straight when playing the violin (or viola, don’t quote me) since the flashback shows them as young adults with Raine as a schoolteacher and being around with their best friend. Or rather a potential lover since it appears that Raine may have feelings for Eda when blushing when what it almost looks like Raine was about to hold Eda’s hand. That or showing her the basics of playing the lute and giving tips on how to play a note. They’re basically dating. Either that or Raine had been crushing on Eda for...well, a while when looking at the flashback. Confirmed that they used to date in the next episode. Spoiler alert, the next episode after “Eda’s Requiem” is in the countdown. You just have to wait for when that day comes.
And if there’s one thing that The Owl House never disappoint, other than the storytelling and lore concept that pretty much one of the reasons in the long list of accusations of how and why we’re getting a shortened third season by Disney, but the action and visuals, along with the animation, are some items on the list that never failed me nor the fans with Eda and Raine as they take on the opposing camp. And we’re not talking about the Emperor’s Guards, or rather the Abmonatron built by the Blights, but against two heads of two of the nine covens in both Darius, the head of the Abomination coven; and Eberwolf, the head of the Beast Keeping Track. And I know that facing off against Belos, the big bad of the series, is a big deal when Luz took him on in the Season 1 finale, but against two of the nine coven heads for Eda and Raine to take on and especially after Raine’s group got captured and got thrown into the slammer without warning...that’s pretty much a huge fucking deal. Especially with what both Darius and Eberwolf are capable of when searching for the two. And when watching how Darius, Eberwolf, and Raine, being the heads of their respective covens in action and what they’re really made of, the other coven heads once we get to the finale of the show, knowing that the show doesn’t have that time left to be on at anytime soon, I pray that the crew would at least squeeze some into the show and explain the rest in like...a form of a book. I mean, it somewhat worked for Star Wars, then...why not...us?
Speaking of wonderful animation, Eda and Raine have to take on Darius and Eberwolf with the power of music. Sure, Eda did have some issues with playing the lute with dark matter taking over and items being burnt whenever she played a note or two, coinciding with her curse. She noticed it at first at the start of the episode when finding her lute in a box of memories, only to mix things around with her playing the lute and Raine playing the violin to mess around with Darius and Eberwolf...the duet coming from both Eda and Raine, mixing the light in levitating objects and the dark with Eda’s curse that causes the landscape to burn...perfecto. Sure, seeing Darius and Eberwolf getting into deep shit when being trapped with the burnt is what both Eda and Raine needed because it’s the only way to delay the incoming Day of Unity because it requires every head of the coven to open the door and unleash hell. Which would be good for everyone because they would be a potential disaster, for a brief moment until Belos finds their replacements, but when looking at Raine once Eda’s curse when playing the lute comes up to them, the music hits the pause button. And it wasn’t long until Eda’s grom photo gets dropped to the ground and gets captured by Darius, but not before Raine sacrifices themself by freeing Eda and for Raine to face the consequences. Wanting Eda to live her life since seeing the photo firsthand while playing music, thinking that Luz and King needed her the most and losing Eda...yeah, that’s the last thing those two needed and that happened one time in the Season 1 finale.
Speaking of Luz and King, there was a subplot with Luz training for her upcoming race with their palismen as their mode of transportation, of course, Luz, with Eda’s permission, to have Owlbert participate. And yeah...this race is pretty much this show’s version of pod racing from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and even though Luz didn’t win the race due to a mishap that causes her to be off-track, there is someone who actually won, though not in the racing department.
Because while the subplot was focused on Luz participating in palisman racing, you have King wishing to get the chance to ask Eda something that’s been carrying for a while. Eda thinks that King might be ready to move out of the Owl House in search of his dad now that King found out about his heritage and where he’s coming from, but nope. King isn’t going away from Eda but instead, asking Eda for her permission to legally take the Clawthrone name. Which I didn’t notice that demons can do that, but alright. And mind you that King’s declaring to be a Clawthrone and asking Eda to take the family name is being live-streamed. Meaning that you have everyone across the Boiling Isles watching the whole proclamation from start to finish. Various people watching from Willow and her palisman Clover. You have Amity, Eldric, and Emira at their house. Eberwolf as well in a way to mess around Darius when watching the whole thing while keeping Raine at bay after being captured. Though beginning to think of them watching the event live to the entire region, don’t you think that if possible...let’s say, a certain emperor sitting on his throne while watching the progress of the portal also watches what was unfolding. I’m just putting it out there.
But then we get to a certain random individual who was also watching the stream with King wanting to be adopted to Eda and taking the name “Clawthrone” who happened to look like King but all grown up and a lot of theories to speculate about who that mysterious being is who saw the live stream in the middle of nowhere. Whether if that ending up being either King’s dad or a random demon that may know his dad is pretty much up in the air as we wait for the second half of the second season to be dropped. But I say fuck it to pass the time, that’s pretty much his dad. I know that I’m going to be wrong for once and some fans who believe that the mysterious being who saw the stream thinks that it’s King’s dad also might be wrong, but let us live with our lives and speculate, goddamn it.
Ending the episode with Raine making her escape with Darius and Eberwolf being distracted by the stream, and also their bickering, with Raine thinks that they can make their escape and hide from the public eye, possibly taking refuge over at the Owl House as a possible disclosed location, until Raine gets caught by none other than Kikimora, which peeved Darius off and says that the two doesn’t need her help. But apparently, she has to butt in during certain situations in hopes to be Emperor Belos’ favorite because she pretty much sees Hunter as a threat to her status enough wherein “Hunting Palismen”, she attacked the ship that Hunter was on (and Luz stowing away along with the wild palismen) and thinks that Hunter was down for the count. Raine was cocky with them being captured by Kikimora because they think that if Belos petrifies Raine, transforming them into stone like what Eda almost went through, that would also delay the Day of Unity because as Raine said, Belos need all heads of each coven to be alive to perform a powerful spell to connect the demon realm and the human realm to be one. But Kikimora doesn’t role that way. Remember those marks on the arms of each grown-up witch in the Boiling Isles that showcased their respective covens that you thought they were tattoos? No? Not one attention to detail? Well...that ain’t a tattoo. Kikimora uses a spell through her other eye to paralyze Raine with her coven mark and put Raine to go night-night until the big day arrives.
One of the items on the list of why Raine is against the idea of young witches being forced to join a coven without any opposition and that being the marks and whatever shit that might do to them once the Day of Unity arrives. Let’s just say that once the big day arrives and Belos finally got his way and fucking shit up, it pretty much boils down to everyone being fucked. Either being paralyzed, losing their powers a la...think of that option as the Auswhalen from the final arc of Bleach, or worst-case scenario but I doubt that’ll probably be a thing, every witch dies. I know that would scare the kiddies, but do imagine how meta would that be? I mean if Amphibia had that little warning at the start of “True Colors”, then don’t be surprised if The Owl House were to have that.
But besides all of that, this was a pretty great episode. I’d enjoyed the crap out of it from beginning to end. And even though Luz’s subplot with her going pod racing, rather palisman racing, is pretty much there as filler, in my opinion, Eda’s time in the spotlight was amazing to gloss over. Especially when diving into her past and her reuniting with her old friend Raine. Them playing a duet when taking on Darius and Eberwolf by combining normal bard magic and Eda’s curse that caused objects and landscape to be burnt into a crisp. The ending with Raine being put to sleep to make sure Belos get his way for the Day to Unity to be fully activated. Out of every episode of the first half of the second season, as I said, it’s been banger after banger and this was one of them.
As for what to expect in the future of the show as the finale is drawing near, knowing the remaining number of episodes we have for the second season and a shortened third season...is Raine possibly...I don’t wanna say “possessed” per se like...let’s say a certain individual from another series later on in the countdown who went through a lot of shit. But oh man, imagine if that happened because those marks on their arms could possibly serve as puppet strings. And if we reach the lead up to the final battle and it’s Eda and a possessed Raine to duke it out, man...that’s going to be an insane fight between two childhood friends and potential lovers to make sure Luz will get her rematch against Belos. And for the King side of the episode, whether if that being who saw the stream is either his dad or someone who knows his father like an aide, guess we’ll have to wait to find out for the revelation to be dropped. But until then...welcome to the family, King. Welcome to the goddamn family.
But that’ll do it for the number 10 spot in the Top 12 Countdown of 2021. Do you think that this episode should be higher, lower, or just stay put on your list for the year? Put it in the comments below. The countdown will be on hiatus for a few days because tomorrow is a brand new Bob’s Burgers and of course, the review to that episode will be released either this upcoming Tuesday or Wednesday. Which episode and series will it be? You’ll have to wait and find out on December 23 when the countdown continues. Follow me over at Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram for updates and behind-the-scenes stuff and all that jazz. And y’all should probably know the drill by now…
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