And then there were two. The final two spots in the 2021 version of the Top 12 Countdown. Man, the time has really flown by so fast. I mean, it was just yesterday that we kissed 2020 a good freaking riddance, and...we’re here. 99% of the year complete. Think about it. And now stop thinking about it because it’s time to present the runner-up of the countdown for 2021. The episode and series that will be taking the silver medal for the year. And while The Owl House, with the first half of their second season, can have their cake, it looks like this particular series that is also currently in a mid-season hiatus and telling them, “Hey! That’s a nice-looking cake you got there. You better share it with us.” Coming in at number two in the Top 12 Countdown of 2021 and it’s “The Shadow” from Central Park.
Yeah. Central Park...that freaking high in this year’s countdown. Beating out The Owl House. Beating out Final Space. Beating Amphibia, Attack on Titan, The Great North, and Bob’s Burgers. And this is only number two on the list. And there’s one more that overtops everything and you’ll have to wait for New Year’s Eve, or New Year’s Day if you live in the Eastern Hemisphere. But yeah, Central Park leapfrogged from number 10 in last year’s list with “Hot Oven” to number 2 for this year with “The Shadow”. Sure, y’all might call me out in why I picked this episode over the likes of “Mother’s Daze”, “Fista Puffs Mets Out Justice”, “A Decent Proposal”. But much like with The Owl House, with the exception of “Of Course You Realize This Means Ward” since in my opinion, is pretty much the weakest of the season so far, I have my reasons on why I chose “The Shadow” to be featured on the countdown for this year and at number two no less.
One is that this is the first episode that doesn’t focus on the Tillerman family. As Birdie states at the start of the episode, the focus of the episode won’t be on any of the members of the family as they’re being benched. Marking the first episode where the main cast doesn’t get to do anything and instead, focuses on the other main character, rather, the antagonist of the series as this episode shines the spotlight onto Bitsy. With the majority of the episode being set inside the Brendanham Hotel with a police presence over calls of missing jewelry and priceless artifacts from each hotel room. Now, you’re probably thinking that it’s a standard episode with Bitsy wanting to hunt down the perpetrator behind the string of robberies...well, mostly the police doing the work while Bitsy does Bitsy things and let Helen intervene. Apparently, that’s not the case with this episode where you have both Bitsy and the Police Detective having the most interaction throughout the whole thing from start to finish.
Now the song to start off the episode was rather catchy in the show’s way to introduce the episode. The imagery, animation, and visuals are great and give it a mystery theme to the episode, hence the police investigation that is currently taking place at the hotel. And while the whole episode it’s all dialogue between Helen and the Detective during the crime scene, there are some moments that are pretty much the highlights of the episode and potentially be my reasoning for why I have it at number two on the list. And there’s some to list out.
One is the person behind the crime. It’s a 70:30 split, or rather 80:20 not surprised over being surprised over the idea of Bitsy being the one who stole random items in not just her hotel, but also other hotels. Rival hotels across the streets of New York. And at least the episode didn’t turn the revelation and the reasons behind it weren’t vague as if she’s done it because she just wanted it to and fuck around with her competitors like it’s a normal Tuesday for her. Her reason for doing the job is simple, she’s been living in the shadows. The shadow of being behind her brother and parents. Wishing that just once she can be noticed for something. With her dropping out of school and moving back to her parents, it pretty much comes down to her being neglected. Her being the black sheep of the family. Though don’t let her height fool you because while she is small, she is a young adult in the flashback. The point is that she just wanted to be noticed and once she saw a random woman coming in, extremely taller than her and rocking those pearls around her neck, is where Bitsy decided to take drastic measures by sneaking into that woman’s room and opening up the safe in that exact hotel room because got the codes for the various safes because this is her hotel and takes the item in question. A string of robberies caused by Bitsy going nonstop since the first heist back over at the hotel. And not just her hotel, well back in the day was her parents’ hotel, her dad’s hotel, but also the other hotels from block to block across the street. Bribing the hotel staff by keeping it hush-hush on what’s going on, break into people’s rooms, have the cops go on a wild goose chase, and try to solve the identity of “The Shadow” and unable to find the suspect as if they’re searching for the Zodiac Killer. Left items in the safe in the form of a wrapper, in which she crumpled it into a doodle after eating a piece of hotel chocolate and even triggering her father when reading the newspaper on the dinner table.
And I guess you wanna put Bitsy in this episode into the “sympathy for the villain” trope because by now, we all know that Bitsy is the antagonist of the series who one day want to take over Central Park and transform it into a block filled with buildings. That was her idea since the start of the series because...well, she’s a rich elitist and the Big Apple is pretty much her playground. Whether you feel something for her having a crummy life of living under the shadows and being the black sheep of the family to the point where she goes on a robbing spree, well that’s up to you to decide. Though not sure it might’ve tied what Bitsy is planning on doing to her being neglected. I feel like that’s more of a separate issue regarding one single incident that turned into more than just an incident that lasted for almost a few decades. So that’s one highlight from the episode with Bitsy’s past. And now we get the second item from the list.
The Detective’s history with Bitsy. So after finding out that Bitsy is the Shadow who broke into everyone’s rooms in different hotels leading up to her own building with the police investigation and stuff, we enter flashback mode once again with him in his younger days going into an elevator filled with random people with one of those randos being a young Bitsy and this is where you get a fantastic scene between the two individuals as they go into a fantasy with time stopping as they finally got to the lobby. But just as they’re about prepare to go on their separate ways is where you get a fantastic scene with the two having a dance to themselves as time stops and going from the hotel lobby to the park outside under the stars. The animation, visuals, choreography, it’s top-notch and the music added to the scene as the dancing was going on, I mean...there shouldn’t be any debate about the scene. I mean, you have to be a goddamn crazy person to not like this scene from this episode. It showcased Bitsy and the Detective having themselves a night to themselves dancing across the city and man, the cast and crew of the show have gone through the ballpark and hit a couple of home runs with this scene. This was a fantastic moment and seeing that those two had some history with each other with him not even noticing that Bitsy was the suspect behind the crime spree and more of being the heir of the Bredanham fortune despite being neglected by the family, it was like after all those times, Bitsy may have found someone who notices her after the constant struggles of her just wanting to be noticed by anyone. Someone who recognizes her as a person. That was a nice scene and it almost looks like those two had some romantic history if you wanna go with that? I mean, they almost shared a kiss before the elevator stopped at the bottom floor and ended the fantasy, so there have to be some instances of that. At least a spark or two from either one of the two. And I would call it the main highlight of the episode, and you could have that in your opinion, but for me, it was a fantastic scene and would’ve been the main highlight of the episode...if it weren’t for the final five minutes of the episode with Birdie.
And when I first watched these remaining minutes of the episode after the whole main story with Bitsy, everyone’s first reaction when watching it would think that we would be switching back to see how Owen and the rest of the Tillerman family were doing since being sidelined, but no. Instead, it’s Birdie’s time to shine and see what he’s been doing in his daily routine other than being the narrator of the show, him performing in the middle of the park and entertaining the masses. And yeah, being a wannabee performing in the middle of a big city like New York and trying to make some buck can be a struggle. That and also trying to give people who strolled him by to at least give some music to their ears. So it wasn’t surprising for Birdie to get an audience of two with an old woman in a wheelchair and her caretaker and listen to him playing his violin. And despite the lack of change that he got, it seems that Birdie doesn’t seem to mind about the financial side of things when performing out of the streets as long as he can make a random individual happy when listening to his songs. However...this is where it takes a massive shift in the emotional meter once we hit the next day.
Birdie waits for the old woman to arrive for another day of listening to his songs on the violin to fuel the joy-o-meter up since she is an elder, so she needs some form of entertainment to listen to. But once the caretaker arrives to where Birdie is at, without the elderly woman in tow, is where the next scene hits you like a fucking 18-wheeler. Telling him the news that the woman who listened to his performance live the day before has passed away. And the reaction to the news that she had been terminally ill and had a few hours to days left to live. The woman’s reaction to her mother’s shocking and saddening news that she doesn’t have time left on Earth...I’m not gonna lie to y’all but when I saw that for the first time when it was dropped, I cried. I’m not making this up. I fucking cried when the woman broke down in tears that she won’t be able to see her mother again. And also realizing that the moment earlier in this scene where the old woman listened to Birdie’s performance was going to be the last moment she’ll get to see before passing on. I have no words to say but...if you get that flashback to the opening to the movie “Up” with Carl and Ellie growing up leading up to Ellie’s death and funeral...it feels like you’re watching that exact scene with this episode. So when Birdie heard the news about the death of that old woman from her caretaker, it devastates him to hear that someone who is nice and kind enough to listen to him performs had only a little time she had left on this planet. It’s an emotional scene to the core that the show has ever done and I might as well flat out and say it, this overshadows it. This scene overshadows the Bitsy story of the episode and if you don’t like my opinion, then go watch that scene. Listen to the song damn it. I fucking dare you. You will fucking cry your eyes out like a crack on a dam.
But then you get to the kid in the final minutes of the episode after Birdie heard the news of the passing of that old woman. And holy shit, the waterworks continued to pour and pour and pour as if your house was issuing a Flash Flood Warning just for those final five minutes of the episode. So when that kid listen and danced to Birdie’s music, going from the old generation to the new one, like holy shit, I think to myself while currently sweating tears from my eye sockets, “Yo, what the shit! This is too much! How is this episode still not over?! What do you mean we’re still at the two-minute warning?!” Loren...what the fuck, man?! Like seriously, what the actual fuck? Oh, man. I don’t know what to say next about the episode but...
FUCK, this was a good episode. Both plots in the episode were fantastic to watch from start to finish. Bitsy’s plot of the episode, the writers did a good job in attempting to humanize her with the police investigation over at the hotel with the string of robberies from room A to room B with the missing items. Sure, it was all talk between Bitsy and the Detective, but it did pull out the small tidbit from the “sympathy for the villain” trope card with Bitsy that she was neglected growing up and always live in the shadows that you couldn’t even recognize her and it was that moment where she decided to commit the crime, just to get the attention while not getting caught by the authorities. The fantasy scene with her and that Detective has fantastic to watch through from start to finish was amazing. With the animation, visuals, choreography, the choice of music, it was wonderful to watch to see both adults dancing under the night’s sky as time stands still. And I would say that it would be the main highlight for me for this episode...
But Birdie’s five minutes of fame at the end of the episode was my highlight and as I said, I legit cried during those final five minutes of the episode. The moment where that woman broke down in tears when hearing the news that her mom doesn’t have time left to live due to her terminal illness is when the waterworks decides to come out from the sockets. It was a very harsh scene to watch when hearing that devastating news and when Birdie heard the news about her passing from her caretaker, that was heartbreaking, man. To Birdie and everyone who watched those five minutes of the episode. And the kid who listened and danced to his music the next day as Birdie gets back to playing his music after hearing about the tragic news...I’m lost for words but to say that this is a goddamn masterpiece. Pretty much this show’s magnum opus. Sure, there are more episodes up ahead, once we get an announcement on when the second half of the season gets released, but for now, this was an amazing episode and a total tearjerker, especially at the final five minutes of the said episode with Birdie. And if you haven’t watched Central Park yet, what the hell are you doing? Go out there and watch it for yourself.
But that’ll do it for the number 2 spot of the Top 12 Countdown of 2021. “The Shadow” from Central Park taking home the silver medal for the year. And as I said throughout the whole article, an amazing and emotional episode. The best episode of the season so far. But it’s time to close the books on the second to last spot of the countdown and as tradition, time to release the honorable mentions down below via this graphic...
Top 20-13 spots that would’ve made it to the list if I weren’t for being a lazy son of a bitch and also if the NFL decided not to be greedy by extending an extra regular season week and pushing a Christmas episode on the week of Christmas. But while I’ll await your hate for how I rank the episodes, what do you think about this episode? Do you think this episode should be higher, lower, or should it sit there just right? New Year’s Eve is tomorrow, unless you live in the Eastern Hemisphere, then it’s already the last day of the year and y’all won’t be seeing the number 1 spot until 2022. So which episode and series will be taking home the gold? Let’s just say...you better have “For the Damaged Coda” blasting through your speakers for this one. 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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