Separate Tides (Review)

Hooray for the pirate episode. After waiting months, the Owl House is officially back to start its second season. In it, we learn the aftermath of Luz destroying the door and stranding her in the Boiling Isles. Without the door, Eda can no longer sell human garbage thus forcing her to take up bounty hunting. Worse, Luz can no longer get into contact with her mother due to the door's destruction. Lilith goes to live at the Owl House obviously no branded a traitor and given disrespect. We also get to learn how bad conditions are in the Boiling Isles: really, there isn't much food there that Luz could digest (which makes me wonder where Gus got that PB & J sandwich from back in "I Was a Teenage Abomination" with the only edible food being griffin eggs, but those are expensive. Feeling guilty for putting Eda into that situation, Luz decides to take part on a ship and hunt for selkiedomuses. Unfortunately, the ship was actually one of many owned by the Emperor. Overall nice setup for how vastly different the second season is in comparison to the first. Luz is without a way home; Eda and Lilith are next to powerless and have to resort to using glyphs, which will set up Luz teaching them. Lilith had been disavowed and is now nothing short of a peasant. And Belos had already completed the portal door. Oh...oh no. As for new characters...we have the Owl Spy, or better known as the Golden Guard. I had initially expected the Golden Guard to have been some deathly serious threat without a hint of comedy to his name likely a British accented monotonous voice. Instead, when we are finally introduced to the Golden Guard...it turns out that he is nothing like my head canon had determined. Which is a good thing. I love this guy. The Golden Guard is introduced as some teen prodigy that is given special treatment by the Emperor himself. He is a 16-year-old who is refreshingly entertaining. While malicious, he is playful and conniving. When he kidnaps King, he trolls him by repeatedly lifting the blanket over the bird cage for his own amusement; he playfully holds Eda and Luz over the boiling seas while giddily explaining that the sea's steam is enough to cause third-degree burns and then eagerly says "Bye!" in a chipper tone. So you have someone who is unambiguously evil, but he is also in a near-constant easy-going mood. At the least he shows that he can be negotiated with handing King back when he thought that Luz killed the selkiedomus. He's almost like a male version of Eda showing what Eda would have been like had she joined the Emperor's Coven. As for his relationship with the Emperor, I have already seen several theories suggesting that he is the son of Belos: in the episode, it is revealed that Belos has long, graying blonde hair, and if you happen to notice the Golden Guard briefly removing his mask, he too is blonde. While it is reasonable, I'd take it a step further and speculate that the GG is a clone. While that may sound crazy at first, considering how Belos was able to finish constructing the door to the human world and his high-tech looking staff (and even how the GG performs magic in unconventional ways), it looks more and more likely. We all know that fifty years ago Emperor Belos arrived and ended the savage ages which led to the establishment of the coven systems and how witches could only perform one type of magic for the rest of their life. So it is no unreasonable to say that Belos is OLD. Very, very, unbelievably, inconceivably old. As I am pretty sure that Belos did not have a love child with anyone (because it is a Disney show after all, and I don't want that visual of the Emperor getting it on with anyone), the likelihood of having an heir succeed him in the events of his death would be near impossible. Remember when he tasked Lilith with retrieving that flower for him back in season 1? I'm personally thinking that once he realized that the flower was fake, he used his technological knowledge to create a clone of himself that way so he could somewhat "cheat death." With how much he talks about

the Day of Unity and its inevitability, Belos likely created the GG as a contingency plan in the events that he doesn't live to enact the Day of Unity. I mean why else would he show favoritism over this one subject if not for their close ties? Overall, a great way to start the second season. Can't wait for next week where we get to formally meet Momma Thiccalia.