“Your delinquent child is outside, and I have assured him that he is very, very grounded.”
Between Yeza and the campers still waiting for their parents to arrive from around the coast to collect them, Veth wasn’t sure any of them saw her move between the dining room and the foyer before she’d thrown the front door open.
Outside, Caleb held Luc by the back of the vest, neither of them looking any worse for wear. Behind them, Jester and Fjord looked a bit sheepish, though not nearly as sheepish as her son, who had almost curled into himself beneath the venomous look she’d given him.
“I thought you were dead! You're never leaving this house again! I couldn't get in contact with anyone and I thought you were fucking dead!” she screeched, before any of them could move, but Luc almost kept pace with her, slipping from his godfather’s grasp and, to her surprise, likely to the others’ surprise as well, threw his arms around her.
“I’m sorry, Mom, I should’ve listened to you, I’ll stay grounded for as long as you want—“
Veth spluttered for a moment, though her arms wrapped around him in return. This had not been how he’d returned under Kingsley’s grasp, caught by the ear and cursing up a storm.
It took a long moment to realize that Luc was trembling beneath her grasp. Very faintly, but definitely trembling.
She looked over his shoulder at Caleb, then Fjord and Jester. “There have been… several lessons learned in the past thirty-six hours,” Caleb said, his tone even stonier than his expression.
Fjord nodded slightly in agreement, carrying the weight of agreement. Her grasp on her son tightened, and she kissed his hair. Her sharp tone felt empty and hollow even to her own ears.
“Don’t you ever run away again— Don’t you know what I’d do if you were killed—“
“I know, Mom,” Luc interrupted, and for the first time in weeks— months— a long fucking time— he didn’t sound petulant.
He sounded like her boy.
“I kept him safe,” Caleb said flatly, also without any defensiveness. There was, even for Caleb, a dark flame behind his eyes. It felt like a spark she hadn’t seen in quite a few years.
“He was very particular about it,” Jester agreed, and then, in a poorly-disguised whisper, “Trent.”
Veth’s grip tightened, and she pulled Luc aside, away from the doorway. “Come in, tell me all about it—“ she pulled back and checked him over as Caleb nodded and passed inside. “You’re all in one piece, you’re alright—?”
“Yeah, Mom,” he agreed, with exhaustion. “Uncle Deuce made sure we were all in one piece.”
Jester pouted as she passed. “I also made sure you were okay, alright, but Caduceus is so helpful, you know, and honestly, in the end, it wasn’t even that bad— we saved most of the town, and we had a great party, and—“
She stopped her rambling in the middle of the doorway and clapped both hands to her mouth as Luc ducked under both of them into the house.
“Oh. My. Gods, Veth, you will not believe— Fjord proposed to me—“
With the number of things Jester had just imparted to her, it was honestly a testament to her own intelligence that Veth managed to process them in time to turn to Fjord just as he started up the steps, stopping him in his tracks.
“You what? And I missed it—?!”
"You know, Jester, I think we can let Caleb debrief the Brenatto family alone—"
She had him by the ear before he could move, which was an impressive feat considering he was over half her height, but he was almost as slippery of a bastard as she was.
Within an instant, he'd turned to mist in her grasp and vanished to the other side of the street, Jester complaining behind her all the while. Veth shrieked after him. "You piece of shit!"
In response, he yelled, "That's soon-to-be Admiral Tusktooth-Lavorre to you!"
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I'll admit- I really wasn't in to the hunter possession thing at first. I thought it was just putting hunter through the ringer AGAIN for no good reason other than to make him cry and as an excuse to merc flapjack. And I couldn't even think of a good reason why they'd do that in the first place.
But, after giving it a second watch (I was watching a very low quality stream when it came out and straight up missed scenes and dialogue) I have begrudgingly come to admit that it works. It's not the direction I would've gone with but it works (LONG thoughts under the cut, but with a TL;DR)
Hunters desire at the beginning of the series was freedom, and now that he actually has that freedom in the human realm he... doesn't know what to do with himself. He seems sort of reluctant to return to the demon realm at all, since Camilla and Luz have become such a stable family unit for him, but gravesfield still isn't his home.
Hunter still misses parts of the EC, namely the person he was as the golden guard- intimating, fearless, self assured, if thoroughly unhappy. He's still trying desperately to define himself in opposition to other things (namely Belos and Caleb) as he slowly discovers his interests. He may be happy but he's just floating through life with no direction at the moment.
Until Belos rears his ugly head again and hunter FINALLY states the things he wants- to study wild magic and be a normal kid who plays flyer derby and goes to hexside (and has an awesome surrogate family w/ the nocedas). He wants to stop his uncle from hurting anyone anymore- now that he doesn't have to worry about protecting himself, because as Luz said earlier, keeping him safe is her job now, their job.
hunter says earlier that he's "not who he's supposed to be, but he likes who he is". Refuting belos is meant to be him cementing that he's not Caleb, not the golden guard, not a vessel or a toy or a tool, he likes the part of him that wants all these things.
So does possession hunter hit better for me now? A bit yea. Again, I probably spoiled myself with my rampant imagination over the last couple of months- and I really would've liked to see more of Belos on his own terms. But at the end of the day it's not antithetical to hunters arc like I first thought it was. It's not a step backwards, it's closure. He recognised Belos was evil and that he didn't deserve what happened to him, now he knows what he does want and he's got people there to help him get it.
But now that hunter has different desires (and I hate hate hate to say this but...) It kind of makes sense for him to maybe carve a new palismen in place of flapjack that represents this change. Flapjack got him this far and a desire for freedom and love will carry him through the rest of his life as he gains more specific goals and wants.
(Also- tangent, even though Belos name drops Evelyn when killing flapjack, he also shouted "CALEB!" In kings tide when he saw the bird. I think flapjack in general reminds him of what he lost, and Belos naming Evelyn is him saying goodbye to her influence, attempting to twist the knife one last time as he again tries to exert control over his brothers image and their relationship. All this to say, no matter who carved it, flapjack is a symbol for both freedom and the wittebane brothers strife. Hence, it's painful and not 100% necessary but reasonable to want to move on narratively)
There's still all the unresolved threads re: Caleb and the Clawthornes and also WHY DOES BELOS WANT BACK INTO THE DEMON REALM. WHAT DOES HE WANT. Belos felt a bit...directionless in general in this one but again I'm holding out to see how his plotline is resolved since it wasn't resolved in gravesfield like we all suspected.
but like that one early review article said, this episode is just act one of the larger feature-length story that season 3 is gonna tell. A sort of owl house movie. Which is both frustrating since I don't think anyone was expecting that (we all had 3 act structure in mind but not this literally I don't think hsvsjfj) and even though I'm happy the releases are being paced in order to maintain hype and conversation within the fandom, I know things won't feel complete til all 3 episodes air.
That's the biggest flaw of Thanks to Them to me- an episode I otherwise really adore, ESPECIALLY in terms of Camilla and Luz's arcs. It's sort of trying to have its cake and eat it too- it knows it can't just be 44 minutes of set up, but it can't be it's own self contained story either. So it's conflicted and thus starts slacking at the climax for me. But it left me so excited to see where the show picks up next with reunions, lore, arcs concluding and reveals!
uhhh TL;DR: belos!hunter was jarring for me at first but I've come to accept it as part of hunters closure even if it's not in my top favourite ways you could've done that, and even though the episodes ending left me wanting, I'm excited to see what season 3 looks like as a whole!
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