Hercules and the Big Kiss
A Review by Juan F. Lara
BAD POINTS
The first time I watched this ep I was going "huh" at Cassandra's reaction to the vision. Oh, I AGREE that kissing Icarus will make you puke. :-) But still, building an entire episode on just preventing a kiss? And I wasn't expecting Cassandra to ever act so panicky. But up to then I had been envisioning Cassandra as a mythic Daria Morgendorfer, who'd be just as repulsed but wouldn't freak out. Maybe I biased my idea of what's the right behavior for Cassandra. Also, Winfield might've been trying for an absurd situation when Cassandra made the deal with Hades. But my only reaction was "Isn't this being extreme?" And it was strange to see Herc start out trying to prevent the kiss and wind up trying to make to happen. Cassandra was never as upset about the deal as Herc was. Maybe they should've put in some scenes of Cassandra as Hades's slave to show what the deal really meant and to justify Herc's dismay. The ep was heavily padded out. Cassandra and Icarus were under spells for all of Act 2 and half of Act 3. But since the spells completely wore off, that whole part of the ep was unnecessary. The important plotpoints didn't start until Hades "killed" Icarus, which was what I expected him to do right at the start. ( Why doesn't Hades make afterlife easier by doing that more often. :-) Doubt had an imaginative power. ( "I was stricken by Doubt!" ) But he didn't talk and showed no personality. He was just a monster, like the third- act monsters Aladdin always fought.
GOOD POINTS
But these problems didn't bother me so much when I rewatched the ep. I now knew what was coming, and I found a lot of good quotes listed below. I noticed then that this was the first ep to focus on Cassandra and Icarus. We got to see Cassandra's home and parents. Likewise Icarus's house. I found Icarus's pining for Cassandra funny because he meant no real harm. Plus Herc took some initiative of his own in Acts 2 and 3. I really enjoyed the show's conception of Aphrodite. They gave her an appropriate theme song: a commercial jingle for a little girl's toy ( perhaps her temple. :-) Aphrodite had particularly good lines in Act 2, showing her as optimistic, trusting, and casual. She figured Herc could handle the arrows on his own and had to remind herself to tell Herc the details of how to use them. Lisa Kudrow did an appealingly restrained read of the goddess. All the time I thought Hades was talking about his takeover scheme. :-) The truth in Act 3 was a fun surprise. Hades got more dimension to his personality when he acted vulnerable around Aphrodite. Even to the poing of becoming sympathetic. I would've approved if Aphrodite had said "Yes" to him, though the actual ending was good, too. Still I thought Herc would do a little mortal intervention and shoot an arrow at Aphrodite. :-) MISCELLANEOUS
This ep had a noticible emphasis on gross-out gags. The finger sandwichs, the date smoothie, Cassandra's threat to vomit ( though she never actually did ), Most of the gross-out was gratuitous, but still a bit funny. Oh, yeah, hopefully Pegasus could clean his nose later on. :-) DYN: This ep had no narrator. Herc did the title intro. Chris Rutkowski has worked on the "Melissa Screech" segments in "Toonsylvania" and other projects. Too bad Disney hired Plus One to interpret the storyboard artists' work. :-( BTW: I couldn't make out the Greek word for Harvest Festival. Could anyone else catch the word?
Hades: "Seers Catalog. [ Ouch. ] Directory of fortune tellers, psychics and clairvoyants." Cool beans, way to go.
Cassandra: Don't you have some annoying Hero Rule that applies here? Hercules: Uh, well,...#221, never promise to help before you know the job.
Icarus: You put me to the path to osculation! Hercules: Osculation? So,...you won't kiss her?
Hercules: You sold your afterschool-and-weekends soul to Hades?!
Pain: Your continuing faith in us is truly inconceivable, your head deadliness.
Hercules: There it is. The Temple of Aphrodite. Sure is pink...
Hercules: My best friend, Icarus is in love with my other best friend. Aphrodite: Wait, wait, wait. Are they both humans? Hercules: Uh, huh. Aphrodite: Just checking.
Pain: HE'S going to kiss somebody? I gotta get out more. I can do OK.
Cassandra: Do I have to spell it out for you? E-R-O-S. Love.
Hades: Whoa, hey. It's rude to point arrows in public.
So I grew to like the positives of this so-so episode.
- Juan F. Lara http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~jfl/intro.html
Icarus: C'mon! I was asleep the first time!