Review: The Owl House "Agony of a Witch " - Bubbleblabber (2025)

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

With Emperor Belos’ patience running out, Lilith tries one more forceful attempt to capture Eda which…fails spectacularly. It seems like nothing can take Eda down, aside from her mysterious curse that is becoming more resistant to potions (which I guess it better than them not working at all like was said before) and is only made worse by her using her magic (which is a new detail that hasn’t been mentioned). Luz tries searching for a solution during a field trip to the Emperor’s Castle, where the emperor just leaves his most powerful weapons out in the open like an idiot. But stealing them triggers an alarm, alerting Lilith to the theft and taking Luz hostage. This forces Eda out of hiding (in the middle of making a cloak for Luz, to save her and fight Lilith, where Lilith reveals that she was the one who cursed her all those years ago. Still, this doesn’t keep Eda from making her curse worse trying to get Luz back, using the last of her willpower to keep her alive before permanently turning into the owl monster. Lilith then captures her and sends Luz away, telling her to go back to her own world.

OUR TAKE

Things fittingly take a turn for the serious as we approach the first season finale. And with the season coming to a head, it’s natural that the main plot threads and character arcs come back into the spotlight, specifically Eda’s mentorship of Luz, Eda’s curse, and Lilith’s complicated bond with Eda, all under a general theme of family. The mentorship has probably been the most consistently handled, with the makeshift family they’ve created being at the heart of things, so to potentially see the permanent loss of it rightfully plays with the heartstrings quite a bit (though I have my doubts of it sticking by the end of the next episode).

But then there’s the other two points, which have been pretty all over the place. As mentioned last episode, Lilith has clearly not been putting her all into capturing her sister, to the point that it kinda drains her initial mystery and ability to look threatening because of her baffling decisions to pull her punches. And now we learn that, even when she actually goes all out, she can’t even stand up to HOOTY with a full battalion at her command. The only way she’s actually able to get one over on Eda is by threatening Luz, which I feel like a more competent villain would have tried at least a dozen episodes ago. She’s been playing around with Eda for most of her appearances when she’s dealing with THE MOST WANTED CRIMINAL, but now it seems like she never had the option to take her head on anyway. Makes you wonder how the heck she got her position when her only job thus far has been failure after failure. Even the epically animated fight doesn’t do much to distract me from this issue, other than make me wonder “have their heads ALWAYS been that much bigger than their bodies?”

And then there’s the big reveal about Eda’s curse, which is pretty disappointingly simple. I don’t know if they intended this, but having Lilith’s introduction right after the episode first showing Eda’s curse pretty much told me right away that she was behind it, though at this point, I don’t know what that’s supposed to surprise us with. After showing these two siblings being at each other’s throats for most of the season, their dynamic couldn’t possibly be made any worse by bringing this up now, so what does it add? And it’s not made much better by how inconsistent Eda’s curse has been portrayed. First it requires the elixir to stop, then the elixir doesn’t work and laughter is what’s needed, then it apparently artificially ages you, and now the elixir DOES work but it’s made worse by using magic. And now who knows what will happen whether she’s permanently the owl beast or if it will get cured. Regardless, we’ll find out more of SOMETHING in the season finale next week.

Score

6/10

Green Lynx (David Kaldor): Aimless 20-something given a paid outlet for his thoughts on cartoons. Fears being boring slightly more than being outright disliked.