The Owl House is a fairly new Disney Channel series that just started very recently. Despite a fairly slow first half, I think Season 1 of The Owl House managed to grow into a gutsy, funny, creative, and thoroughly entertaining animated series that has a lot of room to grow even more in the future.
The main storyline of The Owl House is fairly simple, in that an average girl named Luz gets whisked away to a magical world full of witches, monsters, etc. Despite its isekai-ish premise, The Owl House quickly differentiates itself with a unique magic system, and a world far more complex than your usual fantasy world, with tons of mythology, politics, and unique species and character interactions. The Boiling Isles feels like its own fully fleshed-out world, even if it ends up coming at the cost of the show's pacing. Season 1 of The Owl House is packed with plot threads that appear and disappear throughout the season. I think most of them do a good job of getting resolved by the end, but at the cost of characters getting written out of certain episodes just because there's too much to deal with. The first half of the season is especially shaky, as it takes a while to set up all of the character dynamics and elements of the show's world.
Despite these issues, the second half of this season was absolutely excellent, packed to the brim with tons of excellent episodes that balance comedy, drama, and heart incredibly well. This is thanks to the strong and well-written characters that even managed to carry some of the weaker earlier episodes. The best character is probably Amity Blight, who has one of my favorite iterations of the bully-becomes-friend character arc I've seen. Frankly, some of my favorite episodes are the ones focused around Amity. It's also worth noting the sheer gutsiness of having the main characters in a Disney show be LGBT, and I can't wait to see Amity and Luz's relationship evolve further in Season 2. Other highlights include Luz, who is a likable and quirky protagonist, and the consistently hilarious King, courtesy of Bill Hirsch.
The second half of Season 1 is pretty much a nonstop streak of excellent episodes, the best of which include:
Understanding Willow: A pretty big stepping-stone in Amity's character arc, as we finally learn why her relationship with Willow is so strained. Both of these characters are fleshed out a lot, and the creative dream visuals make this a visually stunning episode as well.
Enchanting Grom Fright: This episode was mostly a buildup to the third act, but what a third act it was. That dance fight was stunning, and it still wasn't even the best-animated moment in the show. The reveal that Amity has feelings for Luz is shocking and exciting, and it even ends on a mysterious twist about Luz's mom that hasn't even been resolved yet.
Agony Of A Witch: Up until this point, The Owl House has been fairly light-hearted for the most part, but Agony Of A Witch is just intense. So many near deaths, shocking twists, and heartwrenching twists that serves as the dramatic height of the season. And that's not to mention the astonishing fight between Eda and Lilith which boasts some of the best animation I've seen all year.
Young Blood, Old Souls: While not every character gets their time to shine here (*cough* Amity *cough*), this is a strong finale that brings back the focus to the core trio. There are some pretty neat twists like Luz burning the portal and Lilith becoming good, all leading to an interesting new status quo for Season 2.
Overall, the first season of The Owl House may have had a slow start packed with tons of set-up and maybe too many plot points, but the second half does an excellent job of paying off a lot of those plot points and playing around with the show's creative location, setting up for what should be an even better Season 2.
3/5 Stars
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