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The Owl House is not holding back in building up the mythology of the series in season 2. “Echoes of the Past” takes a deep dive into the mysterious past of the lovable demon king, King. Our (skeptical) knowledge of King’s past has come from King himself prior to this episode but with this added backstory, it adds an even deeper emotional layer, giving us some answers, but opening an even bigger door to more questions about his past and the history of the realm.
We pick up this week with Luz practicing glyphs, now with the knowledge of the way they work which we learned in last week’s breakthrough reveal. King makes comments to Luz about Lilith and Hooty and they note that they have bonded quickly since Lilith joined them. Luz manages to perfect a disappearing spell using glyphs which works as long as she’s holding her breath. Lilith is delighted witnessing the successful spell but King becomes horrified when he sees Luz disappear. In a funny moment we see Hooty protect Lilith from an “attack” which leads him to dramatically call out “Avenge me, Lulu!”
Following some mocking from Lilith and Hooty, King tells the story of his past as he remembers it. A spell was cast transforming him from a great Demon King into today’s form. When he shrank, his memories got fuzzy. Lilith and Hooty don’t believe his story but Luz urges them to go along with the story. He tells them he’ll prove it by going back to the place Eda found him. Lilith invites Hooty to come along. Being a part of the house, we’ve never seen him separate from it. Luz, Lilith and King watch in horror as Hooty gets into a portable backpack (off screen, but watching their facial expressions as he gets ready is a great moment). We see Luz gagging, Lilith aghast, and King crying at the sight.
After the group heads off, Eda comes out of the shower. She relaxes on the couch knowing she’s alone, then sees the note King left for her, saying where they went. She immediately follows in pursuit in a flying bathtub machine. I won’t lie, I got a great laugh out of the image.
The group have been flying for hours. Lilith and Hooty make fun of King, still believing he made it all up. King suddenly spots an island. Lilith remarks that the island shouldn’t be there since it’s not on any maps she’s seen or studied. They land and explore. Lilith is intrigued by the tower at the center of the island. King brings them the long way to the building, for dramatic effect, to a keyhole shaped door. Blocked by rocks, King slips inside to go and find a way in for the rest of them. Lilith spots an artifact outside that predates her knowledge of the realm and suddenly is giddy. King opens the doorway and they enter. Inside Lilith and Luz use glyphs to light the chamber. You immediately get a spooky feeling being inside. Luz senses movement while Lilith spots ancient carvings. Lilith wonders what other knowledge she’s missing since she’s never seen anything like this before. Hooty and Lilith both realize that King may not be lying when they spot a similarly looking large demon carved in the wall and become scared at the realization.
King becomes teary eyed reminiscing and being back. Lilith and Hooty suddenly ask King to share more of his tales, catching King and Luz off guard, after the two previously mocked his story. Luz goes deeper into ruins, hearing a noise while the rest are distracted by King’s story. Luz spots the movement again and follows. A creature crawls on the ceiling and walls and chases the group. They use glyph magic to slow it down. Just when it looks like it’s about to get them and cuts them off, Eda arrives and attacks it before it hurts them. Eda tells them to run. Eda tells the creature that it’s been a while, “miss me?” Eda emerges from the building hurt but the creature stops its pursuit at the entrance where a force field prevents it from leaving the building.
King suddenly realizes Luz may not believe him. Eda tells him that he doesn’t know the full truth. Injured, she falls to the ground and Lilith bandages her arm. She then tells the story of how she first met King. We flash back to a young Eda with short hair, wearing a cape with holes in it. 8 years ago Eda was looking for a place to hide from the coven. She didn’t know the island existed but she needed a place to hide. Hot rain was falling from the sky so she needed to find shelter. Inside she realized she wasn’t alone. Baby King appears, making the rock formations which were all around the building. The same creature attacked them. Instinctively, she picked up King and fled to protect him. As they flee, the creature shoots an arrow, hitting King, breaking the horn from his skull helmet. At home, Eda calls him a king and he suddenly speaks for the first time. Realizing he responded to being called a king, she tells him all about being a king and played along with the story because he enjoyed it
With the story over, King tells Eda she’s lying. She presents the broken horn from her story to him. King suddenly realizes his army from his memories were the rock formations and his great feasts were the bugs he ate. He throws the skull fragment in disgust, saying it’s messing with his head. Luz goes to comfort him and he asks if they are making fun of him again. He becomes mad and upset and has a meltdown with the sudden influx of information. He flees overcome with emotion.
Lilith and Hooty both feel regret for their roles in everything and Luz feels bad for lying. They decide to split up to find him. Eda comforts Luz telling her they’ll find him. After a short search, Luz finds him looking out at the sea, sitting on a log. She sits down next to him and says she loves him and she’s sorry for lying. He tells her he can’t tell what’s real and fake anymore and becomes emotional over everything he just witnessed and experienced. Luz realizes one of his memories still doesn’t add up. He remembered falling and hearing a roar. She tells him there may be a clue as to where he came from still inside. He agrees to go search for answers. Reunited with the rest, Eda apologizes and he boops her, telling her no more secrets and she promises.
Lilith and Hooty fly back into the building and attack the creature. Hooty cries out “Special delivery! PAIN.” Luz holds her breath, casting a disappearing spell, and Luz, Eda and King fly in undetected. As Lilith and Hooty fight the creature, Luz clears the entry to the tower and the two teams fly up as the creature pursues them. When they get to the top, there’s nothing there. The creature reaches the top and forces the group to back up against a wall. When King touches the wall, it triggers something magical and a door opens. They run inside and close it before the creature gets them.
Now inside a chamber, Luz calls herself a great detective saying, “I knew there was something up here! I’m like the mystery whisperer. The butler did it. Magnifying glass. Secret door.” Lilith says the room is very old and that the creature was meant to guard whatever was in the room. Luz asks King if anything is familiar to him. He says he knows how to jog his memory. He takes the broken piece of his horn and puts it on his head. King sees himself hatching from an egg. When he’s born, he sees a symbol above. He stumbles his way to the door where it opens when he touches it. The creature waits outside for him and brings him to the ground floor, where his falling memory comes from. He says the roar he heard from his memory meant “son”. He doesn’t know how he knows it, but he does. The group realizes that maybe King’s father was the one depicted in the wall carvings. Suddenly, the creature breaks down the door. King tells it to stop and it obeys, kneeling in front of him. It was protecting King from the rest of them all along. He realizes he’s important to someone and he wants to go find whoever the voice belongs to. He asks Luz if she will help him on that journey. She agrees.
Back home, King carves the symbol he saw into his collar. Luz glues his horn back together. They brought the creature home with them (who is now called Jean-Luc after King names him), but he doesn’t move now that he’s outside the ruins. King asks Luz if it’s okay if she still calls him King, even though they now know the truth. So adorable and heart warming!
Eda says she’s never seen markings like the ones they saw and that it must be an old language. They ponder who the carvings were depicting. Lilith goes through her books, equally stumped and curious to find out more. They agree that whatever they discover, they’ll be there for King.
Alex Hirsch’s voice work is always a highlight, but he knocked it out of the park in this episode. He added so much vulnerability and depth to King. Even the animation in the moments where King has a breakdown before he runs off were so emotional bringing the whole scene together. Learning so much about King is a welcome piece of information. We’ve only heard his stories but we were always wary of the extent of the truth with them. King accepting that his memories weren’t accurate was great character growth. He was equally accepting that there is even more to learn and he wants that information.
I love having Lilith in the group now full time. She’s a great teammate and contrast to the rest of the group, helping to push them towards more answers. Her knowledge comes in handy, even if she was stumped by what she found this week. I loved the moment Lilith gets caught taking pictures of the carvings and Hooty swallows the camera. There’s no doubt in my mind that having Lilith on their side, learning all of this new information this season will help them when they need it the most. We now know how glyphs work, we know there’s more to King’s past and she’s not going to stop trying to find answers for the group and her own knowledge. Will it all tie into a final confrontation with Emperor Belos? Only time will tell, and let’s not rush it!
Seeing that Lilith and Hooty’s nicknames for each other are still holding up was amazing. They’ve really struck up a bond which I didn’t see coming as they are completely opposites in so many ways. I hope we keep getting hilarious moments like Hooty asking Lilith to avenge him and him calling out PAIN in the heat of battle. Plus now that we know Hooty can become mobile (to their horror) I hope we see him out with the rest again. Not too often, but once in a while.
With only one season left after this, they’re not holding back building up the mythology and creating a bigger and more realized world. Learning more about King after not knowing anything legit about his past is everything I wanted. I’m sure we’ll keep learning more about the past in order to move forward in the inevitable next confrontation with Belos. At this pace in season 2, I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up seeing a Weirdmageddon type scenario being set up with the final season and the three 44 minute long episodes that will be a part of it. I don’t want to rush the season but all of this information we’re getting is so exciting!
The Owl House Season 2 airs Saturday mornings on Disney Channel. New episodes can be streamed on Disney Now.
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