I apologize in advance, because I'm going to be quite negative about this episode. To me, this is THE most disappointing episode in the entire series.
The premise of the episode sounds great: The Golden Egg storyline has made some great progress so far this season, so let's give the Stella & Gale storyline some time in the spotlight as well!
And it is indeed good for a little while. Unfortunately, progressing the Stella & Gale storyline requires... CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!
(Toccata and Fugue in D Minor starts playing as thunder roars and a woman shrieks)
So far the writers have shown themselves to be incredibly afraid of such a concept, especially when it comes to Gale. But hopefully, they'll overcome said fear in order to write a good story for season 2, right? Nope! The moment Gale threatens to grow and change as a person, they immediately hit the undo button, and the two birds remain stern enemies.
This episode probably would've been fine if it were like a season 1 episode, but that's the thing: this isn't season 1, this is season 2! We already know damn well what the Status Quo looks like, and this is supposed to be the part where you kick it in the ass and do big, interesting things with the characters! And you did do that! You've done a lot with the Golden Egg plot already, and are about to make way bigger strides, so why is the Stella & Gale plot, which I'd argue is supposed to be the main focus, considering that the Angry Birds Stella sub-series is all about friendships and whatever, still stuck in the same "bicker-reconcile-nevermind" format that it was in during season 1 episode 1?!
And if you allow me to be nitpicky for a minute, the titlecard for this episode is so goddamn generic looking. In fact, it's basically just the ToonsTV poster for Angry Birds Stella!
And that one scene where Stella and Gale start fighting as their names flash on screen is SO obviously made for clips to put in a trailer that it hurts.
There have been a few episodes I've considered pretty meh, but they don't really bother me as much. At the very least, they knew what they wanted to do and succeeded at said goal, even if they could've used a bit more flare, or what they wanted to do wasn't really that interesting in the first place. Not this episode, they wanted to do something with Stella and Gale but chickened out and went back to season 1 shenanigans. Hell, calling it "season 1 shenanigans" would be a disservice to season 1 because it gave us "Don't Steal My Birthday!", a similar episode which was leagues more interesting than this episode!
Ultimately, this episode highlights one of the greatest issues with Angry Birds Stella: the lack of character development. I've always thought that this problem was limited to Gale, but now that I've sat down and actually properly watched this show instead of just looking for things to reference in "The Angry Birds Stella Fan-Rewrite I Keep Telling Myself I'd Make", I realize this is a problem for everyone! Poppy forgets her lesson in "Rock On"; Luca snickers at the end of "The Runaway", suggesting that the worst night of his life (so far) meant absolutely nothing to him; and "Step It Up" ends with a "here we go again!" gag.
Angry Birds Stella wanted to be So Ambitious. The first story-driven Angry Birds thingy and all that! But that's the problem: it was the first. Character-driven stuff was entirely alien to Angry Birds during this, and despite all their ambitions, they were terrified of straying too far from the familiar territories of Angry Birds Toons and Piggy Tales, where characters stayed stagnant from beginning to end. Good for something simple and comedic, bad for something like Angry Birds Stella.
Angry Birds Stella could've been so peak. :(
