The Owl House has ended.
On April 9th, 2023, “Watching and Dreaming” premiered, concluding the series. I’m sure we all wish it could have lasted longer, and I’m sure there are things we all wish could have been done if there was more time. However, I’m sure also that many, if not all of us, can agree that, despite the limitations Disney placed on the Owl House crew, this was a wonderful finale. The pacing was great, the animation beautiful, and the story and its conclusion were so satisfying. As usual with my reviews, to make things easier, I will be discussing the episode in order from beginning to end.
We start “Watching and Dreaming” right where we left off at the end of “For the Future,” with the Hexsquad and Camila making it to the Skull on their way to face The Collector and rescue Eda, King, and the others. Immediately when they arrive, all but Luz are captured and turned into puppets by The Collector, who then puts Luz to sleep. However, she is unaware of these things. The first thing she’s somewhat aware of is reaching out to a portal and a voice telling her to wake up. Unfortunately, she doesn’t remember this short moment and soon wakes up in a nightmare scenario where she is Belos.
Luz awakens in a dark and dimly lit castle on Belos’ throne, wearing a smaller version of his cloak. Confused, she explores the castle, ending up at the bridge, where, in the mote, she sees many witches, including Principal Bump, petrified. In disbelief, Luz questions how this could happen. Her answer comes from Amity, who tells her that everything is her fault because she helped Belos meet The Collector, and thus she is the true villain, and that it’s her job to take Luz down. She then pursues Luz, who, not wanting to fight her girlfriend, flees.
The Collector has also put Eda and King in a nightmare scenario of their own. Eda is locked in the Confirmatorium by her mother and Lilith, while King is with Bill, surrounded by titan bodies, Bill saying that they’ve “saved the best spot for him.” This is all we see of their nightmares, ad they are much simpler than Luz’s. However, this is a positive, considering that hers is much more complex than Eda’s and King’s, and continues after we see her two friends’ nightmares.
We next see Luz running into the rest of her friends. Willow blames her for ruining her dreams, Gus calling her a hypocrite, as they helped her get back to her mother while he’ll “never get to see his dad again,” and Hunter questions Luz why she “gets to have it all” while he lost his best friend to help her. Then, Amity reappears, challenging Luz to a “Witches Battle.” It’s this misquote of The Good Witch Azura that makes Luz realize what’s going on. She goats everyone into attacking her, and it’s revealed that they are hanging from magical puppet strings. However, in this nightmare world, they can talk and explain to Luz that to wake up, she has to turn on the light. Amity then hands Luz a light glyph, which she uses, and awakens on a magic floating cube. Luz then releases Eda and King, and they finally reunite,
It is revealed that The Collector, and Belos, who, unbeknownst to The Collector, is possessing Raine, are watching this reunion, and The Collector is upset about it, as Belos told him it would work. Belos asks The Collector why they don’t just take them out, to which they respond that they want to be friends with the main trio. Through this conversation, The Collector reveals they can’t hurt King anyway since he’s a Titan, and Titan magic is the only magic that can negate The Collector’s own. It’s this that tells Belos what he should do next, and, after distracting The Collector with the idea of playing with the trio in person, he leaves for the castle and the heart of The Titan.
We come back to Luz, King, and Eda attempting to catch up on everything that’s happened since their separation. Soon The Collector appears, questioning King on why he would choose to play with these “spiders” instead of him. They try to explain to them that trapping, scaring, and controlling people isn’t fun, but they state that when toys break you, “just fix them.” It’s this comment that makes Luz realize that The Collector doesn’t realize what death is. The Collector then dismisses her question and puts the three of them into more games, during all of which they manage to mildly hurt them, making them end the games and cry in the corner of the floating cube. Here Luz starts a conversation with them, and they express to Luz their want of friends who won’t lie or trick them, like King, Belos, and even their own siblings had. This leads The Collector to explain their backstory to the trio.
It turns out that The Archivists tricked The Collector into going to the Boiling Isles and playing with the baby Titans. They were very welcoming to The Collector, but The Archivists were afraid of The Titan’s power and eliminated them one by one. This caused the last Titan, who we know to be King’s dad, to hide King, and, thinking they were like The Archivists, trap The Collector in the in-between realm. The trio expresses to The Collector that they know what it’s like to feel alone, abandoned, and misunderstood, and Luz, despite The Collector saying that King has already told him their stories, offers to tell him the stories first and, to which he accepts.
While this is happening, Belos makes it to the castle, crashing one of The Collector’s stars, which he’d stolen earlier. Raine manages to get Belos off of them but, with a comment from him, realizes what his goal is. They chase Belos through the castle to the throne room where the heart resides and tries to stop him from taking over The Titan but is unsuccessful. Belos reaches the heart and begins spreading his control throughout The Isles. Meanwhile, Amity, who we saw slightly move her hand in an earlier scene, draws a light glyph on the floor of The Archives, awakening herself and the others, minus Camila, who hangs on a wall nearby.
After this, we return to Luz, Eda, and King showing The Collector their story. They go to the Owl House, the stadium, and The Knee. At each of these places, The Collector is proven wrong by the trio about something he believed regarding friendship and people in general. All of these culminate at The Knee, where, after expressing their assumption that Luz forced Lilith and Amity to be her friends, they learn that “sometimes they [people] just need a little kindness and forgiveness.” Unfortunately, the discussion ends there, as The Collector hears something no one else does, deep breathing. Then, they all see The Titan’s right eye glow a familiar blue. This is when they realize, Belos has taken control of The Titan.
My main issue with the beginning of the finale has nothing to do with the finale itself. I just wish I hadn’t seen the trailer. Since most of the trailer is the first few minutes of the episode, along with the fact that, as the audience, we know that Luz, Eda, and King are asleep, it seems to go very quickly. Although I don’t have any proof, I believe if I hadn’t seen the trailer, although it wouldn’t change the latter issue, it may have made the pacing feel better, as everything would be new. Also, What Nightmare Amity and Willow say to Luz doesn’t carry as much weight as Gus and Hunter’s conversations with her. The latter two make much more sense, as, in a way, they’re true. What isn’t true is that they would truly blame her for these things. That’s what makes what Gus and Hunter say to Luz nightmare-like.
Other than these issues, though, I really enjoyed this first section of the episode. Everything between Belos and Raine was super creepy. The fact that Belos actually too of The Titan, just like us fans thought he would, is very satisfying, and I love the development The Collector and The Titans got. It adds so much to the story as a whole, and I can’t wait to rewatch the show to get more of the picture that I couldn’t the first time around. I also really like that the walk down memory lane is both for us, the audience, and helps The Collector develop as a character. This was a very good use of time. What is also a very good use of time is the start of the final battle.
To the horror of everyone on The Boiling Isles, gray fungus-like flesh starts quickly covering everything in Bonesborough, as if chasing the residents. Belos is taking over The Titan, growing an enormous monster form out of the flesh, with which he begins blasting the Isles with magic. This beam is what the group is hiding from when they arrive at the castle. After realizing that Belos got to The Titan’s heart by possessing Raine, The Collector, with kindness and forgiveness in their mind after their conversation with Luz, flies up to Belos. However, things do not go the way they expect. The Collector doesn’t realize that there’s no talking Belos down. Just like Luz when she first arrived on the Isles, they assume that everyone can be reasoned with, but they’re wrong. Belos sends a blast of blue magic toward The Collector, but it’s not them who he hits. Instead, it was Luz who had dived to protect them.
At first, she thinks everything will be okay, that she wasn’t hit at all, but when the fungus starts crawling up her fingers towards the face and consuming her, she knows she was very wrong. Luz tries to comfort everyone but can’t make The Collector understand what’s happening, and can’t find the words to say to Eda and King, who stands behind her in utter shock. Slowly, she is consumed by the flesh fungus, transformed into small balls of light that float away into the distance. They pass various places in The Isles until they reach The Archives, where, even in her puppet state, Camila cries, knowing something has gone terribly wrong. It isn’t until The Collector releases the last ball of light that Luz is able to reach The In Between Realm, where she is saved by someone we’ve been waiting for all series to meet; King’s father! Well, apparently, calling him Dad isn’t entirely accurate, as they quote King by saying, “I am king and queen, best of both things!” But they also say, “but Dad works fine,” so this is how I will be addressing them.
Surprisingly, he’s voiced by Arin Hanson from the Game Grumps, and he is awesome! He’s quite a lot bigger than King and does not have a broken horn, but my favorite part of his appearance is he’s wearing a “Bad Girl Coven” shirt! Yes! Needless to say, Luz is quite shocked to meet him, but he comforts her by thanking her for being kind to him, and, when Luz starts questioning whether Belos’ want to save humanity comes from the same place as their want to protect their loved ones from Belos, he immediately shoots her down. He tells her that she’s assuming his feelings are genuine. Instead, Belos “doesn’t care about anything but his need to be the hero in his own delusion, and because of that, he fears what he can’t control.”
A growl resonates throughout the In Between Realm, which makes King’s dad lift his shirt, and we see a representation of the fungus coming from his heart. This makes him realize that Belos will soon have control over his entire body. This prompts him to offer his last bit of life to Luz, so she can defeat Belos. At first, she asks him whether he’s sure he wants to give the power to her, but he calls her a good witch and, with a hand full of glyphs, gifts her the last of his power. However, this isn’t where their meeting ends. As King’s dad is talking over her, trying to tell her things to do or things to tell others, Luz is trying to interrupt him to ask him something. Eventually, she gets him to stop and asks her what he wants her to tell King. Unfortunately, we don’t find out what it is at this point since King’s dad whispers it to Luz. All we know at this point is that “He’ll love that.” Suddenly Luz sees King’s father sink into the water and sees his giant form towering above her. Everything is then engulfed by light, and the scene ends.
There are so many things about this section of the episode I love; the animation of the flesh was so gross-looking, the way Luz died, at the hands of Belos and his gross magic, I (and I haven’t seen Amphibia) was shocked at first to see him, but then realized it’s a Disney show, so she’s going to be revived. However, that doesn’t change how it initially made me feel. I could certainly relate to Eda and King at this moment. I also LOVED what Belos shouts after taking control of The Titan and how Matthew Rhys read it. Apparently, it was the last thing he read, as he wanted to put his all into the line and didn’t want to throw out his voice before his final scene.
Onto the scene with King’s dad; all I can say is, FINALLY! We’ve all waited so long to meet him, and it was worth it, and at least I think it was. I wish we got more time with him in other scenes, but this scene was perfectly paced and had so much characterization for King’s dad, just in his introductory and only scene that I can picture him anywhere. I would have loved to see him and King actually meet, but we can blame Disney for that. I do LOVE the fact that he was always looking after his son through the cubes and by teaching Luz what magic he could. This is definitely a scene that changes many earlier parts of the show, and I’m so excited to see what I didn’t notice because I didn’t know the full story. Along with this, we have the build-up to the REAL final battle. I was so excited to see what Luz would do with King’s Dad’s powers, but I didn’t expect her to have a whole new design!
However, we don’t see the new design right away. We don’t even start back at the fight with Belos. Instead, we’re back in the Archives with the other kids and Camila, who has finally awoken from her puppet state. Right away, she asks where Luz is, but no one answers. Suddenly, the ground rumbles, and Amity tries to use her magic, but instead, she ends up covered in Abomination goo. Camila comforts her by telling her and all the other kids that they’re exhausted and that they haven’t slept in days. When they express their worry over Luz, she tells them that she’s a Noceda, and that means, “She’s way too stubborn to let any of this get her down.” Then, with a pencil and pad in hand, she tells them that she knows a way they can help even without their magic.
We then return to the fight, where King is trying to harm Belos with his Sonic Shout but is caught by Eda when Belo’s blasts at him once again. They retreat slightly, and though they want to continue fighting, The Collector steps in front of them, begging them both to stop. They cry that they don’t want anyone to go away or go missing. They’re sorry for everything, and, for the first time, cries, tears pouring from their eyes. With this distraction, Belos attempts to crush them with his hand, but as soon as it reaches them, a giant hole is made through his hand right where the group stands. Then, to their amazement and Belos’ rage, in a circle of orange and purple magic, Luz reappears.
This is where the real fight begins. Of course, not before Luz attempts, once again, to find something cool to say to Belos, as all main characters should during the final battle. Sadly she is unable to find the words, and instead, after gathering herself, Eda, King, and The Collector in a magical ball of glyphs and flying high into the air, the battle begins. I won’t go into too much detail, as I’m not an audio describer, nor do I feel I have the time to describe the entire battle, but needless to say, this is where most if not all, of the special effects and animation budget went. The music is also amazing. I need this track alone to listen to outside of the show. There are also so many callbacks to things and awesome moments between characters; two of my favorites are when Luz and King both do the Sonic Shout together or when she and Eda make one big magic circle. While they’re doing all of this, among other things, the fungus is replaced with red grass. Also, away from the battle, The Collector is helping rescue everyone from the Archives by holding it up, as they and the main trio see it starting to fall earlier during the fight.
After a large magic blast that erases a large amount of the fungus, Belos raises The Titan’s left hand in an attempt to grab the trio. Luz sends them into the sky, where they get an amazing view (from almost outer space) of the entirety of the Isles, among other things. Luz then notices that the magic is running out. They’re running out of time. With an awesome reference to episode four of the series, they go flying toward the heart of the Boiling Isles to deft Belos once and for all. We then come to Raine, trapped in the castle by the fungus but able to keep their head safe by whistling (Eda’s Requiem call-back, yay!!). With their glasses on the ground, they don’t notice that it’s Eda coming to rescue them, but once they do, they are very happy to see her. Then, once Raine is freed, they eagerly join the final fight, and the group continues on to the throne room, The Titan’s Heart, and Belos.
The pacing of the fight picks up again when they arrive, Luz using her new magic to get right up to Belos and start tearing him from the heart. Meanwhile, the other three use their various magical abilities to stop the fungus from reaching them, as well as Luz. She reaches Belos, who declares that she cannot defeat him. However, (with much better pacing than words can do justice) with glowing yellow eyes, and, at last, finding the words for her final battle speech, Luz rips Belos from The Titan’s heart, ending the final battle, but not Belos, not yet.
With Belos removed from The Titan, the flesh-like fungus that was slowly engulfing The Isles breaks off, turning to smoke. We see this as the residents of The Isles finally feel safe enough to leave their hiding places and go outside. The Collector lands The Archives on top of The Titan’s skull like a crown, to their shock, being greeted warmly by Amity and the rest. Then, at last, we return to the Trio, Raine, and, turning from goop into the form of his younger self, Belos. Immediately, he tries tricking Luz, saying that he is under a curse, like Eda. He tries once again to manipulate her. But Luz has learned her lesson. Not everyone is worthy of forgiveness, especially not Belos. So she doesn’t even bother answering him, letting the Isles themselves speak for her as they send boiling rain down upon him. For the first time, we see what the rain would do to someone, so it’s very satisfying for it to happen to the one we hate the most. The rain turns Belos from his barely-sustained human form back into the goop he truly is. He reaches out towards Luz, grabbing her ankles, saying in a growl, “We’re humans. We’re better than them.” But all he gets in response is silence and a cold glare. That is, until Luz steps back, letting Eda, King, and Raine finish the job with a cold “well, we ain’t,” from Eda, followed by the three stomping on him, finishing him off for good. I think Raine puts it best when they say, “That was extremely satisfying.”
Right after this, Luz begins to glow. She floats into the air, and the Titan leaves her body. All three below realize who this is, and Eda makes a comment to King that he really does have tall genes (another call-back). King’s dad flies away into the distance, and Luz falls to the ground, being caught by King and Eda. Then, officially it’s over. Belos is dead, The Titan is dead, and everyone is safe. However, that doesn’t mean the episode is over.
I hope it’s obvious by my summary, but I loved the final fight and how Belos was taken out. The music, the effects, what happened, period. It was all so well done! I especially like how the music is more uplifting than stressful. It tells us everything will be okay. The good guys will win. Granted, this being a Disney show, we already know this, but it still has a nice touch with the music. Also, the fact that it’s a rock version of the main theme is AWESOME! With a show by and about nerds, I couldn’t imagine anything else. As for Belos, at first, I thought he should have gone out when Luz ripped him from The Titan, but then I realized something; he doesn’t deserve the dignity of death that awesome. He deserves to be kicked to death by two witches and the son of the titan he tried to take control of. This was a much better fate for him. Speaking of fates, we still have the fates of the rest of the characters to discuss!
The epilogue starts immediately after Belos dies, and The Titan’s magic leaves Luz’s body, with the main trio lying together on the grass, Luz in between them. Finally, we find out what King’s dad whispered to Luz; “I loaf you.” A bread pun! Just like back in early season one, such a good ending to that portion of the story! After this, Luz narrates, and we see the immediate aftermath of and recovery of The Boiling Isles and its people. The Collector revives everyone who they’d turned into puppets so that everyone can reunite with their loved ones, including Amity with her father (not her mom), Gus with his dad, Willow, and her fathers, and, lastly, to my and many others’ glee, Hunter with Darius and Eberwolf. We then move around The Isles, seeing people react to the damage done, some of the coven heads trying to literally grab the throne, with Darius and Eberwolf threatening them into backing away, and Steve and others helping Emperor’s Coven members leave their masks behind. Then, finally, we return to The Owl House. Everyone is relaxing in or around Eda’s nest when The Collector appears, leading Lilith, Amity, and Camila back to their loved ones; Amity and Camila reunite with Luz, Lilith with Eda, and Lilith with Hooty after The Collector turns him back to normal. We then see The Collector attempt to give Francois back to King, but he declines and allows them to keep the rabbit. We then learn through Luz’s narration that, though The Collector has decided to return to space, King hopes to see him again one day. One of the most important things we learn, though, comes after this, when Luz walks outside, glyph in and, and taps it. Nothing happens. Right then, Luz, and the audience, realize something; with The Titan dead, the glyphs no longer work. As Luz says, a chapter of her life has just ended, but another was just beginning.
We then transition to Luz’s bedroom in the Human Realm, where we learn she has graduated from high school and is heading off to college. Then, on command from Vee, we see Owlbert fly through the new portal door to gather the rest of the gang. First, we see Willow flying around on Clover. She flies down to the forest where we see (to many peoples’ joy), Hunter carving a Palisman for Braxas, having clearly learned from Dell Clawthorne, who sits behind him with Gwendolyn. We also see that he has a new Palisman, a Bluejay named Waffles. Hunter leaves with Willow, and they travel down a hill to where (to everyone’s sadness) where Flapjack’s grave stands. Willow magics flowers around it. The pair fly over Bonesborough, where we see various characters around town going about their day, others working on the rebuilding. However, Lilith isn’t building. She’s planning, specifically, a museum section of the library, where Hooty is the curator. Amity arrives in an abomination ship and hands Lilith a new book. The next biggest thing we see is Alador, Darius, and many other witches, most of them healing, attempting to remove a sigil from a young man’s wrist. They’re successful! Adorably, Darius freaks out and starts shaking Alador but then shies away. Raine, who is also there, looks through the window where they see Owlbert and the rest of the gang, and we see them fly, with Lilith, to The Heart, where the University of Wild Magic now resides. We’re shown classes taking place, taught by Edric, the protector of the Illusionist Graveyard, and Gus, who is teaching about human things, apparently for an exchange program between the Human Realm and the Demon Realm. The last thing we see in this section of the epilogue is that the Headmaster of the university is none other than Eda Clawthorne! She bursts through her office door, twirling her staff and wearing a new awesome outfit, just like all the other characters.
Then we see King, who has grown slightly, though he is far off from being as tall as his father. He stands in front of the new portal door, which is much more brightly colored than the previous door. It even has a star in the middle, which gives the impression that it may have been created by The Collector, although we have no solid proof of this. The door opens to reveal Vee, followed by Camila dragging Luz by the hand through the door. She’s confused,, wondering why they have to hurry so badly, but Camila tells her today is special. A few seconds later, Luz’s confusion is dispelled when everyone we’ve seen in the epilogue shouts “Surprise!” and it is revealed that, due to Luz spending her 15th, 16th, and 17th birthdays helping rebuild the Isles, everyone wanted to make it up to her by having her quinceañera, which they misspell as “King Ceanera” on the banner. Though Lilith says she followed Camila’s instructions perfectly, it being the Boiling Isles, this is not true, to hilarious effect. To add to the surprises, King and Eda then reveal that King’s powers are growing stronger; he now has his own light glyph! To quote Eda, “It looks like they’re different from his dad, but hey, you’ve got a whole new glyph language to try out.” King then jumps into Luz’s arms and tells her that they have another surprise. He runs to a nearby cliff and explains that The Collector is in the area and wants to do something special for the occasion. Everyone looks into the sky to see a line of fireworks-like magic, brighter and more colorful but similar. During all of this, Luz is finally able to tell King and Eda what she wanted to do earlier in the episode and many years ago for the character, “Thank you for everything.” She holds out one of her hands to them, “asking, “Weirdos?” and they respond in kind, touching their hands to hers. The fireworks-like display starts to end. Luz, facing both the audience and the crowd of her loved ones, says, both referring to The Collector and the audience, “They’re nearly gone. Okay, everyone! On the count of three. One, Two, Three.”
Then, in the last line of the series, with everyone looking up at the camera, shout, “Byyyyyyyyye.”
There are many things I didn’t mention in the last section, as every frame of the epilogue has so much in it that mentioning everything would take way too long in the text. However, there are / YouTube videos that break the episode down to talk about all those small details. One of my favorites is from The Roundtable on YouTube. Their video is titled “Watching and Dreaming ULTIMATE breakdown!” There are SO MANY things in this video that I couldn’t notice, either because of my blindness directly or because the audio description doesn’t/or couldn’t mention it due to time constraints. It truly is amazing how much they managed to fit into the epilogue. I do wish there could have been more voice acting and more time spent on the ending, but, as with most issues with the third season, this is not the fault of the creators but of Disney cutting the time the show had. With all that in mind, I quite enjoyed the finale and thought it was wonderful. I love where all the characters ended up after the time skip, especially everything Hunter related, and I love that they managed to get rid of the sigils. Outside of the show itself, I love that they managed to say goodbye to both The Collector and us at the same time. Being acknowledged by the creators was really nice. I’ve never seen a show do that before, in the show itself. It was very nice of them. I think this finale was a great send-off to a great show. I will certainly be rewatching it, and hoping for more content in the future, whatever form it takes.
