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Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Blossom³”

Written by: Jake Goldman

Written & Storyboarded by: Benjamin P. Carow, Caitlin Vanarsdale

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

Three times the trouble.

Not every episode of PPG 2016 starts with an action scene, but this happens to be one of them. We get introduced to a brand new villain named Duplikate, who has the power to duplicate things with her super-suit. Despite not having any other weapons, she's able to rob a bank. She then uses her duplication powers to make a black-and-white clone of the bank, which she just as easily robs.

A minor question: shouldn't be money bags also be black-and-white? If she brought her own bags, would any store accept black-and-white Benjamins? With her personality, I can see her robbing banks just for the fun of it, but it would have been nice to have that come up at one point. In fact, the black-and-white never comes up in the episode beyond the visuals and the lack of "who should I shoot first" cliches.

The Powerpuff Girls suddenly show up to stop her, and Blossom decides to do a multiplication pun for the other two to groan at. Blossom decides to do one of her plans. Her track record doesn't seem to be very good, but I'd imagine this would be a fool-proof plan...

...get a bunch of cars and throw them at her! Buttercup really wants to crush and mangle this villain's bones with at least 10 tons of rubber and steel, but thankfully for Duplikate, the plot, and the censors, someone has to stop her from doing that. Blossom tells Bubbles and Buttercup that the plan didn't call for blue coupes! This starts a theme: Blossom being arbitrarily annoying about something.

While Blossom and the other two are arguing, Duplikate duplicates the cars many times, crushing Bubbles and Buttercup with the duplicated amount of weight. I can’t knock the episode for not being creative with her abilities. She then runs off to have a date with a copy machine, saying that she'll do this again sometime. We can only imagine what that's like.

Blossom says she hates sequels, I can't really blame her after watching most of this, and uses her ice breath to make her slip and fall. This activates her powers, shooting a beam at Blossom that pushes her into the pile of coupes. Buttercup manages to find Blossom, and Bubbles manages to find Blossom twice. Uh oh!

There's now three Blossoms, Blossom 2 and 3 being black-and-white like all of the non-money-related clones. How can we tell the difference between 2 and 3? It never becomes important, so it does not matter. The Professor shows up to say that as long as his number of daughters is a prime number, everything is a-okay. He then leaves for the rest of the episode, making me wonder why they even bother having him around.

Buttercup: Three times the Blossom can only equal one thing...

...three more times the animators can forget to draw Blossom's ponytail? I can see that. Buttercup already has every reason to hate the idea of three Blossoms, but Bubbles needs a little more convincing. I mean, Bubbles doesn't have to worry about those chores now that the Blossoms can do them all. No need to program those perfect robots this time.

Oh, look at the door, it's someone offering free puppy adoptions. Blossom, being the responsible of the three, decides to say no and shut the door right in the guy's face, him visibly sobbing at her uncharacteristic rudeness. This instantly makes Bubbles agree with Buttercup that this is a nightmare. According to a writer's commentary on his Twitter, her actually having a reason would have been too justified for Bubbles. It really explains a lot that "too justified" is considered a reason to cut a joke in this show.

Bubbles: When will this nightmare end?

If that one blog post is right, it will not be too long, Bubbles. As Bubbles' jaw is still dropped at this, all three Blossoms get a call from the Mayor...

...that Pot-Head is on the loose again. His name is actually Infernus, but I misheard them calling him "Pot-Head" in his first appearance, and that name stuck with me ever since. He's apparently a villain made for Kaiju-esque mindless destruction, because that's something the Powerpuff Girls don't normally have to deal with. Sadly true in the reboot.

After Blossom does a “steampunk” joke for the other Blossoms to praise and the other two to groan at once again, they go in to attack him. They all use ice breath on Pot-Head's flames, and they start beating him up. Bubbles and Buttercup attempt to join in...

...but not before flexing their muscles and saying how they're going to clobber this monster. One of the major points of the Powerpuff Girls is that these cutesy little girls are still powerful enough to conquer any enemy that faces them. Scenes like this just spit in the face of that.

The flexing distracted the camera from focusing on the three Blossoms, and, as we all know, being off-camera seems to amplify their powers beyond "can get taken down by glitter and crayons". Buttercup seems completely offended when Blossom was able to take care of the monster by herself and two other Blossoms.

The Blossoms and Bubbles and Buttercup decide to split.

Buttercup: We'll be a duo so dynamic, there will be a bunch of movies based on us!

If you didn't get the reference, cue the obvious Batman TV show transition parody...

...to Crazy Jerry’s Discount Costumes. This is a subtle hint that the Powerpuff Girls are poor, alongside with the Professor’s "side jobs". Does he even have a regular job? I guess he could be a scientist, but that seems to be more of a hobby for him.

Bubbles questions why they would need new costumes. It's for the toys, of course, but Buttercup has a different reason: to give them secret identities. Judging by the villains and even some friends seemingly crashing through the Powerpuff home every now and again, that should be more of a concern, but they do a different running joke with that.

Meanwhile, at the Powerpuff home, it seems like all the Blossoms are happy with each other, so here's the obligatory "having clones is not such a great thing" scene. The other two Blossoms drink all of her milk, clean everything, and, while Blossom is going to read "The Girl With The Dragon Sticker", they do something completely expected.

Blossom 2 or 3: Oh, you mean when they reveal they were on Earth the entire time?!

Does Blossom regularly spoil books to people who she knows has yet to read them? Even Blossom has to deal with Blossom being uncharacteristically unlikable in this episode! I almost wish we could see Duplikate's date with the copy machine.

Instead, we get to see her plans after that date: to rob that same bank again and again. Well, she was not kidding about wanting to do this again sometime. She also has a tank, which she also stole, leading to more proof to the "I'm just robbing banks for fun" theory. After the Blossoms show up, she reveals that can even use her powers on herself. There doesn't seem to be any limit to that ability; she's either too smart or too stupid to realize she can probably cause a grey goo scenario just by herself. Can't decide which.

I could decide that with the next scene, though. Blossom has to think of a plan along with the other Blossoms, but, unlike that time they took down Pot-Head, none of them can agree on what plan to use! Ultimately, the other Blossoms do a plan to figure out that plan.

FOCUS TESTING!

Thankfully, they just say it in unison, no random choirs here. The other Blossoms leave to do a focus testing gag, leaving Blossom to be blasted away by one of the Duplikate's tanks.

The Mayor, realizing “The Blossompuff Girls” aren’t up to it, decide to light the ButterBubbs signal. That was the original title for the episode, by the way; Blossom's so smart, she should be associated with something more mathematic, after all. I mean, it's not like the toughest fighter should be the mathlete, right? I would not complain if that never come up again, because it shouldn't.

The ButterBubbs signal brings out Bubbles and Buttercup, in new costumes they clearly got out of the clearance section of that store. It doesn't look anything like the costumes they pointed out earlier; maybe they were too justified. They decide to use their trusty utility belts...

...specifically, to start whipping them around, and start shouting "gooly gooly gooly" as they comically run, not fly, towards Duplikate. Even Robin’s treatment in Teen Titans Go had more dignity than this. There was some commentary on this scene, and I'm not nearly that delighted to say that "because the storyboarder thought it was funny" theory was correct.

They immediately get blasted by one of the Duplikate's tanks. That's pretty much the end of the Batman parody, didn't that seem like something with a point? Well, there is one point: with just Blossoms, nothing can be done. With just Bubbles and Buttercup, nothing can be done. Only with each Powerpuff Girls' dynamic working with each other can they defeat this villain, with Blossom's planning, Bubbles' randomness, and Buttercup's...randomness.

Yeah, they don't give Buttercup a distinct reason to fight, minus those small hints of bloodthirst in the beginning of the episode. It's another episode where Bubbles and Buttercup are essentially one character. Probably should have expected that out of an episode involving duplicates.

She decides to go with the two-phase "randomly flying around and confuse the clones" plan, but only after one of the tanks blows up her giant scroll that she apparently brought over. Phase two is their usual plan to just stay in one position while all five Duplikates have their tank aimed at them. They do a twist on this plan: they actually fly away the split second they fire. If only they can do that more often.

The intended message was to show that all three Puffs needed to work together, but it seems more like it's better to not have Blossom do any plans. It was apparently the lesson in Monkey Love, too! The Powerpuff Girls are able to send her to jail...via having her being arrested by the police. Yeah, bashing people into jail just isn't fitting of the messages.

Blossom: I guess it all worked out!

Buttercup: Yup, and absolutely zero loose ends!

Bubbles: Totally, right, Blossoms?

All of them: Oh...

I was worried they were not going to bring this up. If this episode suddenly ended with Buttercup saying "I’ll go get the shovel", I would have loved that. I'm glad to know that was intended reference to a previous episode.

Instead, the other Blossoms just get stuck in that same focus testing gag from earlier, because they couldn't decide on how to reference Multiplicity. No, really. They have the same scene twice, and nobody realized they mispelt "guidelines". What a surprise.

Does the title fit?

Apparently, Blossom isn’t the one into math according to this reboot, but I’m going to ignore that and say “very yes.”

How does it stack up?

Cloning episodes usually end up being cliched messes even in good cartoons, and this one is no exception. This isn’t even the best cloning episode of the reboot; unlike The Trouble With Bubbles, this doesn’t get a high Neutral because of missed potential. This one's more of a neutral neutral. Not disgusting enough, it does have a decent villain.

Next, I will never do a reference to that particular slogan.

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#fpb ppg 2016 #ppg 2016 #powerpuff girls #fpb reviews #cartoon network

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