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picturejasper20 · 2 months

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Redemption arcs and restorative justice in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Season 2 A analysis

(Taken from my thread on twitter and explained in more detail in here) In this post i'm going to talk about one of the main themes of MGADD Season 2 A, which is, as the title says, redemption arcs and restorative justice. I'm going to analyse different episodes that tackle this theme and how they are followed up in the rest of this part of the season.

Spoilers down below

One of the big themes in MGADD Season 2 A is the idea of how people who are ¨villains¨ have a lot more in them and the reason why they became evil is more complicated than it seems. Also how they have the capacity to regret their past actions and change for the better.

Restorative justice is a whole complex topic, but to put it in simple words: It has to do with the criminal rethinking their past actions and doing something to make amends with the person or people they hurt. It's less about punishment and more about what can the person do to fix their bad decisions and be pushed to be better in the future.

While redemption arcs and restorative justice aren't that rare to find in Disney TVA animated series and other animated shows, emphasis on this theme in superhero animated series is a lot more rare to find in my personal experience.

In superhero shows the line between who is good and bad is very clear. The heroes are good and the villains are evil. Villains are evil because they chose to be or they ¨were born that way¨. The possibility of redemption and rehabilitation is often seen as naive, and at times mocked at. Punishment and incarceration is seen as preferable over rehabilitation in these type of shows.

That's not to say that redemption arcs don't exist in superhero shows, but it is more rare and the idea that villains are just evil is what gets pushed the most.

Quick Whip/ Zekiyah

In MGADD, this idea is being to put into question in Season 2 episode 4 ¨Ride or Die¨ in which Lunella caughts a well known criminal known as ¨Quick Whip¨. Lunella reports to SHIELD that she is going to take Quick Whip there by using a sub train.

While they are on the train, the power goes out for a moment and Lady Bullseye shows up with her followers, looking for Quickwhip, who used to work for her. Lady Bullseye doesn't allow people to ¨get out¨ from her criminal group, explaining why she is here since Quickwhip left it.

Lunella is forced to work together with Quickwhip to power up the train and get away from Lady Bullseye. For a good part of the episode Lunella considers that Quickwhip is only a villain and that's what she would always be.

However, in a moment they are hiding from the Diabolical Darts, Lunella learns that Quickwhip's real name is Zekiyah and that she used to be a person who only dreamed of starting a bakery and spent hours every day to study how to make pastry. Once she came to New Work, it was too expensive for her to afford a place and soon she was on the streets.

Lady Bullseye took advantage of Zekiyah's difficult situation and persuade her into joining her crime group. Zekiyah became pretty good at stealing but over time she realized how she strayed away from the path she originally set up for her. She left the Diabolical Darts and has been in the run ever since.

Seeing that Zekiyah had more going on that she assumed, Lunella thinks there has to be other way for her to be more than just a ¨street rat¨ and teams up with Zekiyah to take down Lady Bullseye and her followers. When she is about to give Zekiyah to SHIELD, she talks about how she wants to help everyone, included those who happened to fall in a bad path and asks to try something different this time.

By the end of the episode Lunella reconsiders her views about crime and such and decides to open a program that could help villains who regret their past actions and want to make things right. She gives Zekiyah (Quick Whip) a change to work in a bakery like she wanted originally when she came to New York.

Kid Kree

In episode five ¨Kid Kree¨, the one following ¨Ride or Die¨ we are introduced to a new character ¨Kid Kree/Marvin¨, who is original from the MGADD comics. He is a kree teenager that was sent by his father, Pad-Varr, to capture a superhero to prove his worth as warrior after not reaching the expectations on his homeworld planet.

Lunella meets Marvin at his first day at school. During gym class she notices that Marvin shares similar interests in science and math like she does. Overtime the two develop a close friendship over sharing interests and views of seeing the world, happy to find someone else that they can be their ¨nerd¨ selfs with. Lunella because she didn't know much kids from her age that we into same stuff like she is and Marvin since he feels like he can be himself around Lunella.

In meantime Lunella and Marvin continue to fight each other as Moon Girl and Kid Kree, without knowing each other's identity. They have a bit of rivarly, with Lunella trying to come up with new ways to outsmart ¨Kid Kree¨. During one of those fights Moon Girl defeats Kid Kree and he accidentally drops his communicator, the one his father usually contacts him with. Lunella takes and tries to hack into it. She discovers an video recording of Marvin talking about his mission on Earth and revealing that he is Kid Kree when he takes his helmet off.

Lunella gets angry at this and, without thinking too much of the implications, she ends up answering a call from Pad-Varr and tells him that she has defeated Marvin, making Pad-Varr clearly upset.

When Marvin comes to eat dinner at Lafayette's home, Lunella tells to Marvin that she knows about him being Kid Kree by giving him his communicator and adds that she has called his father. This makes Marvin scared and the Lafayettes ask him why he is worried about his own father.

Marvin explains isn't happy at being a warrior and it is forced by his father to be something that he is not. His father doesn't approve of Marvin's preference for science, making their relationship pretty strained. In general Marvin doesn't feel comfortable with being himself on his planet nor with his father. He thought that Lunella was someone who understood him but he is sad that apparently this wasn't the case. He lefts the house upon hearing that Pad-Varr's ship is coming to get him.

Lunella goes after Marvin and apologizes to him for jumping to conclusions about his true intentions. Pad-Varr orders Marvin to catch Moon Girl and Devil, which he does, but moments after he traps his father and later Lunella and Devil helped Kid Kree with standing up to him.

Kid Kree expresses to his father that he doesn't want to be a warrior and he is into science instead. Pad-Varr reconsiders this and praises Marvin for his gadgets, telling him that they could be useful for the Kree Empire. Lunella and Marvin remain as friends and keep in contact with each other.

Marvin appears in other episodes like ¨In The Heist¨ and ¨Dancing by Myself¨ where he helps Lunella in different ways and their friendship continues to develop. While Marvin is stil working for the Kree empire, it is likely that he will turn around, like he does in the comics.

With Kid Kree's case, Lunella realized what Marvin was going through and inspired him to stand up against his father to be himself. She made the error of doing some rushed decisions when she found out that he was Kid Kree and apologized for it, both staying as close friends so far.

The Beyonder

In episode ¨Wish Tar¨ the Beyonder shows up again to visit Lunella by showing up from the Wish Tar machine James got from Coney Island. He doesn't understand why Lunella is being hostile towards him, which leads to Lunella and Casey to remind him of the times he messed up with them.

The Beyonder explains to the girls that he has been reflecting since the events from ¨The Great Beyonder¨, when he and Lunella spent days stuck on Molecular Man's destroyed planet and worked together to escape. He also started to see Lunella as a sort of friend after that episode. He wants to makes things right with Lunella but she asks him to leave before he makes things worse.

Later Lunella finds out that a wish she had asked for the Wishtar machine has been granted. Both her and Casey get suspicious about this event and go back to Roll With It to check the machine. It turns out that Beyonder is the one that granted the wish. He tells them that he ¨wants to be a good friend¨ for Lunella by making her wishes become true. Lunella sees the benefit of the wishes and decides to give it a try.

In this episode we see Beyonder using his powers to help Lunella, or at least to be a ¨good friend¨. He has good intentions of be someone better than he was in previous appearances. The problem is that this power goes up to Lunella's head, who ends up taking advantage of Beyonder's good intentions and they have a falling out with him disappearing after Lunella lashes out at him.

While Beyonder had good intentions, his approach wasn't the best since he still has yet to understand how human friendship works. Granting all Lunella's wishes just lead to her take advantage of it and not so much appreciate what Beyonder was trying to do.

From Lunella's part, some of her reactions are understandable since Beyonder did some bad things to her in more than one occasion. In spite of being on friendlier terms after ¨The Great Beyonder¨ she was still angry at him for the things he did in the past. However, as mentioned earlier, the way she used him and lashed out at him was pretty dirty considering that this time Beyonder was trying to be good.

In contrast to Kid Kree, Lunella and Beyonder's friendship took a bad turn and Lunella would have to find a way to apologize to Beyonder for how she lashed out at him. Beyonder has still growing to do, but the fact that he was trying to use his powers to be nice was a good start.

Other episodes worth of mentioning that continue this theme more or less are ¨The Devil You Know¨ and ¨Dog Day Mid-Afternoon¨.

In The Devil You Know Devil joins a group of sidekicks called the ABC that feel mistreated or underappreciated by their heroes-owners. Near the end of the episode it is shown that the conflict was a miscommunication problem and that, in fact, the heroes love their sidekicks.

In the Dog Day Mid-Afternoon Lunella jumps to the wrong conclusions about the dog alien Pops adopts (later named Franklin) being a villain. Later Franklin reveals that he is a space hero and he was on an undercover mision to find the real villain who was stealing dogs using a powerful dog wistle. Lunella and Franklin team up and work together to defeat the main antagonist.

Molecular Man's return.

All this development in Lunella's character in this arc has a conclusion in ¨The Molecular Level¨ when Molecular Man shows up in Lafayette's house and attacks Lunella and her family since Lunella is ¨someone Beyonder cares about¨.

Molecular Man was introduced in ¨The Great Beyonder¨ as someone who suffered the loss of his planet, becoming a wasteland, thanks to the Beyonder's antics. He wants to get revenge on Beyonder for what he did to his planet, being the reason of why Lunella and Beyonder are stuck in that place for days.

He destroys a good part of Lunella's house through ¨The Molecular Level¨ and endangers the Lafayettes. When Lunella finally finds her suit she is able to fight back and defeat him, leaving his body broken.

When she is about to give him the final blow she is reminded of how Molecular Man lost everything to the meteor shower thanks to Beyonder and feels sorry for him. She understands that he went through a lot and gets why he was so angry.

Molecular Man sees Lunella's compasion and says that he is really sorry for attacking her and her family. He admits that he let himself be destroyed by his desire to make others feel his own pain and anger.

Lunella gives him a piece of her self repairing suit so he is able to heal himself and get his powers back. Molecular Man thanks Lunella for understanding and uses his molecular abilities to repair Lafayette's home and heal Pops's broken arm. He promises himself to use his powers to rebuilt his planet from scratch and leaves, saying goodbye to Lunella.

¨The Molecular Level¨ serves as a good conclusion for this part of Lunella's arc in this half of the season. She has grown enough to understand that sometimes people are driven to do bad things for certain reasons. The world is often more complex than it seems to be and there aren't just ¨good¨ and ¨bad¨ guys. She applies the lessons she learned with Molecular Man by showing she gets what he went through and inspires him to use his powers to heal in the future.

#moon girl and devil dinosaur #mgadd season 2 #lunella lafayette #the beyonder #Mgadd kid kree #MGADD quickwhip #Mgadd Molecular Man

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