The Owl House: Keeping up A-Fear-Ances Review
This episode brought more focus to familial relations with Eda and Lilith’s mother Gwendolyn and her relationship with her daughters, King and Lilith’s thoughts on their parents, progression with Luz’s journey back home, and a check up on Camila.
Similar to Escaping Expulsion, Keeping up A-Fear-Ances does a fantastic job fleshing out each aspect of the relationships showing the parents interactions with the child, the child’s perspective and reactions to their treatment, as well as the parental perspective in the situation. The episode succeeds at this through its story and I think this episode also again highlights how the curse can be seen/coded as an allegory for a disability or mental illness, this time highlighting how parent + child relationships can be impacted (how parents can react/act & how a child feels as a result).
The episode does a great job showing both sides of the fear, the fear of the unknown with Eda’s mother and how she copes with that and the fear that Eda faces upon seeing her mother’s reaction and processing things herself.
Gwendolyn loves her daughter but felt like that justified a need to cure Eda, wether Eda wanted it or not. This was very harmful for both as her mother consistently felt a burden and spent all her time and life savings towards it while those actions hurt Eda. Thankfully in the end Gwendolyn recognizes and acknowledges the harm she caused, seeing she pushed her daughters away and made Eda feel ashamed.
“I made you think your curse was something to be ashamed of. Wether we want it or not it’s a part of you. And I love every part of you.”
This quote really hits. From my experience I understand both aspects where there’re moments when I find it difficult to deal with the existence and challenges of my vision impairment but I want others to not think I just need a cure to “fix me”, to treat me no different than others, and acknowledge the ways I deal with it and that if that works for me others should recognize that, because if they don’t that can make you feel like you’ll never be good enough for them and like this part of you makes you wrong.
This can resonate with many viewers in different ways so it’s important to see both for viewers and parents. People want freedom to do things how they want just as Eda reinforces to how she has her elixir system and that’s what works for her. People with disabilities and mental health challenges want to be loved and treated like others, they want support, through her mother acknowledging her mistakes and supporting Eda in the way Eda’s wanted Eda fights the owl beast.
While Gwendolyn was persistently active in Eda’s life, she was very neglectful of Lilith. It’s a high possibility Gwendolyn’s neglect played a role in Lilith feeling the need to be self reliant, do things on her own, and fall prey to the belonging and puroose that came with the pervasive propaganda of the Emperor.
I’m glad Lilith can now spend time with her mother. While Eda was pushing Gwendolyn away because of the wounds formed when she was around we see Lilith, Luz, and King wanting the opposite because the separation from their parental figures has caused their wounds. Each is dealing with these challenges in their own ways and I’m glad Lilith has this opportunity to work through that built up pain from the neglect. On a side note I’m devastated for Hooty, hopefully someone helps him write her letters.
This episode also has Lilith directly dealing with the curse and it’s side effects. This was important for Lilith and her relationship with Eda as she first hand discovers what Eda has dealt with allowing her to continue to apologize in acknowledging what she did, connect with Eda through shared experience, and help her consider the impact of her actions and what their possibility could be in the future more.
The episode lives up to the fear aspect of the title in the final minutes as we get the the long theorized about “Creepy Luz”.
This is scary for what will happen and worrying for Camila but Creepy Luz also tests Camilla’s relationship with Luz. Creepy Luz is a version of Luz that can be what Camila thinks is best, that “always knows what to do” and fit a mold of Luz for Camila. On the Isles we’ve seen Luz grow but we’ve also seen how she doesn’t want to stop embracing her weird and creative side. Once Luz is reunited with Camila this is something they’ll have to work through as we saw in this episode that “ideal version” of someone we believe in or what we think is best for them isn’t always true.
I’m interested to see what happens next. Gwendolyn told Luz she’s not the only human who’s lived on the Isles and what that individual left behind in the library may help with her journey to get home. This is most likely what Luz and Amity are investigating next episode so I’m excited to see what they discover!
