Stella: Like homeopathy can work against dark magic. It'd be like "Don't you dare mess with us, or we'll hit you with a daisy and go all herbal on you."
Bloom tries to calm Stella down, without success; Stella's upset that not only have Flora's experiments invaded Bloom's part of Flora's bedroom, but that Flora's "fashion victim" plants have invaded in Stella's room. She complains that the plants are shrinking her clothes and using her makeup, that they're self-absorbed mirror addicts. They've even shrunken Stella's favorite dress. All her one-of-a-kind clothing, shrunken. But worst of all: the plants are mixing stripes with florals.
Flora decides to ask Tecna for a spell to unshrink the clothing. Musa's in the room, but Tecna's away. As Flora looks around, she finds an angry Tecna being strangled by a plant in the closet. Tecna also complains that the plant ate her notebook, asking for a way to get it back, though Flora says it's gone for good, and cowers before Tecna. A bit of an overreaction, really, though Flora's cute doing this. Tecna is upset that her homework is gone. Stella complains about the plant problem, to which Flora decides to go to Blackmud Swamp until she's finished with her experiment.
Bloom worries about Flora's leaving, and gets upset with Stella and Tecna for not telling her to stay. And Bloom goes self-righteous on us here. For reasons unknown, Bloom seems to think Flora's all perfect here, and everything is Stella's and Tecna's faults, that they had no right to complain about Flora's out-of-control experiments. First off, Tecna hardly did anything wrong to begin with. Second, they both had legitimate gripes. And does Bloom care? No... she's pretty blind to Flora's own mistakes here.
Flora's set up camp in Blackmud swamp, with her vials and potions and all, and meets with the other Winx girls, who have come to help her out. Even at the expense of getting her shoes muddy, Stella's come to help out Flora. Bloom teases her. Which, coming right after the earlier argument, irritates me muchly. Flora's in search of a cheerful gladiolus, of which there is only one left in the world, that the Blackmud Junior League has, a group that does volunteer work around the swamp.
She mentions this one's members are undines, little water nymphs.
Stella asks why the Junior League would give Flora the last cheerful gladiolus. Stella's got more smarts than she's sometimes given credit for. Flora says she's created a cloning potion to clone the flower. Stella wants to stay at the camp, worried that something bad is out there. Then the screen cuts to a mean-looking tree. Looks like Stella's got good intuition, too.
COMMERCIAL BREAK #1
Stella freaks out a bit after stepping in another mud puddle. Musa teases her about not being able to handle the outdoors. Stella says how she's handled much harsher environments, and then falls straight into a mud puddle. Stella complains that a princess shouldn't be subjected to such slimy conditions. She goes on to call the undines "stupid nymphs," which I found amusing. Flora tries to hush Stella, though as Stella continues to rattle on, Flora puts her hand over Stella's mouth to shut her up. Flora's found the undines.
The undines are pretty tiny mermaid-looking creatures. Bloom mentions them being cute. One of the undines pops out of the water to mention a Literacy for Butterflies benefit, and lead the girls to the undine leader.
Stella: The thing is, that's not why we're here, your... should I call her "your littleness" or "your highness"?
Flora states that she needs to borrow their cheerful gladiolus. The undine queen has a request from the girls: a giant water creature has attacked the undines whenever they've tried going to Zilith Island, the only place around where the undines' food grows, and the undines are almost out of food. She mentions that one of their own has tried to go there to find food, and has not returned. The girls agree to help out, and transform into their fairy outfits.
As the girls are searching around the water, Stella considers that maybe the monster is only big to the undines since they are so small, that maybe for them, the monster will not be so big. Yet another great observation on Stella's behalf, only this time, it's wrong. The monster shows up, and turns out to be pretty huge. The girls stick together for safety, though they wind up getting separated when the monster pops up from beneath them. The monster eats Musa, then goes underwater.
COMMERCIAL BREAK #2
The girls cast a spell to put bubbles around their bodies, and Tecna does a spell to give the bubbles their own light, so they can see where they're going inside their bubbles while underwater. The girls spot the monster, seemingly peeking its head out a cave.
Flora: There's the monster. It's asleep.
Bloom: Or maybe it's just pretending.
Um... OK. Flora's line there was stupid enough, as the monster was obviously not sleeping. But then Bloom's line tops it: the monster does not seem to have the intelligence to "pretend" to be asleep, much less the foresight to "pretend" to be asleep for seemingly no reason. Not to mention, the monster is obviously not sleeping, and is not trying to cover the fact up.
Bloom hurries inside the monster's mouth when it opens, then performs an extrictation spell to get Musa and herself out the creature's mouth. Musa, faint, wakes up wearily.
Musa: Yo, what's up? Oh yeah, the monster!
I found that to be a particularly cute line. It's a shame Musa doesn't get them more often. The monster gets angry, and the girls all hurry out of the water, onto the island, which appears foggy. Bloom notes that there don't seem to be any of the Zilith leaves around. Tecna decides a systematic search is in order. Of course our Tecna couldn't just simply say "Let's look for it." That'd be too simple.
Stella yawns. Bloom asks what kind of trees are around them, and Flora says she's not sure, except that they're not what they're looking for. Flora yawns too. Stella says the trees smell nice, like perfume. Everyone but Tecna is growing very tired. Stella notices there are no birds, which Tecna agrees is weird. Tecna analyzes the air composition, and discovers there is narcoleps spray around them, and she immediately puts up her face shield. She tells everyone not to breathe. Kind of an unrealistic request, Tecna. Not everyone can hold their breath indefinitely. Stella, Flora, and Musa are fast asleep, and Bloom's about to konk out. Tecna tries fruitlessly to wake the girls up. Tecna sounds surprisingly emotional here, seeming geuinely fully concerned about her friends. Not that she isn't at other times, but she doesn't usually wear those emotions on her sleeve like here.
Bloom: (groggily) Look at that ugly tree. That must be where the narcoleps spray is coming from.
Tecna: Stay awake, Bloom!
Bloom: Look at the sleeping birdies. And look at the little nymph. She's taking a nap. What a good idea.
Tecna performs a spell to bring oxygen around here, and Bloom wakes up. With Bloom's help, they perform spells to bring oxygen to more of the island island, and to rid the area of the narcoleps spray. The other three girls wake up.
Musa: Good morning. I could so go for some pancakes.
When Stella wakes up, she spots a ladybug crawling up her arm, which she decides it a zitbug.
Stella: AIGH! It's a zitbug! Help! This thing's gonna' give me blemishes!
Stella completely freaks out, while Musa tells her it's a ladybug, though Stella still insists it to be a zitbug. Tecna explains that it can't be a zitbug while Stella runs past in the background, screaming. Words alone do not do the scene justice. Stella's freakout here is absolutely hilarious!
Bloom tells the girls that she and Tecna need more help to bring oxygen to the entire island, and the girls do such. The undine girl wakes up. The girls hear the monster coming, and the nymph says the entire island is the monster, that it is actually a giant turtle. She continues that the turtle is not really evil, but is under the ugly tree's spell, a Wendigo Willow. Tecna asks how scary a tree can be, and it growls.
COMMERCIAL BREAK #3
Bloom tries to flame the tree, but it turns out to be fireproof. Flora puts a spell on the tree to burn at its roots, as Bloom tries with another fireball, this time burning the tree, as Flora casts a spell that completely gets rid of the tree. The birds come back to the island.
The undine queen mentions the Wendigo Willow has been sucking swamps dry for centuries, and is very thankful that the girls got rid of the evil tree. Stella declares the swamp to be cool. The undine queen says the Junior League will have to leave the swamp, since they only have one Zilith leaf left, and will soon be out of food. Flora whips out her cloning potion to create several more Zilith leaves, and the undines can stay. The girls congratulate Flora, as Bloom rudely tells Stella and Tecna to apologize to Flora for earlier this morning. They apologize, and Flora apologizes as well for her experiments getting so out of control. Again, why must Bloom be so self-righteous here? What business is it of Bloom's to tell them to apologize? And why does she still seem to believe Flora was faultless? At least Flora seemed to realize she hadn't been perfect, and apologizes anyway. For that matter, it seemed likely that Stella and Tecna would've apologized anyway, without needing Bloom to irritatingly remind them. Grr.
The grateful undine queen gives Flora the cheerful gladiolus. Flora says she'll clone it, but says she might need to put it in Stella's room, since it has the most sunlight. The way Flora says this, it's obvious she was trying to get a reaction out of Stella, so I'm not sure how serious Flora was with the request. Stella shrieks at first, but then agrees to it. Either way, I'm sure Flora and Stella can work something out here.
Tecna lovers should enjoy this episode: while the episode isn't particularly focused on Tecna, she's featured quite prominently still, and even saves the girls from a sleep-filled doom.
Apparently half-android Tecna wasn't affected by the narcoleps spray... or at least not as viciously. She did pull her face shield down after she realized the spray was in the air, so I guess it would have eventually affected her, but obviously not as quickly as with the other girls.
9 out of 10 on the old scale.
