Well, I didn't think it was possible, but they did it. They legitimately made another episode, no, another season, starring BFDI.
And on Friday out of all nights! Directly following that were new episodes of Andi Mack, K.C. Undercover, the smoking-is-bad episode of Full House and my SAT I was supposed to be studying for.
One thing that struck me out was in the credits: “Writing by Cary & Satomi & Michael”. I don't know who Satomi is, but I'm surprised that jacknjellify no longer work alone!
If I'm being too critical in this review, don't think I hated it. I loved it, and this might just be the best BFDI/A/what-have-you episode JnJ've made.
Various Pre-Credits Gags: So we start of the episode with Pen saying, “Hey, Eraser, Eraser!” Wait a second. Pen's there? I knew that he was pretty much irrelevant by 2016 (having last spoken four years after BFDI started), yet he's got a large cult following in the community. It's great to see Eraser and Pen are together; they're like kids' favourite per se Italian brothers since Mario and Luigi.
So Pen runs into Eraser, who pretty much sounds different. He shows him a rectangle, coupled with that strange text from the first episode of BFDI. For some reason, I thought this was just going to be Jnj's self-deprecation against their old work. Anyways, Pen is probably going to inspire another hashtag with #tagon (it's pentagon without him in it), which by the way, means nothing in Hebrew. Blocky cuts the pentagon with Saw (who can finally speak), and Blocky actually said something smart—it involved maths, for all I know.
In the next seen, we see Tennis Ball speaking with Foldy. Foldy? you may ask. Apparently, she comes from an old April Fool's video. TB makes a reference to the first episode of BFDIA by talking about finding Leafy. That shit got old, yo! The hate against Leafy died out in 2012.
Another thing I forgot to mention to you is the animation. Honestly, at first I didn't like it. It seemed really strange compared to the really refined assets on the past, but in the end, it turns out quantity ends up better than quality.
Coiny is still friends with Snowball, Pin is red and is making metaphors to edgy subject matter (this time marijuana), the sound effects come from old episodes... When does this exactly take place? Is this canon?
Yellow Face wants to make something out of forks, and he does it in this really interesting way. Also, Donut is, like, social now! My first big laugh came from the part when Gelatin's fork stack got destroyed and Yellow Face sounded like he was on an dopamine overdose.
It's about two minutes in, and we finally get to see the alliance. I should probably tell you that the members of FreeSmart are exactly the same (well, the core is). Bubble counts numbers after dying, just like the old episode, and she dies. Book, once again, doesn't give a flying rat's arse about the alliance, which is pretty characteristic of her if you ask me. Plus, Pencil's a jerkass again! I did not see that one coming. /s
After Bomby says something, there's this really funny-sounding voice, saying “Stop!” with the word on the screen, sounding out-of-breath. Turns out his name is Loser, which doesn't make much sense because when I think of loser, a bunch of specific people come to mind, none of which look like a cube.
By the way, Tree does exist, and he sounds Australian. I sort of expected like a foreign-accented character, just like Baguette in BOTO, but if anyone were to “hevva Brih ish accent” (as Americans would assume), it'd be Pencil. All of a sudden, a new character appears. I thought it was spelt Lighty, but apparently it's just “Liy”, having also come from the cultural black hole known as the early 2010s.
Liy seems pretty cool, considering that she's the only one who wants to get Teardrop to speak. The other characters don't really give a shit. Ice Cube is cool, Leafy is a nice person once more, and I just know Teardrop isn't going to speak, even when Icy puts her legs in her mouth.
As this vore is going on, we get to see the personalities of three new characters: Clock, Fanny and Bracelety. So, Bracetly is a super strange fan of Ice Cube for some reason, Fan hates everything, and Clock is there to complain of it all. Interesting thing is that none of them were blue-coloured before 2016.
The scene with Liy and Clock are pretty funny, considering none of them were actually BFDI contestants, but then there's this scene with Ice Cube using old/new assets saying, “Hey guys! Can I be part of your...” Yep, I can definitely tell the tone of this episode.
Adam Katz returns with his one line as Nickel, and Cloudy and Gaty speak. Cloudy has this interesting accent that apparently sounds like he is switching his voiced and unvoiced consonants (id'z when you dalg lige tthiz). We get another past reference when 8-Ball is there, saying that he has no favourite number.
So Teardrop angrily walks away, and sits on the edge of the cliff, presumably the one they use in those “Pen does Sparta remixes” videos. Eggy has an apparent backstory, and Lollipop and Pillow are there. They don't say anything of much plot importance until Pillow says “doesn't give a fluff”.
Ruby says that Flower is beautiful. Maybe they've caught on with my headcanon about Ruby being lesbian! Anyways, Pencil and Match use Lightning to be used against their enemies, which is a pretty smart thing, but it just confirms that they are what the public call “basic bitches”.
Besides that, there's apparently a whole hierarchy of alliance memberships. Bubble becomes a “bember”, which is like when people say nibba on Twitter because it's more social networkally acceptable.
There's this other character called Stapy, whose asset looks interesting. Also, Marker sounds really... eh... interesting. I've been thinking of making an episode where Pen meets his cousin all the way from the old country.
Dora's in this episode too. Her voice has been promoted from super fast Google translate Spanish into series of “duh”s. She sings this I-was-in-my-Hatsune-Miku-phase song about islands, directly taken from 2012.
Flower has a hard time opening this jar, meaning she's not this omnipotent witch we'd all dreamed about. She asks Black Hole for help, and though I was expecting Black Hole's voice to sound all mystical and shit, it turns out he sounds pretty normal.
There is this scene, where Black Hole goes towards the Earth and everything becomes a little more intense than usual. That's when we get to the theme song.
So, the theme song is a lot more contemporary than the other ones. Remember Cyndi Lauper? Yeah, her style of music died twice: 1988 and 2017. This theme music is a bit more electronic, but still epic in its own way. There is a scene when a human hand is touching a black hole before a multi-coloured background, and what comes out is a four. What happens after the four, though, is my favourite part... Literally all of the characters that we've just seen zoom by the screen, in colour order, if that is a thing. It's got this late 2010s vibe to it.
Also, this show is called Battle for B.F.D.I. How fancy!
Random quote of the episode: “I'm a light switch, I know better than you.” —Liy.
Firsts: The voices of Saw, Cloudy, Remote, Bottle, Cake, Pie, Naily, Grassy, Tree, Bracelety/Ringy, Gaty, Eggy, Pillow, Barf Bag, Lightning, Black Hole. Also, Blocky says something smart, an actual female voice actor, Foldy, Liy, Stapy.
I'd say some more, but as Tree said, “That's it, I'm leafing.”