BFDI:TPOT 13: Category One

watched this episode just a bit ago, and i thought it was really good! im a bit bad at articulating my thoughts sometimes but basically, i loved pretty much everything in this episode! the animation was amazing at so many points, im a huge fan of higher stakes challenges and this definitely delivered, Four doing a Cake At Stake was super funny, One's whole thing is still really intriguing and at times she felt genuinely intimidating - giving me the feeling that shes going to be a main antagonist for the rest of the season, which would be super cool to see! i still love her whole demon contract sorta thing and her mischievous yet nonchalant personality. Robot Flower being reset to her true personality and her interactions with Basketball in that whole scene was really emotional for me. the new teams are already growing on me, i loved all the character interactions but especially the cross-team ones, and the addition of Liy and Pencil shakes up the contestant roster in a really fun way i think, cant wait to see what they get to do in future episodes! i was laughing out loud at every joke in this one, and at the same time i loves the overall slightly more serious tone of this one, it felt really fitting for this challenge and the development of these characters and made all the jokes hit a lot harder for me. even though i loved it so much i dont think i'd rank it as my all-time favorite, but its definitely up there, and TPOT is definitely my favorite season of BFDI thus far!

Watched this Episode shortly after It dropped and rewatched it twice since. I wrote down some thoughts during the third watch so somewhat lengthy message ahead!

Most Importantly LIY REJOINED!!!! THIS IS ALL THAT MATTERS TO ME. Okay not all but pretty close. I never thought this would actually happen but I couldn't be happier. I've talked about Liy getting robbed more than enough FINALLY SHE GETS ANOTHER CHANCE.
I don't quite understand why they had to change the goals to bring back Pencil as we aren't exactly lacking in Pencil content and most other EXITors I'd find more interesting (as a lot of them were early boots) but at least they worked her into the show in a fun way. Still a bit weird though.

Also I'm sure everyone and their mom has been talking about the visuals but one of my biggest issues with TPOT was probably it's abundance of boring and flat looking scenes. I'd squee at any new enviroment but let's be real we got to a point where BFDIA looked better than TPOT. Which is weird considering TPOT was supposed to the superior season in that regard! Thank god It seems to be changing now.
Some of the assets are still wonky and inconsistent but all in due time. I'm just happy to see a change.

Golfball and Donut is a rivaly I should've seen coming but didn't think would get this intense so quickly! Makes sense with their different ways of approaching leadership. People have been so rough to Golfball lately so no suprise It boiled over like this. It's a bit hard to discuss these things mid challenge otherwise.

Minor thing but seems like Winner is warming up to Yellow Face finally. Guess they have to with the only other ex S-er. I'm ambivalent towards it LOL I just like Winner being happy.

Also another thing everyone has said: The RF vs DPYA fight scene was so so fun to watch. Always fun to see the objects becoming more and more "used" or damaged. Marker losing his cap, tree's leaves and branches flying off, Pin getting stuck in Gaty. Props to the artists in this part.

Don't have much to add onto RF and Basketball but It's nice to finally see them wrap things up! Very sweet scene.

Personal nitpick (of prior episodes) but thank god Bottle finally got to do something. She'd so often just get killed and ignored for the rest of the episode or get random one liners.
In general the writing in this episode was tighter than previously, no bits I found particularily annoying or boring. Having Niall as another writer seems to be a good choice.

Overall, one of my favorite TPOT episodes!! A tad jarring to have such an action packed ep right after another...I guess big event (team swap). Hopefully not all of them have to be this grandiose.

I'M GLAD I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO NOTICED THAT!! I loved this episode but the music choice in that one part totally undermined the otherwise well done fight scene for me....