Chapter 4: The Last Five Episodes + (Mostly) Entire Series Review

Thumbelieveable was technically supposed to be before the Faybelle and Melody episodes.

A cancelled school field trip won't shrink Nina Thumbell's thirst for adventure! She's ready to show her friends a wildly fun side of Ever After High that they've never seen before.

Nina Thumbell is the daughter of Thumbelina. That's about it.

A cancelled field trip, a convenient gem of the Evil Queen's, She, Apple, Raven, Maddie, and Briar Rosabella explore the school as two inch high girls.

Beanstalk Bravado

Jillian Beanstalk gives Humphrey Dumpty a crash course in bravery, but will he rise to the challenge and face his fears or crack under the pressure?

Humphrey wants Jillian Beanstalk to teach him how to be brave, as she's an adventurer.

 It's nice to see Humphrey back. In Meeshell's book, she has a crush on him for reasons unknown besides the fact that he's an available boy.

Jillian is actually a cutie - too bad her doll whitewashed the bloody fuck out of her. Her "About Me" page on the website also lists Briar as one of her best friends - see, they DO remember!


There's No Business Like Snow Business

A behind-the-scenes tour of a winter wonderland has Maddie and Apple in snow much trouble that they must turn to the princess of winter to help save the day.

The 'plot' is literally "Apple and Maddie are researching winter." You're in high school, you don't know about the weather?

This is shortly after Epic Winter, but they introduce Crystal Winter (left) one more time.

"Fun" fact - those are Maddie and Apple's Epic Winter outfits. These outfits got dolls. Their role in the special is minimal at best and, honestly, I don't even remember Maddie being there.

More "fun" - Apple's outfit is a literal recolor of someone who has a prominent role in the special but did not get a doll.

Can you guess who?

YEAH.

WE WERE CHEATED OUT OF A SECOND FAYBELLE DOLL FOR NO GOOD REASON BECAUSE MATTEL NEVER REALIZED THAT MOST PEOPLE DON'T LIKE APPLE WHITE.

Okay well anyway, shit happens, we see the Snow Queen and her father husband.

Enough with this fucking lazy styling. Make a woman big or tall you cowards!

That being said, the Snow Queen has a far more impressive outfit than her daughter.

& Why is Crystal...blue?

Meeshell Comes Out of Her Shell

Maddie helps a new friend from feeling like a fish out of water after the mysterious fairytale arrives on the same day as the Ever After High talent show!

It's so hard to say goodbye.

Well, there's one more episode, but this is the last time we see Ashlynn and Briar;

And the first and last time we see Meeshell Mermaid. There are water related hijinks that require Meeshell running away, lest she turn into a mermaid.

Then, when Ash, Briar, and Maddie hear her singing and swimming in a pool, they realize that Meeshell MERMAID is a mermaid.

I always got the impression that she wasn't supposed to be white. Her doll is a shade lighter than Cerise and her eyebrows are super prominent. She doesn't look like her in cartoon version much, but I did like her.

They persuade her to sing in the talent show, she does so, bye Meeshell, we'll never see you again!

The series ends rather unceremoniously with A Big Bad Secret!

Ramona Badwolf returns to Ever After High after a mysterious absence only to find herself locked in a battle with Cerise Hood over a deep dark secret from their past.

Ramona is back from reform school (lmao a fairy tale reform school) and antagonizes Cerise beyond the scope of "The big bad wolf is supposed to antagonize Little Red."

The only different (& final) Intro Card.

It gets bad enough that Badwolf himself drags them into his office and tells them that "Until graduation, our family must remain secret."

What an announcement that would be. Why not announce it when the marriage between Red and Badwolf happened?

And they have a race and there's your webshow! 

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So that's Mattel's Ever After High visual franchise. It's pretty much dead now, but Mattel on twitter constantly says that more (cheap, unarticulated, non webisode) things are coming.

I like the fact that the specials and episodes moved away from Apple and Raven, but it doesn't give anyone else much to do after the Thronecoming.

Look at this past season - the new girls get one shot episodes and outside of Dragon Games, never come back because the series ended.

They ended the plot 1/3rd of the way through and then had these kids meander about. The worldbuilding was quite good and engaging, and I regret that we didn't see too much of it in the webisodes - the books are understandably better for that, but the books aren't free. There's a segment in the second book where the students go on field trips to talk to the rulers of kingdoms - I remember Apple visiting her mother (Who is far different than in the special, but these are separated by about three years) and Briar's mother - wouldn't it have been nice to see that visually?

And after the first series of books, it's not like they're much better either. They're well written and take longer to go into decay, but Truth or Hair was dull and Fairy Tale Ending could have been a webisode with how trite and simple it was.

It would have been better if the books hadn't been left out to lurch. There were doll tie-ins to the specials and a few webisodes, but much of it was really separate from the books, which I kind of understand - would you rather someone buy a doll or a book, because they probably won't get both? Dolls probably put more money into Mattel's pocket.

The books seemed like such of their own entity - and they had a lot of valuable insight to characters - and they were mostly ignored.

Okay okay this is supposed to be about the webisodes. Since there was so fewer webisodes than the Monster High ones, it feels like there wasn't a ton of character progression. Dexter and Raven finally dating and Faybelle loosening up are probably the things I can pinpoint easily.

There were also far too many characters that were shoved in and got little development and had even littler impact.

• Holly was a Princess Classic
• Poppy was a super kewl rebel princess when she had nothing to rebel against because no one held her to her destiny.
• I like the idea of Blondie, and it's definitely a different character archetype than we see in these shows, but after Through the Woods, do you remember where you saw her last? You don't? Me neither. She could have definitely had a bigger role as reporting on both side of the conflict, and could have been a good lesson on hearing out both sides and viewpoints even though one side wanted their friends to basically suffer and die.
• If the Wonderlanders had simply been kept to Lizzie, Kitty, and Maddie (and even then, as much as I love her, Lizzie could be pretty much optional), I would have been fine with them. But I can't even be angry at Bunny and Alistair because they don't do shit.
• In squandering the destiny conflict, you completely waste Duchess' character because she wasn't established as more than a competitive, perfectionist girl who hated her future. The Storybook of Legends is gone, and I don't even remember how she felt about it. It would have been so cool to see her struggle and maybe try to make a different, but still Swan-Princess-y destiny for herself.

I kind of wonder if the other specials were supposed to have the main quartet reconsider their destinies. 

Way Too Wonderland has Apple understanding (somewhat) Raven's choice

Dragon Games has Apple still wanting her destiny to nearly the end of the world.

Epic Winter has Briar and Faybelle.

Maddie is the only one kind of left to lurch. Even with WTW, that was Lizzie's story.

Speaking of ... Apple. Honestly, I hate people like this; Well meaning but ignorant to the suffering of others.

The writing for her makes for an interesting character, but they kind of botch where it goes - in the beginning, Apple wants her destiny - she's not concerned with anyone going poof until Thronecoming, long after it's been said that it doesn't happen.

Then for the rest of the specials it's 'but I am uncomfortable when we are not about me?'

Mattel initially made the core four girls best friends - Apple to Briar and Maddie to Raven. Honestly, the latter were better friends to Briar than Apple was, and as soon as chapter 2 they began phasing out Apple and Briar's friendship to replace Apple with Ashlynn, which frankly makes for a way better pair.

But for all the wrong things that happened....the animation was always beautiful. The early designs were nice.

Favorite Characters -

1. Faybelle
2. Briar
3. Duchess
4. Ashlynn
5. Lizzie

Ever After High had a lot of potential that ended up squandered. I know it's a children's show (or, it was), but it died an almost insultingly childish death, far lower than the possibility it had in its opening.