Most of the time, I'll compare if the character has a counterpart, though there are some instances where they simply don't and we have to improvise.
Daughter of the Dark Fairy;
Mal vs. Faybelle Thorn
I was prepared to immediately give Faybelle the win by virtue of being my favorite Ever After High (EAH) character.
But Mal can turn into a dragon, and there's nothing in the EAHverse that suggests Faybelle can do the same. Mal is wholeheartedly trying to be a "good" person, while Faybelle is learning that her role as The Dark Fairy doesn't have to be her entire identity, and she can be a bit nicer without totally losing her acerbic personality.
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.
These recaps are going to get horrendously shorter. There's really not much to these last few webisodes besides 'Uh ho, switcharoo or subversion of expectations!'.
A Tale of Two Parties starts us off with a new song and a new intro!
Ashlynn and Holly attempt a daring costume change in an effort to attend two theme parties on the same night and avoid Faybelle's wicked curse.
You'll notice that said intro replaces Briar with Cedar. Only one token at a time, I guess.
(This is a little delayed because I thought there was only one more post to go instead of this + the finale. My bad!)
This "season" only has nine episodes. The new characters get two token traits at most and are tossed aside.
Tired of having to tap her toes on the sideline of her favorite class, Justine Dancer and her friends 'til THE END set out to solve the mystery of her disappearing dancing shoes!
This is Justine Dancer, Daughter of the Twelfth Princess, and shock of shocks, I think this is the only time we even see this girl in the visual media. She has a prominent role in Fairy's Got Talent, though She doesn't know what her destiny is to be, says the narrators. Wouldn't it be...to be part of the new set of The Twelve Dancing Princesses?
& yes, the return of introductory title cards. The only people who didn't get them were Holly, Poppy, Blondie, Alistair, Bunny, and Faybelle. Consistency? What the hell is that?
If you're asking "Well, where's Way Too Wonderland? And Courtley Jester?" Well, good question.
I skipped them.
WTW has zero lasting impact on the series.
Apple tells Raven that being evil "Isn't in her destiny", but because Apple considers her wants and needs above everyone else, that quickly changes back to the status quo too.
So why bother? I'll give you an image of Webisode Courtley and be done with it, because I do think she has a super cool design;
I had forgotten about her until I started this again. This design is all sorts of kickass. Courtley comes to Ever After High and isn't even delegated to backgrounder status. You just never see her again.
Doll wise, she was the beginning of a very odd trend, where Mattel would stick a large, golden sticker that said SPECIAL EDITION DOLL on dolls that were inaccurate and underwhelming just because they were special one-shots.
I skipped the Bunny and Alistair episode because I don't care, you don't care, and if you do you can always go watch it yourself.
With Raven and Apple at a total standstill, it’s up to Lizzie to help determine who will be the next yearbook editor… Wonderland style!
You may have noticed Hunter's new outfit in the previous (well, our previous) episode - he, Lizzie, and Cerise were in a three pack that nearly no one got, exclusive to Target - Tri-Castle-on. And that about sums it up, moving on to the episode!
Poppy and Duchess find themselves in the most hexciting skating event to forever after grace the pages of an Ever After High yearbook.
They're really digging the timeskip here - last episode, it was fall, and now welcome to winter. I'm going to resist the urge to point out every time my backgrounders show up. No promises.
They're at a snow lodge conveniently located like ten miles away from the school.
Ashlynn is spinning and dancing on the ice - this was actually a line of dolls. Ashlynn - who was pretty beautiful, Poppy - who was okay, and Duchess - who was outstanding.
They were unofficially Walmart exclusives, and had very poor distribution at that.
The Ever After High students uncover a magical orchard destined to help them share their stories with future fairytales.
The story starts out with Cerise being better than the boys yet again.
git gud
It's the beginning of the school year, according to the narrators. So I guess everyone's in their third year now, as the books call the first year the Freedom Year, when you can take whatever classes you like, and the second one the Legacy Year. So maybe this is Destiny Year or something.
The titular orchard is cleverly shaped like a book;
And this is where....the yearbooks are kept. I'm glad it's not as old-school as dusty books in the library, but I'd be more impressed if I could see how my parent lived out their story instead of old photos.
There's a graphic novel that kind of harkens back to this; The Class of Classics. The designs of the characters were pretty cool, but the art didn't fit.
The books float down from the trees - each tree is the yearbook of a different class.
So there should be around 250 trees, as it's actually stated somewhere that the Brothers Grimm established the school back then. So how did the fairytale families happen before then? Were there perhaps stories that died out because the descendant didn't keep safe and got dysentery or something?
The yearbooks look more like a newspaper than anything.
So Spring Unsprung happens sometime between Thronecoming and right now, because that's where you're introduced to these two; Alistair .... Alistair .... um, I think Wonderland - and Bunny Blanc.
Bunny looks like she has a seriously bad case of sunburn, and they're boring. Oddly, there's another character who is way too damn pink that shows up.
I didn't realize that we saw, well, more of Tiny in this one. Cool.
Soon, the field trip is over, and Giles asks if everyone had fun; which they did.
Bonus preview of Rosabella Beauty. She's not introduced in a special, but she does get a greater bit in the limelight with Epic Winter.
Oh, Corrine is back! Where is Ophelia? Or Roland and Avalon?
Why am I more concerned about the backgrounders than named characters?
Milton says that at the end of the year, this class will plant an E-Corn to grow into their own yearbook. First, that is a madly clever play on words. He asks for volunteers to get pictures of the student's activities, and Raven and Apple volunteer.
I forgot about this particular collection of webisodes. It's less a storyline and more less subtle ways of advertising various lines, including Sugar Coated, Fairest on Ice, and School Spirit. They're not awful though.
It doesn't set up or establish anything besides that - kids read books that we see the inside of once, and it's not even anything interesting. A line could have been dropped like "Whoa, The Class of 1834 was nearly wiped out by the Plague!" or something.
Briar's like "It's not like i'm your best friend or anything, bitch."
And once again.....Faybelle is left out.
Sugar Coated
Raven sends Maddie’s cooking class into total chaos after her spell to save the bake sale goes awry.
Slightly unrelated; One of the comments says "Perfectly Imperfect? A MONSTER HIGH REFERENCE!"
That refers to MH's second theme song, Madison Beer's We Are Monster High. Which wasn't bad. Whenever I remember it exists, it becomes an earworm. But sorry, sis, it has nothing on the Fright Song.
It's time for the bake sale!
I'm going to imagine that Avalon was talking to her friend, Mr. Spectacles here, and let him cut in line. Also, Corrine is here to see if Ginger made Goose-shaped gingerbread cookies.
I've always liked that pale grey dress girl too. She looks like something moon related...hey, the Malagasy word for moon is volana. How about Vol Lunita? With Vol being a title from her native lands.
The treats are very popular, and a crowd rushes Maddie.
Ophelia is here too! The gang's all here!
They're running out of gingerbread houses at an alarming rate. Frankly, I'd buy one and share it with my friends. Bonus; I really like the darker coloring on Maddie.
Also .... They have mostly modern day technology but toss coins around like it's the fantasy 1500s. Do they have like, Mirrorpay? Cryptocurrency? Paypal?
Ginger is baking with Cedar and Holly, both people with the capability to be highly flammable.
Oh, there's Apple and Raven, arguing between perfect shots for the yearbook and imperfect but real shots.
These are some of the better later outfits in the series.
There's only one gingerbread house left - but Raven offers to do a duplication spell - which rightfully terrifies Apple.
For once, she's right.
But Raven does so anyway, with everyone else hiding behind an oven except Ginger. The curse goes awry and the gingerbread people come to life and go rogue.
No tertiary sexual characteristics....mostly.
Ginger steps in with "We cannot have disorder in the kitchen! If you are here, you are here to help!" and everyone straightens out and helps. To be fair, they were there to be made and eaten. Are they still going to be eaten?
Everything goes well....except Raven and Apple are still going to quibble about pictures.
Raven and Dexter overcome their wicked nerves to enjoy an enchanting first date at multi-hex theater.
Date night....in the forest.
Not really, but the Woods Girls have set up camp in Purgatory Woods, and Ashlynn encourages everyone to think of something more pleasant. "Boys!" says Blondie, which is what Cupid was trying to avoid.
Ashlynn tries to be nice, and say that maybe the date won't go well....
Finally, the best segment of webisodes in the series. I wrote about Faybelle a while back, so I'll skip the introduction.
When Ashlynn receives a spellbinding invitation to the Blue Moon Forest Fest, Ever After High’s newest villain, Faybelle Thorn, starts to brew up trouble.
I was going to complain about "newest villain", because it's a little odd with the time line, but with more thought to it, they might be right.
Faybelle is the daughter of the Dark Fairy in Sleeping Beauty - for all you Disney kids, that's Maleficent.
She's clearly not intended to be a magically immortal being here, although fairies are said to live long lives. In all honesty, both girls should not be at school at the same time - Sleeping Beauty goes to sleep for a hundred years at around sixteen. Briar is maybe fourteen in this show, as are most of the girls, but Beauty gets cursed as an infant. Unless they put both kids in a cage like some illegal wrestling until a wee Faybelle cursed a baby Briar, Faybelle is supposed to be an adult when she curses an infant Briar.
If Briar wakes up later and goes back to school to continue her education, she might still be at school with a Dark Fairy, but it wouldn't be the one who cursed her. Obviously this could be modified in the world of Ever After - after all, the Thorn family has a hard time getting invitations delivered, who says Faybelle can't interrupt Briar's sweet sixteen and curse her then.
To be absolutely fair, nothing says that Faybelle was the one to curse Briar. Her mother very well could have done so, and Faybelle will just have to wait another hundred years and nine months to curse Briar's child.
Welcome to Chapter 3, the first and only chapter that actually gives us several multi-episode storylines, ties it into dolls released at the time, and it quite entertaining and good to boot!
In a few episodes. But now, we have another character to introduce, the second in our Dark Forest Girl Trio; Ginger Breadhouse. I have a feeling they could have gotten more creative with that name, but she is quite adorable.
Ginger is a girl (baked from a cookie?), the daughter of the Candy Witch who aims to eat Hansel and Gretel, who we will also meet this webisode. She likes to bake and cook for people, but many people distrust her because of her heritage.
In the book Kiss and Spell, Ginger's cooking show, Spell's Kitchen, is trying to survive in the ratings - if they don't go up, she loses her spot in the broadcasting room.
She also gets a bit of attention in Faybelle's book - their mothers are allies and, as children, they were quite close.
Also; Dark Forest reminds me of Redwall, although there it's a euphemism for the (good) afterlife.
On this very special school holiday, life is turned upside down when a Royal and Rebel switch sides… and the Storybook of Legends goes missing.
Thronecoming! Possibly my very favorite of the specials. In the doll world, this was another 'super expensive froofy dress' line, and frankly I loved every bit of it. I had Cupid (I still have those cool wings though), and still own Raven and that gigantic book playset with the Briar. Every so often I will take it out, unfold it, and stage pictures, because it really is just amazing.
This one clocks in at almost a full hour, and we're treated to the slightly extended theme song. Fun fact, for the final special, Epic Winter, I'm pretty sure they replace it with that 'Power Ballad' Power Princess Shining Bright.
Here's a better episode for all the girls involved.
Apple White may be the fairest of them all, but there are more than tiaras and tea parties in the typical day of this busy Royal.
AKA: "Please stop hating one of the two people this franchise is built on when we made her really unlikeable because we want your money."
One of the comments at the source wonders when we will see Apple with her glasses. Yes, in the story books and her diary, she mentions needed glasses, but refuses to wear them because it will ruin her ~perfect image and that's all she tries to be.
Never mind the fact that other people wear glasses, like Rosabella, and they're reasonably cute and stylish. "Glasses make you weird and nerdy, girls!" What another nice message that both the visual and written medium fails to resolve.
Introducing the blandest characters that Mattel never stopped trying to force on us, Holly and Poppy O'Hair, the twin daughters of Rapunzel.
Holly is the younger one who wants the Rapunzel destiny [long hair], and Poppy is the older one who doesn't [short hair]. That's supposed to be a secret. It was probably going to culminate into something, but just like Cerise's secret, ha ha, I can't believe you thought EAH had some sort of follow through.
This is when people started to realize how insanely same-faced most of the white girls were. Besides hair, and even then only slightly, there's not a whole lot of distinction between Apple, Blondie, Poppy, and Holly. Especially in their dolls. Note their eyes here - kind of a very very pale green. Their dolls all have teal-ly blue eyes. Hmm.
I'll give credit where it is due; They do try a little harder with Holly than Poppy. She knows she's going to be in a tower for years, so she's a writer. She's got an agent and everything, and has rewritten her classmate's destinies and put them on her blog. Poppy just cuts hair. Maybe they thought her wearing pants and having short hair was personality enough.
A) The next pair introduces characters that we won't be rid of will play a role until the series' death.
B) I'm not even bothering to review one of them very seriously because you can see the conclusion a mile off.
Rebel's Got Talent
(They really like calling back to reality shows)
Raven Queen and Sparrow Hood go head-to-head in a wicked awesome guitar duel at the annual school talent show.
Raven auditions to Grimm, who asks her "What evil act are you going to perform?"
Because she's the token goth, she's musically inclined. Wouldn't it have been interesting if she wanted to be a writer instead of Holly? That truly takes 'I want to write my own destiny' to a new level. Holly could have created love ballads or whatever, but her One Trait is cool too.
What if she killed a student who didn't have a serious destiny? Would Grimm care?
She starts playing a pretty cool guitar. The song is weak though, and Grimm agrees, though he tries to trot out "YOUR DESTINY" shit and she stops him, pointing out that she's still here after rejecting her destiny.
Grimm says well, anyway, too bad, Sparrow has already signed to play the guitar, who slides onto the stage to be obnoxious, until Raven glows with magic and comes close to losing her temper...which Grimm likes, and lets her play her guitar.
