The story this time around is really engaging since it focuses on the characters and their relationships to one another this time as opposed to the situation, like the previous episode did. And as such, the various set-ups and pay offs are much more satisfying, and even do well in redeeming Stolas in the eyes of the viewer, as he was a rather unlikable character before.
This goes without saying, but the animation is spectacular. The characters are always moving, the delightfully devilish facial expressions are pushed to their absolute limits and the colors are especially well-done with lots of neon colors being used, which is a great change of pace from all the red everywhere else. I love the designs of all the one-off characters, they're all so detailed and expressive. Take Octavia for instance, who as a child wear a pink dress with white stars on it, and then as an angsty teen wears a version of that same dress, only now to compliment her new dour asthetic, it's offset by a black jacket and beanie, of which has a crown symbol on it that matches the crowns worn by her parents, tying the entire design together. I said it before and I'll keep saying it: the show is worth watching just to see all of the great character designs alone.
The humor is absolutely spot on, especially once we get to the main location of the episode - Loo Loo Land - which has all of the great jokes that you would expect them to tell at an amusement park: absurd rides, busted set pieces, ridiculous prices, rigged carnival games, shady legal stuff, creepy mascots, creepier animatronics and an even creepier clown (voiced by Beetlejuice).
The only thing that really bothered me about this episode was the few editing and animation errors I noticed while rewatching it, such as how some shots don't have the music fade in or out correctly which either halts the flow of a scene somewhat or messes up a joke, one part near the beginning where Octavia lets out a groan that is way too loud given the context, and one shot near the end where there was a layering error. But as I said, I only noticed these during rewatch, so if you aren't looking for flaws, then everything looks perfectly fine, and the reason I even rewatched this episode as many times as I did was because I loved it so much. So in a way these errors just prove how great the episode actually is. The first song is beautiful, the second song is hilarious, and this episode is near perfect.
