Revalopod

Praises:

+ The story is deep, meaningful, moving and mature.

+ I always appreciate themes of nature and animals.

+ The characters, particular the main character, are complex and nuanced.

+ The art and animation is breathtaking.

+ The music is really good.

+ The acting (english dubs) is pretty good but not great.

+ The movie doesn't shy away from showing depictions of violence

Criticisms:

• The titular character Princess Mononoke is more of a side character than a main character.

• The world isn't quite as magical and imaginative as the ones of Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away.

• The pacing, especially around the middle of the movie, can be a bit slow.

This episode is one that solidifies many of the themes of the show, such as casual determinism, free will or the lack thereof, wormholes, duality being incorrect, the triquetta, and probably more. Though the symbol of the triquetta was shown much earlier (episode 2 or 3 iirc), this is the first time we learn about it. It's also an important set-up for events that are yet to happen, and it's a very cool experience to view this again after watching all 3 seasons, and knowing why certain characters are doing certain things. There's a couple scenes that wouldn't even have meaning the first time you watch this. Oh yeah and there's the dark scene that was quite shocking and demonstrates that Dark doesn't hold back, while also perfectly feeding into many of its themes. I also have to mention the music montage scene is great in this episode just as every episode. Slow character-focused scenes without any dialogue and with perfect accompanying music is powerful and masterful storytelling and is one of the main reasons I regard the show so highly. This is a great episode of Dark that has a little something for everyone.

This is the episode where Dark becomes not just a great scifi mystery show, but a great mindbending scifi mystery show with mind blowing plot twists. Not one of the best episodes, but probably one of the most important.