Note: I'm falling behind schedule, so here's a double helping of Dragons
We’re about halfway through the final season of Dragons:
Race to the Edge, the season faltered in the last 3 episodes, will it be able
to make up lost ground?
Ruff Transition
The group are heading to Wingmaiden Island to relocate the
Dragon Eye Lenses, as they suspect Johann knows where they are. I mean, you did
literally show him them so…
The Wingmaidens look slightly different, as their razorwhips
have departed back to the flock, the ceremony, known as the Great Transition, has
new baby razorwhips bond with the Wingmaidens. The riders are invited as
honoured guests for the ceremony. The baby razorwhip that was supposed to go to
Atali ends up heading for Ruffnut instead, they end up calling it Wingnut.
Unable to rid herself of it, Ruffnut must train to become a
Wingmaiden. Unfortunately, she’s not exactly the mothering type, apparently
Tuffnut is better at it as he secretly helps her out. Ruffnut heads to talk to
Atali an essentially confesses that it was Tuffnut who was doing it the whole
time, so thankfully they’re not going down the liar revealed route. Atali actually offers some
words of encouragement.
Still, the final exercise is the most daunting of all, a
leap of faith. Ruffnut wanting confidence, asks Hiccup to help her out and they
glide together. Luckily Tuffnut came along since Toothless can’t fly on his
own. Still, a chance encounter with a seagull and Tuffnut being an idiot,
results in them all crashing into the Wingmaidens as they complete their leap.
After that debacle, Ruffnut gives Wingnut back to Atali. The
others all graduate to the ‘next level’ as Ruffnut and Tuffnut watch from
above, also spotting a Dragon Hunter ship docking on the island. The usual
crowd of about 3 or 4 Dragon Hunters rush the island. Unfortunately, support
arrives with the flyers making everything worse. Still, Hiccup has the lenses
and Krogan is ready to fight for it.
Barf and Belch support Atali, with Wingnut re-bonding to
Ruffnut in the process. With the Wingmaiden’s support, they manage to turn the
tide against the fliers and force Krogan to retreat. But there’s still an
issue, Wingnut can’t leave the island and its siblings, Ruffnut won’t leave
hers and Tuffnut can’t stay on the Island because of their ‘no men allowed’
policy. Wingnut makes the decision to bond with Atali instead, making the
choice simpler.
For what’s essentially a filler, episode, it’s a much
stronger one than its predecessors.
Rating 7.5/10
Triple Cross
Oh, hey, Viggo, almost forgot you were in this season since
you haven’t been seen in 6 episodes. The fliers and Viggo’s ship are heading
to a cave where the final Dragon Eye Lens is to be found. I only know that they
found 2, but that’s neither here nor there.
They come out empty handed, except Viggo who doesn’t come at
all as Johann orders the cave sealed. Viggo is trapped with a Monstrous
Nightmare. Hiccup and Astrid are having a moment interrupted by the twins
wanting to set a record for their dragon.
They get a message from ‘Stoick’ telling Hiccup he’s found a
dragon eye lens and to come alone, Astrid thinks its suspect but Hiccup decides
to let it play out. He suspected a trap too and seeing a maces and talons piece
pretty much confirms that it’s Viggo. He disarms Toothless with a bolas, and
reveals he created a copy of Hiccup’s flaming sword, with zippleback gas in the
bottom, something Hiccup would later incorporate into his own sword.
After realising he can’t get Hiccup’s attention this way he
frees Toothless and drops his sword. Still, Hiccup isn’t exactly willing to
trust Viggo but Viggo is cunning and has another way. He cooks a fish, and
Toothless eats it; he tells Hiccup that the fish has Red Oliander in it, which
will cause Toothless to suffer a slow death without an antidote, an antidote
only in Johann’s possession.
The plan it to infiltrate the base and steal the Dragon Eye
and lenses, without them Johann is useless to Krogan and they’ll destroy each
other. He also reveals that Krogan doesn’t work for Johann, but from a
mysterious buyer from the North, 😉 😉
Their first stop is with the one dragon who can neutralise a
Singetail, the Skrill. And Viggo is clever, using a Bezerker dagger to lure the
Dragon in to bond with it. The dragon makes a beeline for the base and lays
waste to its defences. But Johann manages to down it with a well-placed shot.
Johann and Krogan begin to search the cave, they’re spotted, prompting Viggo to
captured Hiccup and Toothless and present them to Johann and Krogan.
He loudly says how they have 4 lenses and only need one more
for Hiccup to hear, and Johann could tell this was part of a larger gambit. But
Viggo is not unprepared, and uses his sword to escape. He’d hidden the key to
cage lock and shackles in Hiccup’s leg, allowing him to escape with Toothless.
But it turns out that Johann already saw this coming and they Dragon Eye and
lenses are nowhere to be found. Hiccup thinks he’s been double-crossed until
it’s revealed that Red Oliander is actually harmless.
He was saved from the collapse by a monstrous nightmare and
all his battles with Hiccup have deepened his respect for Dragons.
Unfortunately, we see that whilst he may have freed the Skrill, it came at a
price, his back is riddled with arrows and he’s not gonna make it. With the
Hunters on their way, Viggo and the Skrill stay behind to cover Hiccup’s escape
but Hiccup is still captured in his escape. Still, Hiccup is not unprepared as
the B-plot actually does what a B-plot should do and enhance the A-plot as the
twins rescue Hiccup and get their record in the process.
This is easily the strongest episode this season, and a good
way to both further increase the stakes and say goodbye to Viggo, easily the
show’s strongest antagonist.
Rating 8.5/10
Family Matters
As the season draws to a close, it’s time to clear up some
loose ends. We found out last season that Krogan was using a Deathsong to lure
in their Singetails. Time for that injustice to be rectified.
We open with the fliers conducting another raid on a Hunter
ship. To save Hiccup and Astrid, Fishlegs knocks down a tree on one of the
fliers, pinning the Singetail. Whilst freeing him they notice Deathsong amber.
Thinking the Hunters may have found Garff, the twins Astrid and Hiccup head to
investigate, whilst Fishlegs heads back to the edge with the unconscious
dragon. Snotlout heads after Hiccup as he begins pondering his book-related
subplot of the episode.
Garff is OK, leading them to suspect the adult. Astrid wants
to bring Garff along, Hiccup doesn’t and so they compromise, Garff comes along.
They use information from the dragon eye to narrow down the likely location of
the dragon to one island, Hiccup loses the argument to bring Garff alone again
and he, Astrid, Snotlout, the twins and Garff head to the island. Garff hears
his mothere’s call and goes in for the rescue, and gets himself caught.
The others decide they need a solid plan or more support,
they fall back. They come up with the idea of freeing the captured singetails
using the nightmare gel. They also place ear plugs in their own dragons so
they’re immune to the Deathsong. The guards are so incompetent, they don’t
notice the huge puddles of gel they’ve been laying.
The singetails are freed and they begin their attack, but
the singetails don’t fly away in fact, they group towards the Death Song and
force the others to retreat into a cave, the hunters covering the exit so they
can’t escape. Fishlegs heals the other Singetail and it flies to the island,
entering another cave. It’s there that Fishlegs discovers a cavern full of
eggs. This island is a hatchery, which is why the Singetails didn’t leave.
Fishlegs comes up with a plan, getting a cavern crasher to
burrow another exit. He uses one of the eggs to lure a cavern crasher to the
island to tunnel a new exit. Snolout takes command of the egg as the others
make their attack runs, destroying the camp and freeing the death song. Mother
and Son reunite and Snolout’s book gets commendation.
It’s nice to see this particular loose end tied up before
the end.
Rating 7/10
We begin the end run now, as we conclude Dragons: Race to
the Edge with its final 4 episodes
Darkest Night
Stoick is out on a patrol, and is ambushed by Dragon flyers,
Stoick is forced to ground and only barely surviveds the landing. Skullcrusher
is injured and Stoick is down too, his rescue only comes when the B-team
arrive.
Hiccup arrives at Berk to find his father comatose.
Discussion among the Berkians is a response to this, but even with the Riders
and the backups, they won’t make a dent in the flyers ranks, they need a plan, and a leader to carry it out. If not
Stoick, then whom?
The Natural choice is Hiccup… apparently but he’s reluctant
to leave his father’s side.
Hiccup’s feeling dejected, feeling if he hadn’t left for the
edge, his father might not be in this position. So true, but then so many
things would’ve played out differently. This story contains a series of tales
of what might have been. Starting off with the twins.
Their version of events has their pranking going out of
control, eventually having the entire of Berk going to war against each other,
rather than against the twins for some reason. In their fighting, the Flyers,
now of course including Dagur make short work of them.
Fishlegs is next. His version is a serenity where they’ve
all made peace with everyone… how does this cheer up Hiccup again, I think the
twins had a better idea. Snotlout ends the story by having Viggo and co betray
them and attack.
Snotlout’s is next, and in this version he’s a weapons
inventor who’s created… something out of 90’s comic-book, one of the bad ones.
Gobber loves the weapon and Snotlout has a statue of himself and of Hookfang
created, and most unlikely of all, Astrid finds him attractive.
Hiccup has had enough of this game and now is feeling
further dejected, his shooting down of Toothless started it all, and lead here.
Now this is Astrid’s turn to tell a story of what might have been. Snotlout’s
now attained a higher level of Status than Hiccup has, and Stoick has had
enough and sends Hiccup out to kill his first Dragon.
He heads to the lake from the first film and sees Toothless,
he successfully captures him but unable to go through with killing him, rescues
him. A whispering Death appears and attacks, and Toothless saves Hiccup from
it. They begin to fly together, which Hiccup enjoys but the enjoyment is
short-lived as the Whispering Death shoots them down, damaging Toothless’ tail.
Hiccup is injured protecting Toothless, and Toothless tries to return the
favour again
Stoick and Gobber see and head off after them, chasing off
the Whispering Death, they see that Toothless saved Hiccup and he gets his
peg-leg. Stoick ends the war against the dragons and Snotlout’s status is ended.
So this time, Hiccup gets everything without any of the work he put into it
before.
Still the moral here is clear, there was no real getting
around how things happened, the details might be different but the result would
be the same. It’s enough to cheer Hiccup up a bit and convince him that he
needs to make a larger stand against the flyers. And just in time, Heather
returns to tell them that Vanaheim has been attacked.
These kinds of short stories to showcase development are not
uncommon and this show isn’t as lazy as to make it a clip show. It starts and
ends with some pretty important things happening as we count down to the end. I
think it’s pretty solid
Rating 7/10
Guardians of Vanaheim
Heather believes she may have been followed, she’s pretty
banged up and in no shape to go out again, and evidently there are a few since
Heather’s no slouch in a fight. Hiccup doesn’t want to leave his father but
knows he can’t stand by.
The Riders are soon en-route and they bump into Alvin, he
and the rest of the outcasts are gonna provide Berk with a little extra
support, which Hiccup is grateful for. The arrive at Vanaheim and find the
sentinel guardians all defeated. But one of the hunters/flyers is downed too,
so they have someone to interrogate.
He tells them that they thought the skull here might belong
to the King of Dragons, and flyers have been sent to inform Krogan. Hiccup,
Astrid and Snotlout head off to stop them, but Meatlug won’t move and the twins
get to stay with the prisoner. Hiccup decides that since the fliers won’t cut
through the deadly storm, they should and get ahead. Meanwhile it seems Meatlug
is creating a final resting place for the Sentinels. Or perhaps not as the
Dragons begin coming back to life.
The twins and Fishlegs begin searching Oswald’s hut to find
what he knew about the guardians, in doing another lens presents itself to the
Prisoner, who frees himself and grabs it. The Prisoner then falls into a
something and the lens ends up back with Fishlegs and the twins. Unfortunately,
it’s not so much luck for Hiccup and the others, they do get ahead but are
quickly overwhelmed.
Hiccup has an idea, inspired by how Lightning seems to be
attracted to metal. They use metal bolas to tie up the Flyers and let the
lightning knock them off. Fishlegs’ research reveals the Dragons to be in
hibernation that can be accelerated through heat, which is why Meatlug was surrounding
them in Lava. With Barf and Belch lighting their flame, the Sentinels are
brought back
It seems the riders have found the 5th and final
lens, but it seems Johann has managed to procure no. 5 for his team too, the
one in the ship with Gruffnut from earlier this season.
It’s a fairly bog-standard episode, it’s not one of my
favourites
Rating 7/10
King of Dragons part 1
And so, here we go, the riders are back on the Edge for some
reason, and finding out about the King of Dragons. It says that it’s a Titanwing
Dramillion, like the ones Fishlegs rescued in the dumb plotline from earlier in
the season. But before they head to Dramillion Island, Hiccup gets bad news
from Berk. His father has gotten worse and Gothi isn’t hopeful he’ll survive,
despite his death date being set in stone as not in this series. Hiccup has
been voted acting chief.
The Hunters have deployed a massive fleet of ships for the
task of finding the King of Dragons, there’s certainly an inclination that both
Johann and Krogan plan on double-crossing each other they moment they have it.
Hiccup prepares, needing to get to the King of Dragons before Krogan and
company. Spitelout agrees to come along with them, yay…
They arrive but the Hunters are already there in force, Snotlout
and the twins are tasked with dealing with the ships, whilst the others head to
stop the Dragon Flyers. The twins spot Gruffnut and reluctantly rescue him, but
he reveals there’s something they may need and they elect to stay on the ship
to search for it.
Krogan is knocked off his dragon and pinned down but the
Dramillions ends up attacking all of them. Protecting their master, the
Titanwing, massive and able to cloak itself. Unfortunately, they are outgunned
with the sheer number of Singetails, they hit it with a Dragonroot arrow and
it’s forced to ground.
Snotlout and co are trapped, meaning they’re unable to stop,
the group using a Harpoon to down the Titanwing and capture it. And with the
choice between going after Krogan or saving the twins and Snotlout, there’s
really no choice at all. Was nice knowing… was largely intolerable knowing you,
now where’s Krogan? Of course they rescue them.
On their way back to the edge the find that the hunters have
dumped the Dramillion, they take it to Mala to heal. Fishlegs suspects that
he’s not the King of Dragons, I mean he’s about 1/20th the size to
start with. In it’s sleep, it produces its own fire, and through the Dragon
Eye, they see that the King of Dragons is on Bezerker Island, it was likely the
reason for the no fly zone in that episode.
Dagur and Heather prepare to face the oncoming army.
You almost had me fooled, but it’s a great start to the
finale
Rating 8/10
King of Dragons part 2
The first attack run is foiled by some clever strategy from
the Dagur and the aforementioned no fly zone, also, the riders got there ahead
of them. Krogan falls back as everyone compares notes. But that’s enough time
for the fleet to re-engage, now from both sides, and they don’t have dragons to
support them either. But the Wingmaidens do because, to quoth a certain Hiccup
Haddock
“They’re babies, they don’t listen to anyone”
Hiccup sent a terror mail ahead of time. Hiccup’s job to end
the fight is to find the King of Dragons before Krogan and Johann do. Astrid
takes command of the other riders to defend. Krogan, Johann and a few hunters
are exploring the cavern and come across the King of Dragons, it terrifies
everyone.
Tiny spears and arrows jack diddly against it, and it seals
itself off. Toothless and Hiccup end up separated by a cavern collapse as
Hiccup comes across an egg, unfortunately for him, Krogan and Johann have too.
A fight ensues and physical fights are not a strong point for low budget CG
animation. Still, it’s serviceable. Hiccup is knocked off a cliff, holding onto
the egg as well, he uses his leg and sword as pick-axes to clamber to the top,
where Johann is waiting for him. Toothless saves Hiccup but in the process the
egg ends up in Krogan’s hands. Toothless is instructed to go after him.
The Beliderbeast strikes Johann down, but Hiccup’s sword
breaks and he’s left dangling over the edge. The King lets out a roar and just
about every Dragon from the show responds and it’s a hell of a shot. This aid
gives them the edge they need against the dragon fliers and the Hunter ships.
Ruff is knocked off, and both Fishlegs and Snotlout catch
her, setting up for that subplot in How to Train Your Dragon 2. The singetails
begin resisting their fliers. Krogan’s exit is blocked by Toothless as he
knocks Krogan down and recovers the Egg. Krogan is brought to Drago Bludvist
and is ordered executed
“No-one fails me twice” guess Eret caught him in a good mood
or something, since he managed to. Drago promises to find another King. We get
a bit of closure as the Wingmaidens leave the Edge for Mala, Dagur and Mala get
married. Stoick recovers a bit easily. And Hiccup decides to destroy both the
Dragon Eyes, the group leave the edge for the last time and head back to Berk.
It’s a really strong conclusion, bringing together pretty
much everything and setting the stage for How to Train Your Dragon 2 in a way
that feels natural.
Rating 8/10
We’ve now reached the end, there have been highs and lows to this show, largely the same ones the films had, but the show had the advantage of further expanding the lore, building up more interesting and complex villains and allowing some level of character growth without interfering with the films. Since I won’t be covering Riders or Defenders of Berk, or the specials, this is where I leave the franchise behind. It was a good run.
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