“The Owl Home” Ends With a Gloriously Homosexual Sendoff
When The Owl Home premiered on The Disney Channel again in January 2020, JK Rowling was nonetheless a great six months away from starting her fast descent into turning into the face of violent transphobia; Florida governor Ron Desantis hadn’t even floated the nation’s first “don’t say homosexual” invoice; and, frankly, most LGBTQ+ folks had been simply relieved Donald Trump was out of the White Home. We had been taking an actual breather for the primary time in a very long time.
That’s the true world Luz “the Human” Noceda left behind when she stepped by means of the portal into the Demon Realm. Over the course of three seasons, Luz received herself an enemies-to-lovers lesbian girlfriend, got here out as bisexual, found that her pseudo-mom was queer and in love with a nonbinary witch, received herself a queer shape-shifting basilisk sister who fell for a nonbinary human, met her greatest good friend’s homosexual dads, chatted with a genderqueer Titan, redeemed a he/they baddie, studied below her aro/ace adopted aunty, and beamed as her mother grew to become the best ally of all-time.
The sequence ended this weekend, triumphantly and unapologetically queer, identical to its creator, Dana Terrace. And it did in order LGBTQ+ youth and trans folks of all ages are below cultural and legislative assault in the US like by no means earlier than. “Watching and Dreaming” would all the time have been a triumph — to shut out a narrative with so many beloved characters, and such deep mythology, in a truncated closing season mandated by spineless Disney execs is not any small job — however doing so in a time of a lot violence aimed toward homosexual and trans children feels just like the agency planting of a beacon of hope. Over the previous three years, The Owl Home has soared, whereas the U.S. has plummeted even deeper into anti-LGBTQ hysteria.
The plot of the sequence finale might be slightly too dense for people who haven’t watched the present. Like I stated: This lore is gigantic! However the emotional beats are actually what makes “Watching and Dreaming” top-of-the-line finales of top-of-the-line reveals ever made. When Luz arrives on The Boiling Isles within the pilot, she feels so alone and so misunderstood. Instantly she finds a house with Eda the Owl Girl, a practitioner of forbidden wild magic, and her monster son, King, who looks like form of a canine and form of a demon with grandiose visions of ruling the world. A cuddly little boss man who really occurs to know precisely who he’s.
Luz makes outcast associates on the magic faculty. She by chance falls for her nemesis, who falls proper again at her. It looks like your typical ragtag magical band of friends holding up The Chosen One — Luz’s greatest buddy is even named Willow — however really The Owl Home is about selecting your self, a theme pushed residence laborious within the closing episode. Each character has a shifting coming of age arc, most of them punctuated by some form of trauma, and in the long run they win not as a result of they’re extra highly effective, or extra intelligent, or as a result of good all the time triumphs over evil. No, they win as a result of they simply refuse to surrender. Overwhelmed, damaged, bloody, scarred, devastated, depressed, grief-stricken, surrounded by puritanical baddies and literal puppets. However they’re not alone anymore. They struggle for one another.
Queerness isn’t some peripheral happenstance on The Owl Home. It’s a formative a part of every homosexual and trans characters’ lives. It informs who they love and the way they love, and in addition how they contextualize themselves within the bigger world. It additionally items its viewers with an enormous palette of experiences to color with. Queerness, like wild magic, goes in opposition to the tyrannical leanings of Emperor Belos as a result of queerness, like wild magic, seeps into the cracks of inflexible, binary considering and busts “regular” aside with a tune and a smile. Belos can’t management Eda as a result of she doesn’t need to be regular. She’s the chief of the Unhealthy Lady Coven and he or she wears her variations like a Titan-given cloak of many colours. She is proud to be a weirdo and he or she’s elevating children who’re proud to be weirdos too.
Everybody will get an enormous particular person win in “Watching and Dreaming,” as Luz saves the day. And the epilogue is a slice-of-life low-fi hip-hop Hooty beat of unabashed celebration. I cried watching it. I’m crying proper now simply excited about it. And earlier than too lengthy, I’m positive the entire thing can be seared onto my coronary heart, perpetually, like a Flapjack tattoo.
